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Dry
Learning One
glorious sunny day in July in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I went with my dad
on a shoreline hike from the Village of Fontana to my grandfather’s
cottage. I was seven and it
was a big deal for me to go along with him.
My mother thought I couldn’t make it. Even as she drove us to
Fontana in the vintage Chris Craft, she argued with my father, shouting
above the roar of the motor that I should ride back with her, which I
didn’t want to do. I
sat slumped in the stern feeling my small teeth knock together each time
Mom drove over the wake of other boats.
My knees were pressed together tightly to keep warm as the morning
air rushed past. I wore tiny
hiking boots that took me five minutes to lace, a small green cap and a JC
Penny shirt with horizontal stripes. Dad
sat forward keeping his eyes on the grass and trees of the shoreline where
we soon would be walking. He
resisted Mom’s arguments and I began smacking my lips anticipating a pop
from the William’s Bay pop machine that dispensed bottles for only
twenty cents. We
talked about pop as we began our walk across the Fontana Park lawn and
then continued on the dirt trail that passed a line of two story vacation
homes with their own grandpas and families inside, eating breakfast,
getting ready for another fun day on the water front. “Shall
we get grape or lemon-lime or a cola perhaps?”
Dad asked me. “I
like Sprite and 7-Up. Any
flavor that’s lemon-lime,” I answered. “Well,
grape might be good. I think
they may even have Grape Crush in the machine.
I just don’t want orange. Root beer would be good or how about a
cola?” “I
like Grape Crush. Let’s get
a Grape Crush when we get there,” I said, running a few steps to keep
pace with my dad. “When will we get there?” “In
an hour and a half, if we walk four miles an hour.
Longer, if we go slow or if we stop to rest.”
The route took us onto an estate with a massive white mansion on a
small hilltop directly above us, and I felt the sun for the first time as
we traveled across the endless lawn.
Sweat dripped from under my cap and I found myself yearning for the
hot canteen water my dad carried with him.
“Why do some people have houses that aren’t on the lake?” I
asked, “if they’re so close? Why don’t they live on the lake instead of where they
are?”
“Well…” my Dad said, beginning one of his long explanations.
“Some people have money and some people don’t have as much.
A house on the lake costs more money than a house somewhere
else.” And then he started
to talk about buying what you could afford, and some people not being able
to afford what they wanted, and it almost made sense to me. You
wouldn't buy a mansion, for instance, unless you were rich, but who
wouldn't buy a lake house if they wanted?
My grandpa had a house on the lake.
I would want one too if I were a grown-up. Dad kept talking. He talked
about houses his father who was my other grandpa had owned and he talked
about our house back in Phoenix. He
talked about mortgages and property taxes that pushed payments over two
hundred dollars. I was
thinking, "Grape. Grape
or root beer." Root Beer
reminded me of Straw Hat Pizza where we went as a family sometimes,
ordering a large pizza with Canadian bacon and a whole pitcher of root
beer because that's the flavor my big sister always wanted.
I wondered how root beer would taste from a bottle. "Why are there so many trees?" I interrupted, "if it's hot out and we’re not in the
mountains?" "Well…" Dad began, and went on to talk about latitude and how
on rare occasions you could see the northern lights from Wisconsin.
It all reminded me of camping, which also reminded me of drinking
pop. One time while we were
camped out at Whitehorse Lake, there were so many cans of Shasta that Mom
said we could drink as much as we wanted. I remember drinking a whole cola after finishing a
lemon-line. The steel can was
so hot it burned my lips, but I drank it down completely. My dad would have had a fit if I didn't drink it all. Our walk continued, and we sat on the ground beneath the drooping
branches of an old willow to polish off what was left in the canteen. "How far to Williams Bay?"
I asked. "This is the bay right here," he said pointing at the cool
green water beside the tree. "The
town is only a third of a mile from here.
Grandpa's house is only two miles beyond that."
When the town came into view, my muscles found new resources of strength,
and the sweat that trickled down my chin was no longer a problem for me. "Slow down," laughed Dad jogging after me. We walked past the small business district on our left and continued
along the lakeshore to the old bait shop next to the municipal pier.
Dad's favorite pop machine sat in front.
The refrigerator motor inside was humming loudly blasting the
bottles with icy cold air. "Pepsi-Cola," was emblazoned on the machine's front panel in
red, white and blue cursive letters.
The right side of the machine was a narrow rectangular window as
tall as the machine itself with hinges so tight, it only opened for me
after I used both hands and all of my seven-year-old strength. The tops of ten different bottles were visible inside, each selection
stacked vertically above another. The
top three were all Pepsi. Teem,
Hire's, Orange Crush, Grape Crush, 7-Up, Squirt and Dr Pepper followed.
I ran my little fingers over the cold metal caps and even tried to
yank out a bottle before Dad could insert two dimes. "Just a second," Dad said reaching into his pocket.
Then, something caught his eye. "Wait!"
He said sharply. I let
go of the pop machine window and it slammed shut on all the bottles.
"Twenty-five cents!"
He exclaimed. "I
just can't believe it! They
raised the price!" "Come on. Come
on," he said, but I just stood there with eyes transfixed on my pop
through the window. Dad kept
moving away and calling with impatience. So I followed him, in silence. by
Garrett Quentin Smith
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