Bittersweet

"I thought I'd never see you again!" she said. Helen Decker, 91, moved away from Lake Mohawk while I was heading out to college. She lived two doors away when there was not yet such thing as next door neighbors; she and her family lived several lots away. We lived in a bay that had few year round residents. When I came home from school, I'd head there first and she would make grilled cheese and pickle sandwiches. Her daughters were friends and one, Zella, lived next door to her parents with her sons.
37 years is a lot of time. Before I saw Helen, I saw Zella and we talked. At first, I thought she was Helen! Zella, God bless, is a breast cancer survivor.
My best friend from the second half of eighth grade, when I moved to the lake and left behind Deb Page Novak in Louisville, was Debbie Decker. She and I used to comb each other's hair for hours and jabber away about our crushes. Helen recalled how I was crushed in eighth grade when my crush would not given me the time of day.
We met Saturday night, after a marathon shopping day - done in two shifts - at the Lake Mohawk Club House during a spaghetti dinner fundraiser for Dave Decker's son, Doug, who has small cell carcinoma of the lungs. Dave was the older brother with a boat who taught me to water ski.
He remembered how hard I was to teach. He did not remember how in subsequent years, I used to ski past his house and spray him with my hot little slalom ski. Selective memory I guess.
Karen Gamber-Wackerly, left, was my hostess on my trip home. The Gamber girls were cousins to Debbie, on her father and their mother's side. Karen is now the postmistress at Malvern. Her sister, Beth Shearer, has a cattle farm now. Both are widowed. Growing up, their father Dick was the cattleman and my school bus driver. My senior year, I served him breakfast at the Kopper Kettle before he went to the bus depot.
When we were growing up, Beth went on my first spring break to Florida with me. Yes. we were the hot chicks of North Miami Beach that year. And boys our age from our hometown stayed a hotel away and kept track of us, made sure no boy sharks got near. We were close that way, all of us from Malvern, Ohio.
The night was still young and the Gamber girls and I had a date at the West End Inn. Tomorrow, that story. And a little bit about the Funky Chicken.

Cool waters

I am off to Cancun today at the crack of dawn with Kathryn. She's heading to the airport and Carlos will drop me off at a big box store.
After he takes her to the airport, he'll pick me up and take me to a fabric store. There I will get fabric to recover the seats of the dining chairs which will also be re-varnished to match the new table.
While the island is paradise, for those hot sticky trips into Cancun, I keep the above image in my mind. The cool waters of Lake Mohawk in Malvern, OH, where I grew up.
Wherever I am right now, a nice water ski pull around the late would be such a refreshing contrast. It's in my mind whenever paradise feels like an inferno...in July and August! Of course. I've lost the balance it takes to water ski. But cool sweet water is always great! That's why we love our cenotes here in the Yucatan Peninsula, the mainland off Isla Mujeres.

Beach bum grown

I convinced my father to sign a work permit for me when I was 14 so I could sell ice cream cones at a carry out window at Lake Mohawk. He told me then that I would have to work at least two weeks in every quarter of the year to earn 30 years Social Security credits in a timely fashion...in 30 years.
That advice served me well when multiple sclerosis made me unable to meet the commitments of a job in my late 40s. Anyway...
The third job I had...the ice cream was the second, the first was pulling weeds, was pumping gas at the Marina at Lake Mohawk. It doesn't seem to have a gas pump now, but that's the Marina, where boats are launched from trailers. And where many times after work, I'd take a pull and water ski home.
Yep, just training for island living.

I'm from these parts

On my trip back home, I visited the lake where I grew up. My best friend dubbed it, when were midway through our careers, as "On Golden Pond," but the growth Lake Mohawk near Malvern OH has seen in recent years doesn't warrant that name.
Rural lake has become somewhat overbuilt and sophisticated, with golf carts just perfect for local traffic at the 25mph speed limit.
The surface of the lake is about the size of Isla Mujeres and I have called my teen years spent in a bathing suit good training for Isla! I think it was. Mom told me to take my first siestas. Oh wait. I was 4 years old the and it was nap time!
But the good habit took hold!