​Dear Mac Parker, Part II :  David and Goliath in the Channel

​The Mooring shoreline was irregular -- no seawall for the Horners! -- dipping inland as the water level dropped from year to year. Tiny beaches formed, hidden by tall grasses and the occasional toppled tree, which sent its gnarled roots skyward as it jutted out over the water. The beach was visible from the water, but screened from inquisitive eyes.

 Halfway through my Mooring stay​​, you and I reached detente. We began to have real conversations punctuated by friendly joking rather than the jibes of the previous week. You decided to show me one of the hidden shoreline beaches, a place you used as a refuge from your three younger sibs and the pack of roving teeny boppers. We chatted there a bit before you had to get back to work. For whatever reason, you were allowing me to see another side of Mac Parker, and I liked it. A lot.​

Soon we were spending as much time together as your duties around the property would allow. We loved our secret shoreline hideout! Sequestered there, we looked out to the large expanse of Lake Mac to the south, as we listened to the slap/slosh of water hitting the shore, and the drone of power boat engines with attendant shrieks of water skiers and tubers. Behind us sounded the pock-pock-pock of tennis balls slamming across the dilapidated old Mooring court. When stretched out on beach towels, we were undetectable by the Diaper Brigade, who by now had their collective pubescent radar trained upon us. “They’ve got to be here somewhere--I just saw them! I wanna take a picture of them making out!" We could hear that, too.

Secret beach, ca. 1980

Very occasionally we would relent and grace them with our presence in the rec room, ​deflecting​ the predictable taunts and innuendo. The rec room sound track was provided by Sandy Wirtz' portable 45 record player -- small, square, powder blue, I think -- spinning Petula Clark, Herman's Hermits, the Fab Four and the Stones. The opening riff of Satisfaction, just released that July and still potent fifty years hence, carries me straight back to ​the rec room and ​those long Mooring afternoons.

You were keenly attuned to your surroundings, and seemed to want to ensure that I didn't ​
miss a thing. Indelible: late afternoon, a hand-in-hand stroll along the wide forest path leading from your woodland cottage, the Barkentine, back to the main property. You stopped, and placing your hands on my shoulders, you turned me gently around to face the direction we had just traveled.  There I beheld a vision: long shafts of light angled down​ from the sky,​​ dancing​ through the green and gold canopy, stretching away into the deep woods as far as I could see. "I like to watch the sunlight playing on the leaves," you said. I gazed at you, speechless. I was a goner.

Somehow you got permission for an entire day off, and took me for a long sail in your small boat, the Flying Dutchman. You had the itinerary all mapped out. The weather was ideal, sunny with a good steady wind. Off we went, briskly rounding Point Superior, tacking through the Narrows and into Big Bay. There we tied up at at The Galley for burgers-- and then on to the most exciting part of the adventure. We tacked through the channel and into Lake Michigan, pointing south along the shoreline till we arrived at a stretch of vacant beach. We dragged the boat ashore. By now -- we'd been gone for hours -- we were drenched. I shucked off the soggy sweatshirt and jeans I had worn over my swimsuit. Never one to miss an opportunity to press your case, you ran my clothing up the mast to dry, laughing like crazy: "Nice to achieve the goal, if only symbolically!" said you.

We raced up the hot sand to the cool and shady dune crest, necked awhile, and then started our homeward trip. Every tiny part of the day had been perfection in my eyes, and you must have been feeling pretty good about it yourself as we pointed into the channel on an eastward tack. Then we heard it: a deafening BLAATTTT! A freighter was approaching, and it was close. I had seen these huge vessels traveling slowly through Macatawa, delivering their loads of coal to Holland's power plant at the east end of the lake, but always at a distance.

Them

Us

 
 As the monster hove into view, I freaked. We were trapped! No time to turn back! That thing was going to fill the channel!  And crush us into matchsticks! It very nearly did. We were forced to the side, scraped up against the concrete channel wall, clinging there to keep the Dutchman motionless while the freighter passed by. It cleared us by perhaps eight feet. I made the mistake of looking up; it was like trying to see the top of the Empire State Building when standing three paces from the entrance.   When we could safely be on our way, I saw a rare example of Mac losing his cool. You swore mightily, maybe even like a sailor. You caught my eye. Shrugged. "Sorry. We just painted this boat."

​The rest of the trip, though, was a dream. Our heart rates returned to normal and we got through the channel. Then, carried downwind by a southwestern breeze, we snuggled in the stern of the Dutchman, sails out all the way, as the current rocked us softly home.

                         ---

Next: Dear Mac Parker, Part III

July 21, 2015

Dear Mac Parker,

So here we are -- at the exact 50 year mark, the date I first set eyes on The Mooring, and first set eyes on you. Here's what I remember. After arriving at the Wee Scott, I went inside to change into shorts. Then my cousins Luke and Matt insisted that we walk down to the beach, where we would meet some of the other kids. I wasn't keen to meet a whole bunch of new people, feeling pretty well done in from my 12 hour bus trip, but off I went. I did want to see the beach.

The sailboats had been put to bed, but the beach wasn’t empty. There was a gaggle of middle schoolers, some of whom were mock pummeling an older boy. You. Trying to fend them off and looking bored with the whole scene. Luke took me in hand and made the rounds: "Dane, this is my cousin Carol." "Susie, this is my cousin Carol." You walked over. "Mac, this is my cousin Carol."

And you said, "Well hel-LO, Cousin Carol!" Whoa. The boys I knew back home were nothing like this. Chickie, you’re not in Webster anymore.

July 1965. On Pine Creek Bay with cousins Matt (L) and Luke.

Fast forward to today. This fiftieth anniversary obviously looms large in my mind. Maybe I expected to see twin suns on the horizon? I don’t know, but the day is too quiet. It calls for an observance. What can you do, though, 50 years hence? I can't get to our beach; somebody lives there now. I don't yet have a sailboat. Some of our fellow Mooring alums live right nearby, but they are busy going about their daily lives.

I decided to do the same. Walked the dog, ate lunch. With some concerned neighbors, investigated dumping on the road-end park property across the street. Drove with H to buy a box of blueberries, and then to a new (to you) overlook on the north side of Lake Macatawa. There we enjoyed watching a small fleet of young sailors learning their craft, heeling like mad in the steady west wind. This is a perfect Michigan day, by the way: penetrating sun, sharp air, piercing blue skies.

I did act on one commemorative impulse. Last week we made an unexpected short trip to St Louis; while at our house, I went through the carton containing all my high school and college correspondence. There I found your letters, which I brought back to Michigan with me, and I have enjoyed reading them this afternoon. What an ideal way to observe the occasion. They reinforce my memories of a very bright, precociously witty guy who could entertain me almost as well on paper as he could in person. Giver of creative, thoughtful gifts (I cringe when I think of the tie-tac you got in return), smoke-bombing saboteur of high school football games. You and your giant slingshot.

Anyway, in 1965 you had amassed a Mooring rap sheet--a sardonic, in-your-face tough guy not to be messed with or even approached. Not that I particularly wanted to, at the beginning. You were an old-timer here, now staying all summer long as Mooring staff,  you and your brother and sisters and your Mom, the formidable Jackie Parker. Her job was to take guests out in the big sailboat, the Pomie. Yours, as "waterfront director," was to oversee the little boats, monitoring the rigging and putting them to bed every evening.

My first Pomie ride was captained by your mother and crewed by you. The Pomie is an interesting craft, modeled on a Snipe but half again as big (21.5 feet), built by Bob Horner's father in the '20s. She is the perfect day sailer: stable, swift, with a luxurious large cockpit that accommodates at least six passengers. We set sail that day in a brisk wind. I still swear that Jackie, despite all that cockpit space, put me on the low side of the boat, just to see what this landlubber Cousin Carol was made of. Well, hah -- I loved it! No matter how many waves crashed over me, I was ready for more, and didn't give a rip when you told me I looked like a drowned rat. I was secretly admiring the way you scrambled on the bow, raising and lowering sails, leaning out to grab the dock when we got back to port.

I was intrigued, yet perplexed. What had I done to make this guy so combative? Then I got annoyed, and grew a little combative myself.  Where could this possibly go?

               ***

Next: Dear Mac Parker, part II