Monday, November 3, 2014

THE LAKE HOUSE... Part I

I have seen it in movies... you know that beautiful home on the water where kids had the times of their lives...
For me it was my life...
When I was younger my grandma received a house right on Lake Huron in the thumb...
Now as a child I heard many times "lets go up to the cabin for the weekend" yet this was no cabin...

From the road the house looked small but from the water you were able to see the house in all it's glory...
There was a white picket fence that went around the house and in order to get to the door you had to go down a steep hill which was replaced with granite steps by my grandmother..
The door was on the side of the house and entered right into a huge living room, all of the walls through out the home were wood, the kind that you would find in a cabin...

To your right was three bedrooms... the first was a small bedroom that my grandmother always slept in, then a small room my aunt would stay in and then the "Blue room" we called it that because it was decorated with a blue comforter and blue curtains and then at the end of the hallway was a small bathroom ...
To the left of the entrance was the stone fire place that took up almost the whole wall then a beautiful window that looked out unto the water... then a door that went onto a deck that would be replaced after a tornado with a beautiful room.. the room was all windows with a high ceiling this would be known as the "backroom" this was attached to the kitchen with beautiful french doors and there was also an entrance to the kitchen from the living room.

There was a second floor, and I remember the stairs leading up to the second floor being so small, steep and dark... yet it was the funnest place to be when we were kids..with two bedrooms, the first room was smaller but had two queen size beds in it and the other room was much bigger and at one point held five beds. There was also a bathroom up stairs but no shower due to the slanted ceiling...no one would be able to stand up in the bathtub...  There was also a full basement that had a shower in it, I believe that the person who built it put it there so when you got out of the water you were to enter into the basement and clean off the sand before entering the house.. we used the shower a lot but because it was so scary in the basement someone was usually down there with you...
When I was much younger before the "backroom" was added my mom, dad, brother, two cousins and uncle were up there with me... It was a two hour drive from our home to the house on the lake... This day was a hot day and when we arrived we all changed as fast as we could to take a dip in the water to cool off... The lake house did not have air... the water was our cool breeze...
We were all in the water when someone noticed lightning in the far distance so we all got out and changed.. My uncle put chicken on the stove to fry and it feels like it was within minutes the storm was upon us...
I do not even remember walking down the stairs I just remember being upstairs and then in an instant being in the basement...



My dad was upstairs trying to shut the door and could not.. he was screaming for my uncle but we could not hear him... all we could hear was this horrible noise..
It was a tornado, it had taken the roof off of the house down the road, uprooted a tree, and ripped off the screen porch.. the porch also had an older refrigerator on it... one that was very heavy and it was picked up and thrown as if it was a pair of dice in Vegas...
My grandma did have insurance and that is how she was able to rebuild the beautiful "backroom".  I cannot tell you how many hours we spent in that room, grandma had a beautiful dining room table and we ate all of our meals there and played so many hands of euchre... and other card games...

Some times we would just sit and watch the water or listen to oldies 96 the only radio station that was strong enough to work here and there...
So many summers and so many memories...
I know how Blessed I was to be able to go to a lake house... and to just get away with my grandma.

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