tigerlily

i was so shaken to find these pictures on the web, i was moved to tears. i thought you might enjoy the story behind them.

although i was born and raised in california, it's a little known secret that half my heart lives on the east coast, on the shores of a little lake called square pond, in the town of acton, maine. amidst the smell of sweet fern, the soft lapping of water, and the ancient call of loons, i spent every summer as a child deepening in a love of nature that is at the very foundation of my life.

in the mid 1930s, the sanford textile mills were offloading lakefront property that they had been using for hydropower. the small, heavily forested lakes had very few inhabitants, save for the fortunate few, a handful of squatters and moose. my grandfather, roy f. good, happened to be best friends with the head of the textile mills, thomas goodall. as a dentist in the depression era, my grandfather, gram and their son john (my dad), lived on a very modest income. but it always helps to have connections, and when my grandfather expressed interest in 8 acres of prime shore line property on square pond, thomas goodall sold it to him for the transaction fee of one dollar.

my grandfather and his friends built a small two story camp (summer home) at the end of a peninsula, and a short walk through the forest down the shore connected my family to the oldest camp on the lake. my gram (nellie marie bodwell-good) had a sister, marion bodwell-lesher, and it was to my great aunt marion that the oldest camp belonged.

my great aunt marion


the bodwell-lesher camp

my father and his cousin helene lesher-leighton (marion's daughter) have the most marvelous stories about their child hoods on the lake. part of a large extended family unit, the camps were the point of unification for them all. here is just a small sample of the tales they told:

my great uncle ned, a known sportsman, was reputed to have shot and killed a black bear with my great grandfather. the bear's head was mounted on the wall in aunt marion's camp, and i used to stare at it as a kid. it was not uncommon to be sitting in our lighted porch at night, only to hear a tapping at the window, weird growling, and upon looking out the window, to see the bear head bobbing up and down. walks down the path late at night were all the more treacherous for the fear that someone would sneak up on you with the goddamn bear head and scare the living shit out of you.

funny thing is, the real story of the bear is quite different. only a few of us know this (and now you do too), but great uncle ned didn't kill that bear. he found it dead, and he and my grandfather decided to tell a tall tale about it's demise (and their heroic part in it), and got it stuffed with a ferocious look on its face.

great uncle ned and john lesher (marion's husband) getting busted for poaching white tailed deer. i love how even the ranger is laughing.

during the winter, when the lake would freeze over completely, huge chunks of ice would be cut from the lake, and put in the ice house, a small wooden shack adjacent to the camp. the ice house was used as the cold storage during the summer. however, by the end of the summer, the ice would be almost completely gone and the meat would go bad, so the whole place reeked in august.


the bodwell family outfitted for hunting, on the kitchen steps of the camp. you can see great uncle ned and great aunt bea (with the white hair) sitting next to each other in the center. my grandfather is the handsome chap with the glasses and hat sitting behind aunt bea.

my father and helene would have sleepovers at her camp. my father's room was right below helene's, and near his ceiling (and near her floor) was a small hole in the wood. helene and dad would pass notes back and forth, tied to a string, and devise their master plans for sneaking out, catching bats, going fishing, and other mischief.

although i have many many many stories about my own family's camp and my experiences there as a child, my great aunt marion's camp was as integral to my experience in maine as our own. it was in the attic like upper story that my cousin jesse and i poured over the vintage oz books, reading them outloud to each other and enacting the stories in the forest. the camp was filled with games from the turn of the century, funny little wooden and metal contraptions that provided far more fun than the shitty plastic electronic crap in the 70s and 80s. i remember sitting by the fire on the braided rug that my aunt marion made, and watching my older cousin charlie sit in a rocking chair and demonstrate how to play spoons as an instrument.

blueberry pie. bull frogs. snapping turtles. learning how to swim. how to row. combing the front lawn for miniature, naturally growing strawberries. washing out the canoe. the northern lights. ghosts. ginger ice cream. fireflies. the underground wasp nest at the end of the path that you MUST avoid. checker berry leaves. going barefoot for weeks and practicing walking like a native american. feeding peanuts to the chipmunks out of your hand. dust and must and history. my father being 17 years older than my mom, his side of the family were already old. i had a sense that, at a time before i was born, things were different. things were better. maine was my own private narnia. my aunt marion's camp was the time machine.

my great aunt marion died at 99 years, on dec. 26, 1999. for years she had hung on, through senility, dementia, catatonia. the last few times i visited her with my family, i was the only one she recognized. grabbing me close with her claw like ancient hand, she peered into my face with blurry cataract eyes and said, "i KNOW you." at her memorial in the spring, a sky that had been clear only moments before, darkened and lightening lashed all around the small group of mourners, dissipating as soon as the service was over.




this past summer, helene announced that she would be selling my aunt marion's camp. she's old, helene, in her 80s. too old she says, to make the trip every summer, to paint the porch, to climb the creaky stairs to the bedroom. she wants to be able to leave money for her children. none of whom, to my own shock, want anything to do with keeping camp. this is unfathomable to me. i've never been anyplace as magical.

what was once unwanted land owned by textile mills is now intensely sought after vacation property. mostly by lawyers from boston. it will sell for over a million dollars.

it's a well known fact that once the camp is sold, it will be torn down so they can put up condos.

thanks for reading. happy holidays!