Category Archives: Memories

My missing sense of community

Memories, Musings,
building_garage
Friends helping build our garage

Growing up in a town where my parents, and some of their parents before them, had grown up, meant they had a huge group of friends and relatives in the area. These friends and relatives were the kind that stopped by without calling first. Many didn’t even knock or ring the doorbell and they always used the back door. The front door was for the other kind of company — the ones who did call first and for whom my mom would tidy the living room — and for salesmen and for the paperboy when he collected his weekly bill for the local paper.

Weekends were full of comings and goings. People stopping by to say hello or to borrow power tools or dolleys or wheelbarrows. If they came before noon they were always offered a cup of coffee poured from the silver peculator sitting on the kitchen counter. They almost always said yes, then sat a while, usually smoking a cigarette while talking to my mom or dad. If they came after noon they were offered a beer or cocktail — there was always plenty of alcohol in the house, mostly for friends. Again, they usually said yes and sat, smoking and talking.

I fully expected to have the same sort of Grand Central Station weekends when I grew up. It was natural and that’s how life was. Full of friends who knew what the inside of your house looked like before you had a chance to tidy up. Friends who knew what you looked like without makeup. Friends who borrowed things and loaned you things and helped you with large projects and who drank coffee or a beer at your kitchen table. Friends who didn’t call first.

When Dean and I first moved to Pittsburgh we knew no one. We eventually made friends with people with whom he went to Carnegie Mellon and had some great times with them but it wasn’t the same. People didn’t come and go like at my parents’ house. We made PLANS. We set DATES. We CALLED each other before visiting.

Maybe, I thought in Pittsburgh, you needed to have a house first — not an apartment. Maybe after Dean’s out of grad school things will be like they were when I was a kid, living at home. Maybe a house will encourage people to stop by, use the back door and not call first.

Again, it took a while to get to know people in the DC area — longer than it took in Pittsburgh. We rented a house in Alexandria our first year and came the closest we’ve come to having the kinds of friends my folks had — at least I did. I became friends with the two elderly women on either side of our house and both of them would stop by without calling. Frances would use the back door (and encourage me to do the same at her house). Freda would use the front door. But neither called first.

When we moved to another house in Alexandria we made friends with Totty, our next door neighbor. We’d usually meet in the back yard — since we spent a great deal of time on the huge back screened porch. We didn’t make plans too often and didn’t call either, but we did spend a lot of time together. So I suppose we had a spontaneous kind of relationship with Totty. But that was all. No one else came and went. We didn’t have anyone to offer coffee or beer to on a regular basis. Everyone else made PLANS with us and CALLED first.

When I began working for Fairfax County Public Schools I met Rosanne and Dean and I became friends with her and her husband, Chuck. I remember thinking that, with Chuck and Rosanne, I’d finally met the kind of friends who would drop in on each other unannounced. I could feel it in my bones. It could have developed into that, but circumstances prevented our friendship becoming what it might have been. (long story for another time — or not)

When we moved to Bethesda I didn’t even bother to expect having the open door kind of friendship with anyone. I had not gotten over my longing for it, but I’d given up hoping. It took me a long time to like Bethesda. It took me a long time to make any friends here. I’m still working on making friends, but no longer the kinds that drops in. I’m not sure they exist — or perhaps I’m not the kind of person someone would drop in on and I’m not sure I’d like it anymore.

When I began working on a masters degree in 1998, I discovered instant messaging. I had long list of “buddies” and sometimes someone would pop in and say hi and we’d have a conversation. It was sort of like someone dropping in unannounced. I warmed to it immediately, but I don’t even do that anymore — maybe I’m getting old and don’t like interruptions in my solitude anymore.

Still, when I read blog posts about places that actually have a sense of community I can’t help but feel a little envy and remember the days in my parents’ house when friends would stop by for coffee and a chat.

Up North: the series ::”Greens’ Point”:: Chetek

Memories, , ,

Because Wisconsin was calling my grandparents, they finally decided to purchase land and a cabin in the state. I don’t know how or why they chose Chetek, but I suspect it was because they had friends who had vacation homes there. Chetek is on the other side of Wisconsin from Arbor Vitae.

Long dock

The house they bought was a tiny two-room cottage on a moderately large parcel of land along Ten Mile Lake. It had no indoor plumbing — at least no personal care kind of indoor plumbing. I think it may have had hot and cold running water in the kitchen.

They immediately began building an addition onto the house that was twice the size of the existing structure. It included a garage, a bedroom and a small bathroom.

I remember the house before the remodeling though. I remember using the outhouse and later the chemical toilet that must have sat in the corner of what became the dining room.

I can visualize the rooms of the cabin almost as clearly as I can visualize any room in my current house. If I were an artist, I could draw a perfect picture of my grandparents’ cottage. The living room had a huge picture window that looked out onto the lake. At one end of the living room, under a smallish window was a hide-a-bed sofa. In front of the picture window were my grandfather’s chair — a dark-golden easy-chair — and my grandmother’s plush rocking chair. In the corner, behind the door, was an old, low cupboard with sliding doors. Next to the door, on the right side as you looked at the door was a bookcase full of books. My grandfather was a reader and had boxes and boxes of books in the garage.

The kitchen was a tiny galley kitchen. It held a refrigerator, a sink, an island and a enameled cast-iron stove. The stove was the kind that could burn gas or wood and I vividly recall my grandmother putting wood and paper under the cast iron cook lids. I don’t know if she cooked anything on them, but it is possible she did. I think it was mainly used to heat the house.

My grandmother's stove was similar to this
My grandmother’s stove was similar to this

My grandparents’ last name was Green. They called their vacation property “Greens’ Point”. When my grandfather retired, my grandparents moved to Chetek for good. Grandpa got a job in a local bar and played some golf. Grandma fished and visited with the few neighbors around.

I can’t count the number of times we visited Chetek, but enough that everything about it is vivid in my mind nearly 25 years after the last time I was there. I spent several weeks of many summers with my grandparents; and then just my grandmother after my grandfather died.

When my grandmother met John, she moved back to Illinois, but kept the house in Chetek. The last couple of times I went to Chetek, I was in my twenties. One time was shortly after I began dating my husband-to-be. It was great showing him where I’d spent so many happy days as a child and teenager.

The last time I visited Chetek was on our honeymoon. The fact that we brought some of our closest friends only made it better.

This summer I am determined to visit Chetek with my kids. We may not make it to the small house on Ten Mile Lake — that might be a little too painful, but we’ll see if the town is the same and maybe have lunch at the B&B Bar, which according to this website, still exists or perhaps The Pokegma — one of my favorite restaurants from when I visited there. I used to love the pizza. Whatever we do, I know it will be bittersweet. It was such a huge factor in who I’ve become.

Old Postcard from Chetek
Chetek , Wisconsin: “The 6 Lake City” — 1st choice for thousands of vacationers every year at popular resorts & motels in the area.

Up North: the series ::Gone Fishin’:: Arbor Vitae

Memories,
Dona with fish. Aged 5
Dona with fish. Aged 5

Sometime during the summer of 1961 I went back to Wisconsin with my parents and grandparents and maybe an aunt and uncle or two. This time we went to Arbor Vitae and I guess I went fishing if the picture to the left is to be believed. I also have video footage of that trip. My grandparents must have liked Arbor Vitae, because many of their early videos are taken there.

I don’t remember this second visit to Wisconsin either, although I do remember an incident shortly after we returned. My grandmother was cutting my hair and noticed a tick had buried its head in my scalp. She used the lit end of her cigarette to make it back out, then crushed it between her fingernails, causing blood (my blood) to ooze over her fingertips. She said that the tick probably got in my hair in Wisconsin. You can imagine why I remember this incident.

It turns out that Arbor Vitae is not too far away from Hazelhurst, the town in which my parents have a lake house. Not long ago my parents took me back to a bar that they used to go to in Arbor Vitae. It looks pretty much the same as in the videos – or maybe all Wisconsin bars look the same.