“Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer in a house on a lake.” Diane Ackerman, American Poet
My parents never took us to Disney World or Six Flags over Texas, the Ozarks or
Washington DC.
We went to Lake Bruin, Louisiana every summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day, until I was in high school. At that time my father had three kids in college and two in high school, and the lake house was not getting used as much so he sold it. My sisters and brother, and my cousin Charlie hold the memories from those summers as the best times of our lives.
My grandmother taught me to fish, how to clean a fish, how to beat the stew out of an alligator gar to retrieve the hook and how to shoot snakes. We learned to swim at a very early age and we stayed in the lake, on the pier, or in the boat, water skiing on the old Cypress Garden wooden slalom skies. We came up for lunch when we heard the music from “As the World Turns” crank up on the fuzzy black and white TV that picked up one station in Monroe. We ate fresh cantaloupe, tomato sandwiches and drank Barg’s Root Beer, Fresca and Orange Crush in small bottles. We were told to go take a nap after lunch, because of the cardinal rule that some adult made up that you could not swim after eating, because you would develop leg cramps and drown.
We did not buy it but said “yes ma’am,” anyway and went straight back to the lake while the adults watched their soap opera and got their naps in. At nightfall there was nothing more glorious than watching the sunset as a spectacular orange sun went down beyond the trees on the opposite side of the lake and then we would see the most beautiful moon inching up over the cypress trees and reflecting on the water. The mosquitoes would drive us in the house where we could hear the sounds coming from the neighbors house, just cranking for the night. They had a juke box and Christmas lights around their porch they kept up all year long. I would drift off to sleep under the roar of an attic fan and the juke box playing“Blue Velvet” and all of the Beach Boys tunes. It was soothing and magical.
Through the years I could smell Lake Bruin whenever I was around a lake, cypress trees, and Spanish moss; those memories are forever imbedded in me and I have missed our summers spent there.
Looking back, one thing in particular remains a mystery to my sisters, my brother and my cousin; where were our parents while we spending hours upon hours in the lake and on the boat? Probably seven or eight kids ages 6 to 17, but no adults. There was a great deal of mischief going on on the pier and the cypress high diving board. We dared each other to try a gainer or a backflip with a half twist off of a diving board that was too high, and we were not really sure how well it was attached. We mastered these diving tricks, if you had the guts to try, and somehow no-one was ever hurt. We always had knives, because every year you would carve your name in one of the planks on the pier; you were eight years old with a sharp pocket knife! The boys were notorious for holding the girls under water or throwing dead fish at us while we basked in the sun covered in cocoa butter. Zinc oxide covered our noses, but I am not sure sunscreen had been invented.
Fast forward 30 years and my brother has just bought another house on Lake Bruin. What a luxurious experience it was to take it all in again, the smell and the green color of the lake, the cypress trees, Spanish Moss, and splinters in our feet from the cypress planks on the pier.
It was the same great place that I loved, and we all agreed those summers were the happiest memories of our lives. However there were a few differences I noticed immediately.
For one thing there is a whole new crop of children that were like ants on a log. They all could swim, but none the less they all had swim vests or some sort of floating device that they were attached to, and the parents, especially the daddies, were all down there with them with an eagle eye on each child. I never remember my father in the water, period. There was a good deal of scolding going on, “quit hitting your sister, stop splashing your cousin, you are on your way to time out if you do not stop that!” the young parents continuously barked. None of the children were carrying knives either.
Me, my sister and my dear cousin Charlie headed away from the small children as fast as we could swim away with our noodles. We found out quickly that older adults required 2 noodles to float on instead of just one so we made an older child swim out with the extra flotation devices and more beverages to us and then sent him away.
We all were thankful that nothing treacherous happened to any of us out on the lake when we were young and totally unsupervised, but also thankful we weren't smothered by our parents out there. These new parents make me a nervous wreck about germs, organic everything, no sugar, and a lot of rules.
I am 56, drank a Dr. Pepper, a glass of Prossecco, and did a perfect swan dive off of the top deck of the pier. Not once but twice, and am now revered as the coolest Aunt on Lake Bruin. Everyone else was chicken, even Charlie who never backs down from anything. He vowed he would on our next trip.
My childhood memories from Lake Bruin are so thick I could swat at them like flies. I hope they stay with me forever.
Smoked Bass Pate'
4-6 bass filets
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice
1 8-ounce block of cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Tabasco
1/4 cup fresh parsley,
minced
Crackers or toasted french bread
Marinate the filets with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice for 10 minutes or so. Remove the filets from the marinade and smoke the bass filets over low heat on a conventional smoker with wood chips, for 5-10 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. Remove the filets and let cool. Flake the filets with a fork and gently blend in the cream cheese, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, and fresh parsley. Check seasonings adding more salt, pepper and lemon if needed. Serve with crackers.
