About Huck

Huck

Liked his small cup of coffee with milk and two spoonfuls of sugar.

Liked well-done, dark brown Finn bread with his coffee; this was his last meal.

Had a quick wit and a measured pace.

Sang old sweet songs like “Moonlight Bay” to me when he took me sailing.

Played a Swedish polka tape loudly on his car radio.

Gave us great stories well-told.

Drove miles to find the right board at the right price.

Got along well with his neighbors.

Kept a neat yard and tidy house.

Liked to sleep with the window open at his head.

Believed that many problems were best solved by pondering.

Was a key character at Queen Lake, according to author Carole Gariepy.

Grieved when he had to sell his last sailboat, but he wouldn’t sell it to us.

Had sauna with Ted Fornas, his childhood friend, every other Sunday, or so.

Missed his friends who’d died like Arne Riutta and Ben Stuckey.

Counted on his remaining friends including Elden, Willy, Jimmy, and Bobby.

• Elden Bjurling, half Finn, lives at Queen Lake, has a plumbing supply store, and funeral parlor (the body shop)
• Willy Virta, a Finn, helped with Huck’s projects, was the son of a preacher.
• Jimmy Flanagan with the big family was a fellow welder.
• Bobby Nadeau with the good wife, was also a welder.

Was a high-bar gymnast.

Rode the rails across the country for adventure and work.

Was a Merchant Marine in WWII who sailed to Santos, Brazil, for coffee.

Built the camp at Queen Lake and the house at 218 Ellis Road.

Ran a welding school and business for awhile in the garage.

Liked pretty women.

Divorced Thelmama after 20 years.

Was a responsible oldest son, who cared for his parents next door ‘til their deaths.

Gave a sentimental birthday card to Karl each year, with money matching his age.

Played semi-pro football with the Gardner Merchants.

Was born in Milford NH where his father worked in the quarries.

Could sail, as his friend, Don Wilson said, with no wind.

Died quietly, in his sleep, at home in front of a low fire in the wood stove.

Put his chewing gum on top of his hat when he was eating.

Believed that admiring your work was the finishing step of any project.

Was frugal with money and emotion, and left us with lots of both.

Loved us, his family.

2007

We made a board.

For the last 30 years, the rain has been flowing off the roof and hitting this particular board on the front deck. (Before that, the deck was much smaller, so there was no board to be hit by falling water.) The board was about to let go. So, with great resolve and greater trepidation, we set about to fix the deck.

You have to understand that, when carpentry genes were being handed out, I was at the other end of the store, reading comic books. I took shop in junior high school because I had to. All that's left from those two years of learning is a small, pitiable book stand that sits on a shelf at the camp.

In the boathouse, we found enough to get us started. There was a length of 2x6 pressure-treated wood on the rack. We didn't have a Skil^® saw, so we had to choose between a Sawzalls^® and my grandfather's table saw. The table saw won because we believed we had a better chance to cut a straight line with it. Even though the blade wasn't quite right, so we couldn't cut through the 2" on one pass, Sandra got us to a board that was the proper length, width, and depth.

Removing an old, rotten board ought to be easy, eh? It probably would be if we had the right tools. We had a crow bar that was too big and a hammer that was too small. The hammer broke on the third nail. The crow bar was unwieldy, particularly on the nails that had rusted and snapped off at the head. With persistence and a pair of locking pliers, we removed the board and nails.

We thought that screws would be better than nails. Sandra pre-drilled the holes and we used the screwdriver attachment on the drill to drive in the screws. Two stripped screw heads later, we agreed that nails were just fine. I used the butt end of a hatchet to drive the nails flush with the surface.

It took just about an hour and now we have a new board, along with a continuing happy marriage and all of our fingers and toes,
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With apologies to Dave Barry's classic, "How to make a board."

By canoe

While Sandra and I were having breakfast this morning, we watched a woman gracefully paddle her wooden canoe along the shoreline of the cove. She was accompanied by a black Lab who sat quietly in the front.

The last time we took Marley, our Lab, in the canoe was in the fall several years ago. We were just getting out of the cove when he noticed something of great interest in the woods. He lurched to the starboard side and tipped the canoe, tossing us into the chilly water. The canoe righted itself with Marley aboard. Fortunately, we were just a short distance from shore.

If you're ever diving along the north tip of the cove and find a pair of glasses, they're probably mine.

Marley stays in the camp now when we go out in the canoe.

The berries are in

Roadside farm stands began offering blueberries and raspberries this week. The blueberries are good, but are tart from their fast growth; the skins are tough. Our wild berries near the boathouse and along the road are still a week or two away.

Raspberries, when fresh, are always good. They' at their best at room temperature.
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Sometimes, the light of the lake comes to us.

This time of year, the afternoon and evening sun is reflected off of the water and onto the ceiling in the camp. First, the shimmering brightens the porch and, later, the main room of the camp, as though the Northern Lights had settled inside. We have a light breeze. The air is dry and fresh. We can see forever.
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Oh, say can you see...

Let's raise a cheer for the folks who set off a four-minute fireworks display 20 minutes before sunset.

Over the horizon (G'bye, Huck)

On Monday, 15 January, my father passed away in his sleep, by the fire in the wood stove in his living room. Huck was 93. An ice storm had come through on Monday, leaving us without power for 12 hours. What work we had to do, we did by the light of flashlights, candles, and kerosene lamp.

He left as he lived. His last meal was a half cup of coffee and bit of Finnish coffee bread, kahvi leipa, that grandson Adam had made. His family and friends came to visit and to share stories of a remarkable life.

Huck loved sailing and sailed until he was 90. If you're clever, and he was, you can use the strength of the wind to go where you want to go. Many times, when we were sure that there was no wind at all, he kept the boat moving and made it safely to shore.

And so it was, when it was dark and quiet, he sailed on home.

9/11 and the cove

Planes from the west parallel Route 2 on their approach to Boston's Logan Airport. After sauna we sit on the bench by the shore and watch the planes as they travel diagonally over the lake.

On September 15^th 2001 we sat on the bench underneath a quiet and dark sky. Boston's Logan Airport was closed to commercial traffice. We saw just one plane on the far northern horizon, heading toward Manchester, New Hampshire.

An acorn in the room

Fall is coming. The swamp maples and some of the blueberry bushes are already bright red There are yellows and oranges on other maples, oaks, and birches around the woods. The acorn that I found on the floor in the porch room shows that the little critters making ready for the coming cold. They're clever and persistent, making us don our Elmer Fudd hats as we look for the places where they've set up their stores.

We have had a summer of cool and rainy. The lake is quiet this holiday weekend. The cool air is producing fog as it drifts across the relatively warmer waters. No one would accused the water of being warm, however. On Saturday night's sauna, it took an extra jump of courage to dive into the water.

I slept in the loft when I was a kid, as we do now. Back then, you could hear the rain on the roof, a fine sound. About 30 years ago, my father insulated the ceiling to make the camp more comfortable in the cooler weather. The insulation works which well, but at the expense of the sound of the rain.

A rainy day is a good time to catch up on reading. In addition to the stack of magazines, we bought the two local papers -- the Gardner News and the Athol Daily News. Both do a pretty good job of providing news. Overall, I give the edge to the Athol paper. It provides more in-depth coverage of local news, diminished only by running five-year-old Dear Abby columns on the editorial page.

What's on the lake

We went for a canoe ride this morning, hoping to visit with someone the other side. We saw her drive away as we neared her camp.

We didn't take it personally, contining with our ride, talking with folks along the shore as we went. One of the people, on the main part of the lake, said that he's seen a loon on his dock a short while before. None of us had seen a loon on this lake before.

The wind at your back is never as strong as the wind you paddle into.

We found that the dam was pluggeg up by a tarp that had floated in. We weren't able to get it into the canoe, so we dragged it to the shore of one of the dam inspectors.

The lilypads cover wide swaths of our boathouse area, but the milfoil is the most invasive. We'll get into the water soon and pull the evil stuff.

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Sauna night

On Saturday night I started the fire in the sauna stove right after we finished our supper. The kindling that I picked up in the woods on my way to the sauna was still wet, so the fire started slowly and was very smoky. The wind had calmed. The smoke rose straight up for 20 feet and then bent toward the lake, finally settling low over the water in the cover.

The kingfisher continues makes its rounds, even as darkness settles, mingling with the brown birds grazing among the mosquitoes. The kingfisher is a noisy fellow. In years past, he would follow us as we paddled our canoe around the lake.

We waited until the sun was down before having our sauna. The lake, however, was unexpectedly active. As we slipped quietly into the water, we were surprised by a kayaker gliding along, not four feet from our float. Further out in the lake, there were boats filled with people of good cheer. Across the lake, some campers set off fireworks, belatedly acknowledging independence day.

The water was cool for this time of year, but when you've some from a room that is between 180 and 220F, it felt right. The hottest sauna that I've had topped out at 230. It was, um, hot. At the other end of the dial, we've also been swimming through the ice after sauna. On New Year's Eve, 1999, I cut a hole in the ice, then about 6-8" thick, and we had ourselves a bracing dip. The lake was quiet. There were just a couple lights visible.

When I was growing up, Saturday night was sauna night. Company would arrive in the late afternoon. We'd have food, including the beet and herring salad that my mother called Silli Salad, silli being the Finnish word for herring. The sauna would be ready by seven or so. People would go off to sauna in twos (married couples) or more (all men, all women, or kids). The last sauna would be finished by 11:00.

Blueberries are in

Although the berries were starting to ripen several weeks ago, this is the first time the blue berries outnumbered the green ones.

We have a cluster of blueberry bushes near the boat house and more along the road. Áll are high bushes that didn't fare well in the deep cold of previous winters. This past winter was mild and the crop is good.

We have more bushes along the water's edge, accessible only by boat or by swimming. The rocks underwater are old friends - the one at the end of the dock, the even-bigger one where the old dock used to be. Lots of smaller ones that could scrape a boat or stub a toes if you don't know to expext them.

But, even the experienced can be surprised. When we for a moring swim today, I tripped over a log that had some during the off-season and settled below the surface in the corner of the cove.

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Welcome

This is the first in a series of occasional notes about life at Queen Lake.