Beyond the Beach Part II

It was impossible to get all my photos in one post so I am continuing the journey in Part II.  I hope you are still with me as I wander a bit more in the Lake Michigan town of Pentwater.

Sailing through the channel on a summer day.

A garden gate on a house that faces the channel.

The flowers hanging on the porch of this old house pick up the bright colors the owners decided to paint what looks to be an old Victorian.    

The remnants of an 
old boat house

Beyond the Beach

It struck me as a beautiful scene for a photo that would show the texture of the brick.  The pink hollyhocks blooming in a corner on the back side of Silver Hills Antiques in Pentwater set my mind in motion. If there was this beautiful vignette right off of main street and away from the beach, what else could I find in this small Lake Michigan town?  

What I found was only a fraction of what there must be to photograph. There are small and large houses, each with their own ambience and style.  Those that exist along the channel are big homes with lovely flower gardens.  Those that are older I envision as being there since the 1800’s.  The closeness of the older houses to one another gives a feeling of protection against a gale coming off the big lake.

Flowers are a big part of the scenery and they often grow willy nilly in unexpected spots, like around a life saving ring near the channel.  I walked and found doors that seemed welcoming and signs of old weathered wood.

Further out from the village on Pentwater Lake I stopped when I saw an old boat house that had seen better days. Yet it was the old wood that I found beautiful and the oar attached was the perfect touch.    

Take a journey with me to these unexpected places beyond the beach and think about all the little spots that are right in our own back yards that can give pleasure if we just stop to look.

A burst of color under the eaves just seems unexpected.  

A pop of color gives the eye a sense of delight.

Bikes on a side street ready to rent...

Some people know how to accent their door....a happy look.

I have photographed this house several times over the years.  The  yellow siding plus the forest green front door gives me a feeling of coziness. I would love to be invited inside.
   
The whimsical look of Queen Anne's Lace coming through a life saving ring and a funny sign in a garden.

                   

Trials of Twelve

Twelve isn’t an age for the faint hearted. Having a grandson and a granddaughter that age around the house this week took me back  to a time long long ago when I was their age.  I was  twelve when I attended 4-H camp at Stony Lake.  My mother saw that I was developing and bought my first bras to wear at camp.  

The girls at camp slept in a big open room with bunk beds and we had to dress and undress in front of each other.  I wasn’t used to a bra and how it felt.  I so wanted my cotton t-shirt with the little ribbon at the neckline.  I tried to get into my shortie pajamas at night and dressed in the morning as privately as I could.  I was uncomfortable with the young woman I was becoming and missing the little girl who was slipping away.

Twelve is awkward.  Twelve is uncertain.  Twelve is the last step of childhood which some kids aren’t ready to leave behind.  For girls, twelve is discovering changes to mind and body and discovering that boys can be both interesting and intolerable.  

Seventh grade was an uncomfortable year for me.  There was only one class of 7th graders at my school and we must have gotten out of hand daily because Mr. Thomas, one of our teachers who later became the principal, on a regular basis gave us a lecture on citizenship and being good people.  

I spent 7th grade and age twelve with crooked teeth, knowing that the braces I was soon to get would only make me uglier.  I was conscious of the clothes I was wearing and wished I had more than what hung in my closet.  

I read an article this past year that said childhood nowadays ends closer to ten than twelve.  I watched my grandson Jay with his cousin Adrianna this week.  They were born a day apart in May of 2002.  They like to discuss their world of school and friends, but I noticed they weren’t as chatty with each other as they have been in the past.

On the 4th of July they were playing a game in the yard and got in a tiff over how the game should be played.  Jay got sharp with Adrianna and she sat at a distance and cried.  I took her for a little ride in our golf cart and she told me how Jay had hurt her feelings.  Forgiveness comes easily though and later when they were sitting together for a picture, Adrianna leaned over and gave Jay a kiss on the cheek.  

The look on his face was captured in a photo I took and tells me what it is like to be a boy of twelve.  Yet the simple time of childhood is past for both Jay and Adrianna.  The days when they played together for hours is gone. Their relationship is changing and even though they chased each other around the yard the last night they could be together, next summer at age thirteen I'm sure things will be different yet. Then there will come a time when Adrianna doesn't come to spend a week at Grandpa and Grandma's.

After Adrianna and Bella left to go home to Novi, Jay came back in the house with me and said, “I didn’t know I would feel so bad when they left.  I’m probably going sit in my room and think about how fast the week went.”  I remember so vividly in my teen years sitting for hours in my room contemplating the world. How does time go so quickly?

Jay's look after Adrianna kissed him on the cheek.  

Adrianna at twelve

Jay at twelve

do nothing days

“Grandma, do you ever have days when you have nothing to do?” Avery asked me one day this past spring.

My answer was, “I have days when I do nothing, but I always have something I could do.”  

Jay bopped in one day after school and asked, “How can you stand it just being here all day long?”

I laughed and assured him I was fine being at my house all day and not going anywhere.

A  phone call from Avery often starts out with, “Grandma what are you doing today?”  

After I tell her what I am doing she decides whether it is more exciting  here than what is going on at her house.  Hint:  “Can I come down?”  Coming to our house is down….we go up the hill to her house.  Unless I am about to leave to go someplace, I can usually expect my nine year old granddaughter at my door within five minutes after we hang up.

In order to help me find something to do, Carter said to me after Jay’s comment about how bored I must be just staying home, “Grandma you should write a book.”

“What would I write about?” I asked him.

“You could write about your life after I got here.” Carter is seven.

“I could write about my life before you got here.  That is a longer period of time,”  I said.

“You could write about where you have visited.”

“Yes,” I said.  “I’ve gone a lot of places.

Even though my grandchildren may worry that I don’t have enough to do to keep myself from getting bored, a very used word in their vocabulary,  I explain that I am never bored.  The art of doing nothing is really deciding to spend some time doing whatever comes to mind.

For me that often is reading a good book or magazine, making popcorn, writing, walking to the spring, taking photos, finding the dog so I can pet her, going through old letters and pictures, messing in my craft room, sending a note to a friend or taking a nap.

In my working years I had little time for do nothing days.  My to do list was always a mile long.  In the summer, after our family’s ten day getaway,  I started in the attics and spring cleaned all the way to the basement.  There was nothing I left undone.  Besides that I sewed clothes for my daughter and me for the next school year, canned what we liked for the winter and just never seemed to have a spare moment.  Perhaps that is why do nothing days now seem earned and a reward for hard work in the past.

However doing nothing one night scared my children.  We had finished a family dinner on a summer evening.  I was tired after cleaning up in the kitchen.  The grandchildren were out playing by the creek and I went out to find them.  Walking into our big yard, I decided to lie down on my back and just look at the sky.

One of my children happened to look out the window and shouted, “Mom’s down!”  As my daughter came running across the lawn, my daughter-in-law called 911.  Before she had a chance to say anything I sat up.

She hung up and the 911 operator called her back.  I think she was embarrassed when she had to tell the operator she thought something had happened to me, but I was really O.K.  The whole incident, while laughable to me, showed that my family was ready to act quickly on my behalf.

Doing nothing is never a boring concept as I experienced just looking at the clouds that summer evening.   In many ways it is like the summer days of my childhood. Summers seemed endless as a child and by August I was asking my mother when school started again. Now summers fly by and I cherish a few days here and there when I choose to just do nothing.

“To lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”   -John Lubbock

Summer Meadow

Long ago I took a photo

of three children and

a dog standing in

a field of daisies

It was that time

in late June when

flowers explode to

form summer meadows

The children squinted

into the afternoon sun

and I captured them

in all their innocence

Such a short time

to take a snapshot

of the season and

all that it offers

Such a short time for

children of summer

sunlight to cavort in

a meadow with their dog

What's A Man To Do?

What’s a man to do when his favorite tractor dealership goes out of business and his barber retires?  It puts a crimp in the way he’s always known.  We learn to depend on certain things in life and we don’t like those things to change.

The same man,Tom Schaner, has been cutting my husband’s hair for 45.years.  He has cut four generations of men in our family.  It started with my father and then my husband, our son and now our two grandsons.  

My husband claims that a man can talk to his barber about all sorts of topics.  It has to be a sort of therapy for all men, just as a hairdresser is for a woman.  Men don’t always have as many friends as women do so finding a barber they can chat with is important.  So when his barber, who has been cutting hair for about 50 years retires, what’s a man to do?

On top of that,The Power Shop, the tractor dealership in Fremont where my husband 

has bought mowers, a tractor, parts and drooled over machinery is going out of business. Because one partner has died and there are complications with John Deere, the business is closing. That is a great disappointment because my husband very seldom goes back to the town where he taught for 28 years without stopping at The Power Shop.

It can be frustrating when the little things that have been constants in a man’s life are disrupted. There will be another barber, but it won’t be the same.  John Deere tractors can be found at other dealerships, but it won’t be the same. The familiar friendly men that my husband has trusted to take care of his needs and humor his desires will be spread to the winds.   Some people just can’t be replaced.  Life is ever changing, but that doesn’t mean a man has to like it.

Picture Perfect Garden

As a surprise on Monday, my husband drove me to the garden of Linda Schnell outside of Fremont.  Linda had posted some pictures of her garden on Facebook and Hack was sure I would love to see it. Her children were students of my husband's when he taught at Fremont High School. I am going to let the pictures do the talking on this post.