Lake Memories

(Chapter 4, Box 15 Action)

I hated my house and my homelife in Holland. However, Holland welcomed me with its miles of clean beaches, its plush green parks, and its brilliant displays of tulips. Holland comforted me in ways my parents never could. I remember freshman year lying in the sand at VanAndel Beach and watching the 4th of July fireworks literally explode over and rain down upon me, black cinders falling next to my bare arms and legs like giant snowflakes from a dark sky. I remember sleeping on a private beach and waking at dawn to the sound of perfect three-foot golden waves lapping against the wet sand.

I remember one late-fall day standing on the pier just in front of the lighthouse watching in childlike excitement as enormous waves gathered before me, paused briefly as they climaxed and blocked out the red setting sun, and then spilled forth over my body. I remember walking out on the icebergs, trecherously close to the icy water, as snow blew sideways in pellets that stung my face, yet awakened my appreciation for nature.

I remember the yearly painful sunburns, my shyness in exposing my bikinied body to beachgoers, the sand in my hair, the sand clinging to the wet inside of my bathing suits, how syrupy sweet soda felt so cold in my aching throat, how bittersweet it felt to drive home with all the windows down after a day at the beach--the wind whipping my hair across my red face, my towel hugging my half-wet body, the scent of baby oil and suntan lotion everywhere. God, coconut and cocoa butter, I swear that is what sand and lake smell like on a sunny summer day. Even as an adult, it would be hard to convince me otherwise.

Floating on half-deflated rafts, my disappointing sandcastles, guys who were always looking at somebody else, coolers, cerulean blue, armadas of sailboats and motorboats traveling the horizon, cold water, the shock of the first dive head-first, drifting upshore with my eyes closed, swimming out to sandbars and buoys...

There was a night my freshman year when Josh, Josh, John, and I drove John's car out to the empty State Park lot and stood against the food court building that overlooked an expanse of indigo-colored water reflecting the indigo sky that held the tiniest of white diamond-like twinkling stars. The beach breeze held the smell of an impending storm. An indescribable smell that even when remembering it still fills my body with overwhelming emotion, a reverance for the unpredictable power and beauty of nature. Quickly, a gray-black mass of clouds gathered in the fuzzy place where water and sky meet. The clouds rolled forward, spilling steely rain and flashing yellow-white bolts of lightning. Thunder booms and echoes at the beach in a way that suggests the very God of nature is speaking directly to you. The water swirled and ran in haphazard waves toward the shore. The crashing of water on sand repeatedly warned us that it was too late to leave. The rain fell in large plops against my face. Warm, full drops of healing rain cascaded down my upturned face and into the collar of my teeshirt.

It has been eight and a half years since I last visited the lake, my home, in Holland. When will I go back? I've been waiting to hear the sea gulls, to feel the sand burn the soles of my feet, to see the green-blue water sway under a still, gray sky. Will there be kayaking, boating, swimming, tanning, wave-jumping, walking, beach volleyball? Will the beach grass slice red slivers into my ankles on the walkway? Will I walk out on the channel, follow it precariously out to the lighthouse always looking over at the water's edge and wondering if I will fall in? Will I sit in the sand and watch the sunset?

Most importantly, at least when considering the Lake James project, how does my sense of place, this internal landscape of lake life, add to or detract from my portion of the project? Was camp life at Camp Pokagon all that different from my remembered experiences of Holland State Park? Is there something that connects all of who have spent significant amounts of our summer(s) on and near a lake?

Lake James Project Questions

Since there is too much to do and not enough to start with in regards to the Lake James service learning projects, it is imperative that we, as researchers, ask several questions about both the project as a whole and our individual projects. First, one of our main concerns is: What is the context of this book? Sure, Lake James is the focus. However, we know little more than the eight or so areas of interest being researched for the book. In class we discussed ways to tie our research topics together, but the idea of uniting the "chapters" with a fictitious family makes me cringe. I suddenly envision a project resembling the awful ACPL genealogy tutorials. No, no, that will not do. At least in my mind.

So, what are other ways to make the "chapters" more fluid? One possible organization is chronologically, but I doubt Flaim and Jim want something that reads like a historical text. Another way to organize the book would be to start with Paultytown and move clockwise around the lake. A problem with this organization may be gaps in development, but I think this is the best organization for a coffee table book.

One crucial thing to consider when organizing this book is audience. The fictional character scenario might be mildly entertaining, but it appeals to a younger audience, an audience that may not even be interested in coffee table books. Conversely, a clockwise organization that is semi-chronological appeals to an adult audience, an audience that Flaim and Jim seem to want to target. Afterall, one of their largest aims is to preserve the older cottage-style ways of living on Lake James, as opposed to the newer McMansion-style living.

In sum, service learning for this project must entail extracting Flaim and Jim's envisioning of this book and giving back as much targeted research as possible. What we really need from them is a storyboard. Without it, we can only offer heaping folders of potentially tangential research.

A Box About Boxes

(Chapter 7, Box 28 Action)

When I visited my parents in January, I came across a box of old letters that had been given to my father (Brian Jasch) after my great-grandmother (Nettie Ludington) passed away in 1998. The most logical arrangement for this collection was to arrange the letters chronologically according to the date they were posted.

April 9, 1951: postcard to Nettie from Chuck (my grandfather).
September 15, 1954: hospital bill for my father when my grandfather decided to keep him.
1956-59: Brian's immunization card.
May 9, 1965: homemade Mother's Day card made for Nettie from my father.
1972?: my father's enlistment card for 2 years of Regular Army Enlistment.
Unmarked: postcard to Nettie from Brian.
January 16, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
February 5, 1973: postcard to Nettie from Brian.
February 24, 1973: postcard to Nettie from Brian.
March 7, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
June 1, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he mentions his girlfriend, Sandy.
June 2, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
June 8, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
June 29, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her of his upcoming engagement to Sandy.
August 16, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
September 25, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her to not tell Sandy about his "German chick."
October 4, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her to apologize to Sandy about his German chick; he wants to be with Sandy when he returns home.
October 12, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he talks about the German chick and tells Nettie once again to not mention his girl on the side to Sandy.
November 5, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
November 15, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
December 21, 1973: letter to Nettie from Debbie regarding the twin boys she had with my
father and her plans to marry him when he returns from Army service.
February 11, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian.
March 22, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian.
September 11, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian.
November 14, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her of his plans to move out when he returns home.
March 31, 1980: Nettie's invitation to Brian and Joyce's (my mother) wedding.

Though the contents of the box were originally haphazardly strewn inside the airmail box they originally arrived in back in 1998 (many letters needed to be matched to their corresponding envelopes), organizing them for the first time made many things clearer for me. Most importantly, I found proof that my father had two children with a woman immediately before entering the service. He had apparently promised to marry her when he returned. However, throughout his time stationed in Fort Polk, LA and in Germany, he had promised two additional women he would marry them. He had a long-term girlfriend with whom he broke up and got back together with several times over the two year span of letters. He also had a German girl on the side.

I was surprised that my father confided all of this in Nettie (his Ma). What must she have thought of it all? All I know is that Grandma Nettie could hold her secrets--she took as many as of them as possible to the grave. My dad, of course, just snickers and turns red when I confront him about all of this. His nose flares and twitches in a way that prepares me for a lie or a cover-up of some sort. My mom just pretends she doesn't hear it all. I guess what surprises and frustrates me most of all in this family history research-business is how strongly people want to cover up and/or deny their pasts. All I want to do is figure out where I came from before it's too late. At least this box of letters tells me a few things no one else is prepared to.

Questioning My Fieldnotes

(Chapter 2, Box 8 Action)


Saturday, January 31st, 2009
2:00 p.m. 27-degrees and sunny
Fort Wayne to Angola, IN

Outskirts of Angola: There are dense trees covered in a thick layer of white snow. The roads are hilly and winding. People are out on the lakes ice fishing and corn stalks poke through the snowcovered fields.

Crooked Lake: 290West to West Shady Side Road. Mobile homes and McMansions sit side-by -side. There are no kids, no traffic, no people outside, just bare trees with golden brown clumps of leaves fluttering in the wind. The roads continue to snake along the lake and many snowmobilers are darting over the ice in patterns.

Lake James: Paulty Town East: There are mobile homes and a church with a health center. Between the crowded homes there is an island upon which sits one house. The further we drive, the bigger and newer the houses are. Sowles Bay: There are lots of trees and a few pricy homes and there are many tiny cottages clumped together. After a patch of trees we come upon many more expensive houses and a marina. Other neighborhoods: Red Sand Beach (where we see a deer), Glen Eden Springs (up on a hill), and Cruscoe Point (private).

I haven't been back to Angola since I left it nearly five years ago. It is bright and bitterly cold. It's weird how much my memory of this place has been erased by the events of the past five years.

What surprised me: I was surprised by how big the Lake James area is and how, during the entire time I lived on Crooked Lake, I had never once driven the short distance to Lake James, even by accident! I also saw more deer than people on the drive around the lake. It appeared as if no one was even living out there.

What intrigued me: In Fort Wayne, most neighborhoods are clearly divided into lower income, higher income, and ridiculously huge income areas. However, on Lake James, all of these housing types seemed to be intermixed, especially in Paulty Town. How do these different types of lake people coexist? How do the wealthy people not look at the patchwork mobile homes in disgust, and how do the cottage dwellers not resent the three-story mansions that now block their lake view? What a mystery.

What disturbed me: Honestly, I was disturbed by all the mansions. They looked so out of place on the lake. Yes, some of the smaller dwellings were old, some had definitely seen better days, but when I think of lakes, I think cabins and cottages, not giant estates. Especially giant estates that sit unused for eight months out of the year. Privatizing such large parts of a natural resource seems ridiculous to me.

Camp Freewrite

(Chapter 2, Box 4 Action)

As Erin and I begin to work on our big Lake James project, I must think back to my childhood. For those of you unfamiliar with the topic Erin and I will be writing about, we are writing about the history of Camp Pokagon with a focus on some of the boy's and girl's camps in the Lake James area. Like many of the children who played on the beaches of Lake James, I, too, once spent a weekend of my summer at camp.

At age 10, I was a second-year member of the Campfire girls in Holland, Michigan. My particular troop originated from Maplewood Elementary School, which was located just a few short miles from Lake Michigan. During the school year many of us Campfire girls worked hard at many projects to earn patches and beads for our Campfire vests (similar to Girl Scouts). We learned about recycling, learned photography, practiced using our imaginations, visited a real news station in Grand Rapids and later filmed our own program on public television, and even learned how to make homemade candy. However, nothing beat preparing for our first weekend (well, at least my first weekend) away from home to earn our badges for learning real camping skills.

I remember learning to tie at least ten different types of knots, learning how to start a fire with sticks and brush and also with pieces of flint, and learning the different plants on nature walks near the dunes of the lake. I remember staring in amazement at the bunk beds stacked three high that wrapped around the room of our cabin, and I remember unrolling my green sleeping bag on a bunk that was literally less than two feet from the ceiling.

The most fun of all, as I imagine it is for all young children, was the nighttime. Outside we built a fire as big as we were and set out immediately making Smores. Even though I never liked Smores, making them was exciting. I'd see how long I could hold the marshmallows over the fire before they erupted into flame and oozed down into the glowing embers below. After Smores were classic campfire staples such as star gazing, rounds of "Koombaya" and ghost stories. Under the full moon we also carried our flashlights on a nighttime hike that was punctuated with the shrill shrieks of pre-adolescent girls who swore they just had heard an animal/murderer/ghost following us through the woods.

The last day of camp was filled with equal parts rain and sorrow. I had to leave this entirely different way of life and head back into the city where I'd be learning nothing other than reading, writing, and arithmetic in the fall; where nighttime would be filled with orange light pollution and random music from the cars that sped past my house; and where my bed was just another mattress covered in New Kids on the Block bedsheets. I wonder if all those kids who spent their summers on Lake James felt the same as I did.