Saturday, September 22, 2012

That one time we were trying to throw watermelon rinds off the deck

With a whoosh, my watermelon rind makes a nice high arc over the railing and hits the ground, stirring up a few pebbles and tumbling a few feet down the steep hill until it stops.

No Points.

With a whiz, my brother’s shoots through the air: over the low branches, between the high ones, perfectly aimed so as to splash into the shallow water neatly.

One Point.

With a slurp, Mom sheepishly takes another bite. “I’m not done yet!”

No Points.

With a roar, Dad rears back and flings his rind with all his might.

I!
AM!
MAN!

But with a surprisingly loud thwomp, it immediately hits the nearest tree trunk with incredible force and explodes, showering us with wet, pink, cold confetti.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Lake Stories

Once upon a time in the seventies, my dad was a crazy young thing with long hair and short shorts. He bought a big plot of land at the lake and made big plans to build a big old lakehouse where his soon-to-be-big family could spend lazy weekends fishing, swimming, boating, roasting marshmallows.

Big lakehouses are, of course, easier drawn than built, and the land stayed bare for quite some time. But everything changed one warm spring day during what should have been a routine trip to the local sporting goods store.

As the legend goes, Dad spent quite some time admiring the camping backpack display, a three-sided log cabin in the middle of the store. “Can I help you?” a friendly salesperson asked. “How much for the cabin?” Dad replied. “That’s a backpack display, sir.” “Okay. I’ll take it.”

An hour later, Dad and three long-haired friends stood sweaty in the parking lot. They dusted off their hands on their short shorts and looked contentedly at the new cabin, now dismantled and loaded into the bed of a borrowed pickup truck.

The cabin eventually made its way up to the lake and was reassembled, bit by bit gaining a fourth wall, a roof, and even real windows. Dad was bestowed with decorating privileges for the cabin, and its walls were soon flanked with stuffed buffalo heads, goat heads, deer heads, deer butts.

The close quarters of the cabin were quaint—pull out the sofa bed, and more than half of the cabin was filled up. No running water? No oven? No toilet? No big deal. It was an adventure! Plus, it was only temporary. “This’ll be the fishing cabin, for poles and lifejackets and bait, once I build the big house,” Dad speculated.

***

A quarter century later, the big house remains a reality only in drawings, and the whole family still squeezes into the “fishing cabin” during weekend trips up to the lake. The buffalo head maintains its eternally creepy stare, and the sink is still filled with maps and bug spray and flashlights instead of dishwater. Countless visitors have braved carsickness and unmarked dirt roads to spend a weekend at the Lechner lakehouse (okay, lakeroom).

Sometimes when there’s bad weather or it’s late at night, we all cram into the cabin to play cards. We circle around the table in an assortment of sticky orange nylon chairs, pleather barstools that are spilling their stuffing, lawn chairs, upside-down five-gallon buckets. With the sounds of lapping water and of moths flinging themselves at the porch light in the background, someone shuffles the cards and deals them out.

The conversation sometimes turns to the rules of the game; sometimes to the next morning’s breakfast menu; sometimes to chores that need to be done the next day. But, especially when we have visitors, we eventually start telling the lake stories.

There’s the time when Mom’s visor flew off while she was driving the boat, and Dad, waterskiing, reached out a hand and caught it.

There’s the time when the raccoons jumped off the roof so they could knock over the trash cans.

There’s the time when we had a real-life armadillo invasion: so many armadillos you could hardly move a foot without being in danger of stepping on a nasty little gray waddler.

The lake stories that follow are stories that everyone knows by heart and has heard a million times.  Around the table, we all trip over each other to try to tell these stories the best. We flap our hands and contort our faces into ridiculous expressions, trying to recreate the scene. We argue about what really happened; we dissolve into laughter; we count backwards to try to figure out what year it was when the bumblebee fireworks turned mutinous and flew straight for Dad, chasing him up one side of the dock and down the other, until he finally had to jump into the lake to escape them.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Hammerhead's Code

In sixth grade we are learning about the Code of Hammurabi, more commonly known as "Hammerhead" on pop quizzes.

The students were given the beginning of an ancient Babylonian law and asked to fill in the anticipated punishment.

Results = hilarity.

If a person commits a robbery and is caught, you shall be in jail, and be a slave for the king.

If a person commits a robbery and is caught, cut your head off. 

If a person adopts a child and raises him, the biological parent must leave the city forever.

If a son shall strike his father, he is hanged.

If a son shall strike his father, sit in the ditch.

If a person steals another person's child, the child is theirs to keep.

If someone opens his ditches to water his crops, but accidentally lets the water flood his neighbors' crop, say sorry.