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| A Pink Lady's Slipper catches the glow of a June sunset. |
There goes another one.
Between mosquitoes, barbeques and ankle high grass it’s even hard to spot.
Father’s Day has a way of being here and gone in a flash.
Maybe it’s because most
folks are in the let’s-get-ready-for-summer hype. For who can ignore those
earworm lyrics in Alice Cooper’s 1972 anthem, School’s Out? Cooper’s song is much more dramatic than our signal
to Father’s Day, which is an extra thick edition of Canada’s beloved tome, the
Canadian Tire flyer. And even that is loaded with camping gear.
Ahhhh. Camping. Our holiday
tradition does weave summer dreams on a large loom of expectations. And most of
the time they deliver. Since this might be an old school summer, I suggest an
extra thick blanket for warming up after your swim in Lake Superior. And bring extra
doses of bug repellant. But never fear. The wonders are still out there and any
day by Lake Superior is a good one.
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| The Kiyi |
With this approach to
summer, we’ve had a few regular, seasonal visitors to remind us that the warm
time is near. A moose wandered down the driveway and a non-chalant, observant bear
sniffed our deck before strolling away. We also watched the annual passage of
the Wisconsin research vessel,
the Kiyi.
The Lake Superior Biological Station of the U.S. Geological Survey operates this
107 foot boat. Each year the ship comes our way as it circumnavigates Lake
Superior in the quest to find schools of fish at 89 predesignated spots. The researchers
trawl nets along the bottom of the lake to catch the fish and then record the subsequent
data. Hearing the deep hum of the Kiyi’s
engines as it slips by Montreal River Harbour has been a regular June event for
years.
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| A June fog slides over Lake Superior |
As each summer approaches and I prepare for our own
lake adventures, past summers always seem to influence the present one.
Childhood memories come into clear focus. It was my father, Gord Fletcher, who
brought Lake Superior into my life and although he has been gone now for almost
25 years, what he gave and taught me has never left. I still have a fondness
for sitting on a warm dock and listening to the water slosh underneath me. I
still enjoy the mystical nature of fog as it crawls towards shore, lifts for
the hills and then slides back out to the lake again. And I still recognize our
connection to the world by the timeless sway of water to rock to water.
Although my father never spoke of these things to me, he did allow me to
experience it on my own, which might be the greatest lesson of all. My father gave
me two simple, yet profound, bits of advice from his own camping /outdoor life,
his own school of hard knocks. Dad told me that it was ok to put my packsack
down once in a while. And he also declared that one would die of hunger if all
one had to eat was partridge. (It took me a while to figure this one out. I
guess the amount of energy it takes to hunt, kill and cook the wild bird far
exceeds the energy it gives you.)
There’s a thing my father gave me that still sits on an
obscure shelf today. His unusual gift was an old brass school bell with a black
wooden handle that wobbles when you pick it up. Once used to let kids know that
recess was over, the shiny clanger last had life on a New Year’s Eve. Sometimes when I look at that school bell, I hear
Cooper’s song. And this week I found an info bit about his now famous piece of
music. The title, School’s Out, came
to Alice Cooper as he was watching one of those 1940s -1950s Bowery Boys
movies. Huntz Hall (Satch) had done something silly and one of the gang said to
him, “Hey Satch, school’s out!” The Bowery Boys meaning for “school’s out” was
to “wise up”!
All this thinking about summer has fathered an idea.
We know that the sand in Time’s hourglass slips through at an amazing speed. So
no matter what this summer can be, it will be awesome just because it’s summer.
And when the school bell rings again in September, I’ll try to take a few extra
moments to remember my father.