Proving Ground by Alicia V.
Living in the Adirondack Mountains in New York state can be beautiful, but it is not without its perils. For the uniformed it can be downright dangerous. The year rounders are a hearty bunch that not only enjoy the merits of the beautiful surroundings and use of the many lakes in the summer but endure a long and brutal winter. Over the years many books have been written about those brave souls that live alone in the wood fending for themselves. Anne La Bastille, a prolific writer and environmentalist, wrote the book “Woodswoman” to tell of her life in the park during the 1960s and 1970s.
In August of 2001, after years of talking about buying a camp, (that’s what they call rustic homes in the Adk’s) we purchased one on a quiet lake in the south-central part of the park. I remember the date because September 11th happened shortly thereafter, and my husband said that if all hell broke loose the family would head for the hills. Thankfully that didn’t need to happen.
After a year of cleaning up the place I was keen to share our serenely tranquil summer home with my sisters. My sister, Gerri, was to visit us that summer from her home in Texas and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for all the girls to have an adventure at camp for the weekend. The trip coincided with me dropping our daughter off at a girls’ sleep away camp about an hour south where she would join girls from our church. After leaving the sleep away camp, we had a nice satisfying lunch and went to some shops (isn’t that what all women do when they get together?)
At this point I need to explain the logistics of getting to our camp. It’s not for the faint of heart or for anyone who has any difficulty climbing stairs-lots of stairs. Getting off the main highway you travel on a private road that is flat initially then keeps going down, down, down. Once you come upon our property you descend down a very steep driveway that if you lost your brakes, you’d be a goner. After parking the car, you start the process of unloading your gear. In the case of four women there is bound to be more than you’d need for a month away. Three of those women were oblivious as to how far we’d have to drag this crap which included an overabundance of snacks. Did I say that we girls are “sturdy” woman, some more than others, as Gram B (I’m her namesake) used to say. Perhaps there was fear there could be a famine while we were away. Upon leaving the car you travel down two sets of stairs to the camp. If you choose to go down to the dock, there are another three sets of stairs to negotiate. I thought they would pass out if I mentioned that before we unpacked in the house.
Anyway, we got all settled and I thought it would be nice to give them the full experience of life on the lake by taking a little canoe trip. Being the only one who knew which end of the canoe goes in the front is putting it mildly. Gerri opted to stay on the dock to catch up on her smoking as she was denied that right for the majority of the 5-hour car trip. I picked our largest canoe which has been in my husband’s family since he was a boy when they summered in the Adirondacks (coincidentally on the same lake as Anne La Bastille). We were able to get one sister in the front and the other sister in the middle safely and then I got in the back so I could steer and likely be the sole paddler. What was I thinking? I’d never been the sole paddler let alone with two sturdy women onboard. My sister, Lorraine, in the middle, decided that she needed to scoot over a little so she was dead center. With that the canoe flipped. I was faced with a horrible decision - do I save the family canoe or my sisters. Being that they were better swimmers that I was and I really didn’t want to explain to my husband how a childhood treasure was now lost, I opted to hold on to the dock ring with one hand and slip my other arm through the rail on the canoe so it wouldn’t float away. Again, what stratosphere was I operating in that I thought this plan was feasible. Blame it on the mountain air. We survived that adventure.
Not to be deterred, I was going to give them another taste of the Adirondacks with a dip into the cool waters off the dock. The former owner was a pool installer and had used pool type ladders so you could lower yourself in if you chose not to cannonball it in. It’s twenty feet down off the dock so diving is ok. The ladders curl like a candy cane with the curled ends fitting into couplers on each side screwed into the dock. Lorraine, the Esther Williams of our family, wanted to go in first. As she proceeded to lower herself down the ladder, the curly part came up out of the coupler and off she flew ladder and all into the water. Poor thing thought the whole dock was flipping up and was going to land on her. I grabbed the ladder and leaned on each side of the railing to hold it into the couplers while she tried to climb up. Did I say that some of us girls are sturdier than others? Off she flew with the ladder again and I almost went into the drink. Ok, let us put our thinking caps on now, girls. My sister Gerri and I leaned on either side of the railing and Lulu (an affectionate name we gave her in her later years) was able to make it out.
Call me an idealistic stubborn fool but I was determined that we WERE going to have a successful Adirondack experience. There is another way into the water from the other side of the camp. After descending a long set of steps there is a concrete platform that literally has steps going right into the water. How could we fail? We grabbed four large tubes that resembled the truck inner tubes we used as kids and off we went. Everything was going swimmingly when Kathy yelled out that she had fallen through the hole in her tube. How does that happen? I got myself to the shore, grabbed the lifesaving ring, threw it to her and pulled her in. Lulu managed to grab Kathy’s tube. You cannot make this stuff up. I was looking for Allen Funt and his camera crew.
Needless to say, we gave up after that and decided to just relax and have dinner. We dined on jellybeans and red licorice Twizzlers and had a lot of laughs, but the final blow was yet to come. On the morning we were to leave, Kathy, Gerri and I were having breakfast when Lorraine came wandering out of the bedroom in her nightgown saying “What were you guys dead last night? Didn’t you hear me calling you for help?” Admittedly we were probably in a sugar coma from what we had consumed for dinner. We all answered that we had not heard her plea during the night. She said “I got up to use the bathroom, fell down and couldn’t get up. It was just like that commercial “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” She said,” When I fell I hit my bum on the corner of the propane heater on the wall. I’m sure I have a bruise. Can you look?
Before we could all yell in unison “No thank you, please” she hiked up her nightgown and pulled down her drawers to reveal a cottage cheese bum with a big black and blue bruise. We nearly lost our breakfast.
By the end of the weekend, I realized that I was more of a woodswoman than I gave myself credit for and that I could survive the perils of the Adirondacks. Somewhere, hovering over the lake, is the spirit of Anne La Bastille smiling down on me because at least I tried.
