Postcard of the Day

[fflo]

 

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[peteralway.livejournal.com]

We rowed it on uh, well, yeah, this is the name--Nichols Lake--up in the Huron National Forest somewhere vaguely between Grand Rapids and Ludington. Sometimes family outings--once fishing, but that freaked me out, once with my dad being amazed by the existence of cardinal flowers, sometimes under the inverted boat by the swimming beach playing submaring, and once I took it by myself in the middle of the night to see the Milky Way until the mosquitoes got too bad. When we were small enough, we set it out in the backyard and filled it with water from the garden hose to create a makeshift kiddie pool. Once my eldest brother mounted an aluminum pole on it as a mast, attached a sail (duck cloth, with grommets), and sailed it around closer-to-home lake.

The oars squeaked rhythmically in the oarlocks when you rowed it. Ten years ago I wrote some MIDI music based on that sound. I still have an MP3 somewhere. My brother Bob thought I was crazy thinking it made that noise, and that melody, until he got it out of our parents' garage and actually rowed it.

I guess I could rent a rowboat much like it at Gallup Park if I were so inclined.