How Can That Be ???

 

As we drove down the bumpy dirt road into Jacob Buck pond there was a sense of nervousness in both of us.

Would it still be there?  How had it changed?

 Did they build a bigger place?  Did they tear it down ?

The anticipation was growing with every bump we took and every turn we made. What would we find??

It had been well over 30 years since we were last here and 30 years is a LONG time!

Where is “here “you ask?

 

Here is the first “home” Lisa and I ever purchased. The first thing we ever bought together as a married couple. We had been married less than a year when I found this gem! (well at least to me anyway)

It was a one room camp on the shore of Jacob Buck pond in Bucksport. We were living and working in Bangor at the time, so the drive wasn’t too bad.

 Although it had electricity, it had NO running water. That’s right, you read that right, NO running water. 

We had an outhouse in the back. It was an old telephone booth placed over a hole in the ground with a seat built at the perfect height.

There was no door on our little outhouse. Nope didn’t need one.  There was no one around and it faced into the woods, so you had plenty to look at while you……...uuummm  waited !!  Sounds lovely doesn’t it?

After purchasing the camp, me moved right in. Spring of 1985.

  It wasn’t long before we realized we needed a little more space. Now keep in mind at that time we were still newlyweds, so we didn’t mind being close and cozy, BUT one room wasn’t cutting it!

So, I built an addition and we added a bedroom to our mansion.  The addition wasn’t much bigger than our bed, but it did open the rest of our camp for general living.

We added better windows, a refrigerator and put in a sink drain that lead to a leech pit for the sink water. Which by the way had to be carried in.

It was only a summer place, on a summer road, with no insulation, no heat and at that time we had no plans of where we would spend the winter. Winter seemed a long way away.

We would spend the summer together enjoying our new “home” (I know some of you question my choice of words here) and making a lifetime of memories.

We worked all summer making it ours.  Fixing up this, painting that, all with the pride a newly married couple does having bought their first place.

We added a ring of rocks in front of the camp to make a small place to enjoy an evening fire. We had many fires around those rocks as the summer pressed on.

Baths were taken in the pond since there was no running water at the camp.

The lake was clean and clear and being young we didn’t mind at all. Well, until fall set in that is. Then baths became much quicker!

Lisa’s last “bath” in the lake was November 12th. She stepped through a little bit of thin ice along the shore to get to the deeper water so she could wash up before bed. Looking back now, I should have realized then, just how special she was!

It was truly a summer to remember. A summer full of memories, adventures, but mostly, just being together as we started our new life.

We left that fall and never went back. Life pulled us in a different direction as life often does, and we sold the camp without every going back to say goodbye.

Fast forward 30 years and we are bumping down the, all to familiar road, heading in to see what remains of our first “home”.

As we round the corner to where our little camp sat it came into view.

We both went silent as we parked in the small driveway we had built all those years ago.

There was an eerie feeling for both of us, a feeling of being thrust back in time.

How can this be? I said with half shock and half disbelief.

Nothing has changed!  Lisa replied quickly as she opened her door to get out. 

Although a different color paint was on the camp, everything was as we left it over 30 years ago.  The addition was still there and being used as a bedroom. The streetlight I put up still lighting the way into the camp.

  Even the fire pit was as we left it. The same rocks I used to build it over 30 years ago still forming a circle and still being used to light up the night for whomever now sits around it.

We looked in the windows. Still no insulation!  Everything inside looked just as we remembered.

As we walked around looking at the place, astonished at how this could be possible, lisa stopped and said “outhouse”?  We both turned and headed for the back where our phone booth once stood.

Sadly, the phone booth was gone, and the replacement building had a door.  Not sure THAT would be the change I’d have made but hey!

 

I can’t explain the feelings that day. The flood of memories that came back to us and the laughter we shared as we made our way down memory lane, recalling that summer by the lake. Our first summer together!

I have decided that I will never go back. I will never again venture down the dirt road anticipating what awaits.

No, I will carry with me to my end, the memory of my first little “home”. Both the memories we made the first time around and the joy we found revisiting over 30 years later.

No, I don’t want to know if anything changes now.  I’ll just keep these memories of my first little camp where lisa and I spent a long summer together by the lake.  Combined with the memories of our visit 30 years later where “we” seemed to have changed more than our camp and our memories did.

No, it will always remain exactly like I remember.