Mr.
Richardson, proprietor of Richardson’s Cottages in Wayne, Maine where we
vacationed every summer, lives in my childhood lake memories as a fixture more
constant than sunscreen (which I don’t remember.) I never knew George as a
fall, winter, or spring guy. For all I knew, he returned each summer to
Pocasset when the ice went out. Like the loons. Like we did.
As
soon as we arrived at Pocasset Lake, we burst out of our packed station wagon
and raced down the ramp to the dock. Waiting there was the wooden boat that
came with the cottage, both of which George had built along with the wooden
oars painted a matching gray and tucked beneath the seats. And usually, as we
scanned the lake for our summer friends, we’d spot the signature white,
flat-top crew-cut that was George (Mr. Richardson to us) motoring towards us in
his own boat which was also wooden in my younger days but transformed to
aluminum and fiberglass as the years went by. We waited impatiently for him to
get to us, always excited to see which boat motor he’d chosen for us to rent
and how many horsepower would propel us around the lake in the weeks ahead,
always hoping for a 12.
Once
that was checked off the list, we ran inside to change into bathing suits and sped
to the beach. The beach was dotted with colorful Adirondack chairs and presided
over by a red boathouse with white trim, all made by George. And by the time
the man who’d built our summer vacations with his own two hands arrived from
his lunch break each day, at least 20 kids of all ages were lined up and ready
to ski. George had one of the few ski boats on the lake for many years and few,
if any, of us renters owned one. So he spent his afternoons sticking to the red
vinyl seat of his shiny silver boat, circling the lake for hours and teaching
us all to ski by proffering his characteristic favorite advice—silence. And it
worked. We all eventually learned to sit like we were in a chair, skis
parallel, rope in between, and to let the boat pull us under George’s quiet,
patient tutelage.
But
the most fun we had with Mr. Richardson came towards the end of dinnertime
every few nights when we heard the sound of his truck coming through the woods
towards our cottage. We guzzled our milk, washing down the final bites of our
dinner, and jumped up from the table with a quick, “Can I be excused?” The
screen door slammed behind us as George lifted our garbage can off the nail in
the tree where it hung out of the reach of raccoons. We greeted our friends
already in the back of the red pick-up and clambered in beside them, ready for
the dump run.
While
we picked the last bits of corn from our teeth and fooled around, George
worked, cruising the shoreline and unhooking trash cans from their respective
nails outside each cottage, cottages his wife, Janet, had christened with
Indian names—Sitting Bull, Hiawatha, Pocahontas. I recited these ancient words
to myself, committing them to memory in a sacred soliloquy for these people
who’d walked the woods before us. One by one, kids from these other tribal homes let
their own screen doors slam behind them and jumped in the truck to join us,
leaving their own families still seated around their meatloaf dinners.
George
tucked paper bags of trash in the bed around us, gradually filling in the
rectangular space until we reached Willowash, the end of the line. The setting
sun perched on the tree tops across the lake, coloring our adventure in shades
of orange and pink, as George turned the truck away from the lake and into the
cool, darkening woods. By then we lined the side rails like T-shirted
decorations or sat across the open tailgate, bare feet hanging down.
We
all knew the road by heart, anticipating the bumpy places where we’d exaggerate
the bounce with a “Whoa!” while the tailgate sitters stretched their legs and
brushed bare toes along the hard-packed dirt tracks or dragged them through the
softer pine needles nestled in between. The braver souls, usually boys,
“accidentally” fell off the tailgate, running and laughing to catch up and jump
back on. We grabbed at the leaves which overhung the road and, like kids do,
turned a simple trip to the dump into a thrilling game of daring adventure.
Not
to worry. Like everything else he did, George drove slowly and purposefully while
we, of course, pretended otherwise. The forest shadows cooled our eternally
sunburned faces and the evening air ruffled through our still-damp hair from
the day’s waterskiing. We layered our childhood memories with the spicy scent
of pine trees, selectively forgetting the too-sweet smell of rotting fruit.
Always
too soon, we arrived at the dump—something else George had made. It was nothing fancy, no recycling station,
no attendant, simply a quiet clearing in the woods where George eliminated the
unwanted parts of our summer vacations. Yet somehow this place held an aura of
mystery that engendered a thrill in our tight bellies and we always hoped to
see something exciting, like a rat. We stood and helped, handing the bags of
refuse down to George. I secretly dreamed of being Jacques Cousteau but at the
dump I switched channels, surveying the landscape like Marlon Perkins on Wild
Kingdom from the safety of my pickup perch while George, unaware of his role as
my Jim, heroically braved the dangers of the dump from the dirt level.
His
task complete, no wild animals in sight, George climbed back into his truck and
we rode back towards the darkening lake, laughing with the happiness and relief
of having lived out our adventure. George slowed down near our respective
cottages and we jumped off at Kinoka where the lamps had just begun to glow,
backlighting my mother washing dishes in the kitchen window. We had no
televisions in our summer cottages. At night we came together as a family or
with friends. We ate dessert and played cards or board games. We went to bed
early with the songs of loons in our heads. And we dreamed of water and earth
and the promise of more summer adventures to come.
KK
*Note: This piece is a revision of an earlier post I wrote when George Richardson died and appears on the website Wayne in Focus at http://www.wayneinfocus.org/summer-fun-made-by-mr-richardson/
