So, for the first time in nineteen years -- and what with both girls working full-time this summer and only expecting one week's holidays -- I suggested to Dave that we not go to Nova Scotia this year, but rent a cottage at Sauble Beach instead. He was pretty excited by the idea, the girls were on board, and I made the arrangements. We have taken the girls to Sauble at least for a day most summers of their lives, and have twice rented a cottage for the Labour Day weekend, but this was the first time we were there for an entire week and it went really well. Because they all worked so hard this summer, I impulsively told Kennedy that there would even be room for her boyfriend Zach, and he came along, too. The week before we left, Rudy called to tell me that their parents were also really excited about spending the week with us and that they were worried about how well their dog would get along there. Now, to be fair, I did tell the inlaws that they should totally come up and see us while we were at the beach, and wires were crossed and they took it for a full invitation and Dave lost his marbles, lol. After he settled down the next day, Dave called and explained to his parents that the cottage wasn't big enough for seven people, but since Zach had to go back early, they were welcome to come up for our last two nights (and he also spun a tale about having begged special permission to bring Libby, so another dog couldn't possibly come). In the end, Zach didn't need to leave early, but the inlaws brought their blowup mattress and we made do (with, of course, me and Dave taking the blowup...which leaked the first night...leaving us shivering on the cold, hard floor, but who's complaining...?)
We had fun on the beach:
 |
| Dave loves the waves |
 |
| Plotting a massive sand castle... |
 |
| ...and done |
Enjoyed the sunsets:
 |
| Kennedy on fire |
 |
| All the family |
And our campfires:
 |
| Jiffypopping, even though there's a microwave |
Had a trip to Tobermory:
 |
| Aaaarrr (and I don't mean the pirate) |
 |
| First trip with Kennedy as a legal drinker |
And just enjoyed being together:
 |
| Funny, Dave isn't hard to convince to do this... |
We played waboba, minigolf, and went for ice cream, browsed the shops, and spent the evenings playing Scrabble and telling tales, singing songs at the campfire. When Grandpa was up, he sang his dying hobo song, and although his lyrics are a little different, this is what the internet says they should be:
Just a mile west of the water tank
on a cold November day,
in a cold and lonely boxcar a dying hobo lay.
His pal sat there beside him
with a low and drooping head
listening to the last words
his dying buddy said.
on a cold November day,
in a cold and lonely boxcar a dying hobo lay.
His pal sat there beside him
with a low and drooping head
listening to the last words
his dying buddy said.
"Partner, old partner.
I must say goodbye.
I hear that train a-coming
and I know it's getting nigh.
Will you tell that old conductor
just where I want to stop
where the little stream of whiskey
comes trickling down the rocks?
"We've rode the rods together,
we've rambled all around.
In every kind of weather
we've slept out on the ground.
Partner don't you miss the train
that always makes the stop
where the little stream of whiskey
comes trickling down the rocks.
"Tell my girl in Danville
she need not worry at all.
I'm going to that country
where I won't have to work at all.
I won't have to wash my overalls
or even change my socks
where the little stream of whiskey
comes trickling down the rocks.
"I'm going to that better place
where everything is right,
where the handouts grow on bushes
and you sleep out every night.
I won't have to jump another train
or work another job
where the little stream of whiskey
comes trickling down the rocks.
"I hear the fast mail coming.
I'll catch it bye and bye.
Oh gal of mine, oh gal of mine,
it ain't so hard to die."
His head fell back and his eyes fell in
as he breathed his last refrain.
His partner swiped his shoes and socks
and hopped the eastbound train
And, of course, while he tried to jokingly make the point that the girls should learn the song to sing to their own grandchildren one day, Kennedy would sing over her Grandpa with her own words:
The hobo stole his hat and boots
and killed him with a rock
He caught the last train to the west
before someone called the cops
Another highlight: One night Zach and Kennedy made dinner -- absolutely delicious Taco Soup -- and I just wish that I had said it had an interesting sweetness before they told us it was made with Dr. Pepper. And then the first night that the inlaws were up, Mallory asked if she could go to the grocery store and make us all dinner (as if I'd say no...) and she went full gourmet: pasta with pesto and barbecued meats; fresh and crusty potato scallion bread from the bakery next door with olive oil and pesto dip; and a spinach, tomato and fresh mozzarella salad. She had also bought a blueberry pie for dessert, but everyone had filled up on her dinner proper.
When the inlaws first arrived, it was about midday and they immediately joined us at the beach. Even though it was quite windy -- and therefore wavy -- Granny couldn't wait to get into the water, and as frail as she is getting, she loved being able to hold Kennedy's hand to keep herself from being swept away. Grandpa is, always, a great sport and joined the rest of them (and probably not only because he needed to pee...). I don't need to be a good sport when it's cool and windy -- I'm happy to hold down the fort, bundled up in my beach wrap and blankie. (And Mallory doesn't need to be a good sport about the water either -- which is why she offered to go make dinner; a good sport of a different sort.)
That was the week that was, but to back up a bit:
The first time we took the girls to Sauble Beach was 14 years ago. Dave was on his summer vacation and we had just moved into a new house, using most of his holidays to get settled in before Kennedy started kindergarten. It was probably a Friday, early in the morning, and Dave said, "What should we do today?" I asked him how long he thought it would take to drive to Sauble and he got as excited as a little kid. We mapquested a route, gathered a minimal amount of beach gear (unbelievably meager when compared to what we haul up there with us now) and hit the road. Dave insisted on parking right on the beach at the pathway that used to lead from his family's cottage, and the day was wonderful: all sunshine and happy babies splashing in the waves. We walked past where the family cottage used to be and Dave could have cried to see how things had changed:
 |
| The house that now stands there |
 |
| What Dave calls "half the original cottage", now "the bunkie" |
That's pretty much how our first ever Sauble Beach day went, and we kept going up for a day (often having inlaws join us, even my own brother, Ken, and his family one year) until the two times we rented a place for the weekend, maybe missing going up three times (two times?) over the years, but I should back it up again:
When Dave and I got married, there was some drama as to whether or not his Aunt Susan would be invited to our wedding. My mother-in-law hadn't spoken to her sister in years and it all had to do with the family cottage. Bev and Susan's mother suffered from Alzheimer's and lived her later years with my inlaws (and there's a terrible story about the one time they begged Susan to take their mother for a week so they could have a vacation -- when they got back, they discovered that Susan lasted two days before she found a temporary nursing home to stick her mother in). When Grandma Topham eventually passed, my inlaws decided that they couldn't afford to keep the cottage and gave Susan first rights to buy them out. Susan's kids were young enough to still want to use the cottage, and she and her husband had enough money, and so they agreed. As the story goes, Susan and Brian told my inlaws what the appraised price was, gave half that amount to them, and within a week, had sold the cottage for twice the so-called appraised amount. What started as an obvious betrayal about money (which is awful enough) has now morphed into a different kind of regret: my mother-in-law believes that if Susan had told her that she wouldn't keep the cottage, my inlaws would have found a way to keep it themselves, would have had the place for their grandkids to enjoy all of these years, would probably be retired there now. Although my inlaws showed the grace to forgive Susan (she was, indeed, at our wedding and has been a constant in our lives ever since), Dave has never forgiven her. As an outsider, I have more than once pointed out that selling off the cottage started with Dave's own parents: if they hadn't decided they couldn't afford it -- or even decided they didn't want to share it with Susan's family -- it would still be in the family (and no one wants to hear this, especially since there was the immediate betrayal that makes Susan the villain).
But to back it up again:
When Dave and Rudy were little, they would spend the entire summer at the cottage with their Mom and Grandma. Since their Dad was a barber and needed to work, he would get in the car every Saturday night, drive the three hours to the cottage, and get up super early every Tuesday morning to drive back home before work again, spending his weekdays alone. Friends and family were always visiting the cottage (but not so much Susan and her family) and this was a place of laughter and camaraderie and togetherness. This was every summer of Dave's life until he reached high school and became less interested in going up; as their grandmother deteriorated; as everyone became kind of worn out. Sauble Beach is definitely Dave's happy place -- definitely his Mom's happy place -- and there will also always be this shadow of sadness -- of loss -- hanging over our trips there.
But to back it up for the last time:
When my mother-in-law was just little, her father bought the property at Sauble Beach. This was a bit of a shock to her Mom -- who wasn't necessarily a beach person -- but she went along so long as the cottage would be built on a hill so she could watch the sunsets. The property at that time was a total swamp (my mother-in-law says when she was little they would go out to the cottage in winter and skate around the cottages for hours), but her Mom bought one giant load of sand every summer until, eventually, the swamp was filled in. In the beginning (and even until Dave's childhood), there was no indoor plumbing: water was fetched from a backyard pump and there was an outhouse (one of my husband's favourite childhood stories involves his Dad listening from the cottage for little Dave to call out, "Okay, Daa-ad, come wipe my bu-umm!"). But this was all perfection for my mother-in-law who spent all of her childhood summers at the beach. It was always her job to accompany their father to open and close the cottage (their mother wasn't interested and Susan flat refused to help -- as it's told to me) and Bev cherished this time with just her and her Dad. She remembers one time going out with him in winter and playing at the beach with a friend: the waves at the shoreline were frozen ridges and they scampered and slid over them until little Bev wore a hole in the knee of her jeans. She wrapped her scarf around the hole to keep the cold out and it was important for me to understand that her Dad wasn't mad about the jeans, just so long as she was okay. When Bev was a teenager, she loved going to the dances on the beach and was telling me on this trip that, even though she would walk to and from the dances with her friends, whenever she got back to the cottage, her Mom would appear out of the darkness to walk her up the path to the door: her Mom would never intrude on her fun, but Bev knows that her Mom would have been shadowing her back and forth to make sure she was okay. Even when she was a little girl, Bev and her friends would hoist themselves up onto the top of the bandshell to watch the dances -- this is certainly her magic place. We have been told often how Bev was a pinsetter at the bowling alley as a teenager and was always narrowly avoiding being hit by bowling balls. That bowling alley is now a gift shop and on this trip, Bev was reminiscing with the owner, telling him everything he didn't know about how things worked in the old days. Dave rolled his eyes hard at his Mom and her memories, and then, totally unironically, grabbed his Dad's arm and said, "Hey, come over here, you can still see where the trampolines used to be through this fence!" This is definitely Dave's magic place, too.
I know this is a long post of dubious interest value, but if I'm trying to preserve the family memories in this blog, Sauble Beach and the fabled cottage certainly deserve to be documented. If my girls ever read this, I hope it gives some perspective. One last note: as we left Sauble this year, taking one last drive past the cottage that was gone out of the family long before even I became a member, Dave said, "This is absolutely my favourite place on Earth. How about you, Mal?" She thought for a moment and said, "I like it here, and I can see why it would be that important from your childhood, but for me, that place would be Nan and Pop's." Dave replied, "You're right. I can see why that would be the equivalent for you. That's exactly the same thing."
So, did I mess up by not taking the girls down there this year, for the first time ever?
