Lake Leander

I don’t really recall how we got to Minnesota when I was in fourth or fifth grade. Did we fly into Minneapolis? I’m pretty sure we didn’t drive from California. Perhaps we flew into Duluth. In any case, the destination and goal was to visit Martie and Dave. I think they flew us out there.

My eldest sister, Martie, and her husband had made the decision to leave the Bay Area and move to the town where David grew up – Mountain Iron, Minnesota. There, Dave joined his father and brother in running the family business, “Vidmar Iron Works.”

I really had no concept of Minnesota at all - didn’t know what to expect. When we finally got to Martie and Dave’s, I remember the first impression of the warm and fun-loving extended family. I had never been a part of a large, close-knit family before. I had met Ben, Louise, and David’s brother, Bobby, at the wedding. They were nice and friendly there. But in their own element, out at the lake, they were the hub of a great social network.

The Vidmar’s little cabin didn’t look at all as I had expected. I thought perhaps a log cabin or an A-frame ski hut – like at home in the redwoods. No, I had forgotten who built this place: engineers who ran an Iron Works. The cabin was blue corrugated metal on the outside – with greater emphasis on function than form. On the inside, it was peaceful and cozy. More like a small house than a cabin.

Everything was vintage 1950’s. Louise kept the kitchen and everything in it polished. Embroidered dishtowels were crisp and white unlike the gray, stained ones we had back home. Sparkling Formica countertops and wood cabinets graced the kitchen, the first room one saw when entering the cabin. Then, onto the living room and porch and a view of the gorgeous Northwoods lake - Lake Leander.

Dave’s mother, Louise, was quiet and sweet – her eyes sparkled as she welcomed and invited us in. Ben was outgoing and exuberant – warm and friendly. Bobby, very, very tall and lanky, smiled and echoed their welcome. But once inside or out on the porch, the quiet did not last long. Uncles, aunts, and cousins arrived and made themselves at home, too - all of them included us in the fun. Silly jokes and animated conversation dominated the scene – “A little bit different than California -hey Karie?” asked Ben.

We played cards and took boat tours of the lake. We watched some crazy relatives do trick water-skiing – even barefoot skiiing. Over the week, David taught me how to ski. (No, this was not the summer I lost my swimsuit top while skiing...that would come years later, when it would be more humilating.) Uncle Joe let me be his partner at the favorite card game, “Smear.” We took on my mom and Ben – and they all let me think I was really good. (I believe, years later, I actually did catch on.) “We’ll outsmart them – hey, Karie?” Uncle Joe would say with a wink. Then we’d do everything short of outright cheating to get the bid.

On a Sunday afternoon, David and others pulled out accordions and played wonderful polkas. Uncle Joe’s wife, Auntie Ann, would work wonders in the kitchen with Louise. My sister, Martie, surprised us by fitting right in and playing hostess along with the best. We ate delicious food which was unlike anything I’d tasted before – I remember loving Polish sausage and potica, a wonderful Slovenian pastry that is sort of half baklava and half cinnamon bread, made from scratch. There were other delicacies, too – pasties (hearty, bland meat tarts) and blueberry desserts of all kinds. Ben took me blueberry picking – I had never seen so many wild blueberries or mosquitoes before in my life.

Then David arranged for a real once-in-a-lifetime fishing trip for our family. Mom and Dad and I went with Martie, Dave, and a friend of Dave’s in a boat with an outboard motor way up into the boundary waters. I believe this was before so much of the area became non-motorized as the BWCA. I had no idea one could travel so far on water that was neither an ocean nor a river. The network of enormous, beautiful lakes was awe-inspiring. I was not too interested in the fishing, but the adventure of the trip is something I’ll never forget.

Huge crystal blue lakes, some with densely wooded shorelines, some with gorgeous rocky outcrops and ancient Native glyphs. I loved the portages with their hiking paths across little islands. We’d watch our big heavy boat as it was towed on a conveyor-like track from one side of the island to the other. It reminded me a bit of a Disneyland ride. But the wildlife here was real – deer, moose, and birds of all kinds.

Then we got to Lac La Croix and the wonderful resort. David kept telling my Dad that we would really be “roughing it” on this trip. Instead, though, we found that the fly-in, boat-in resort had every amenity. We bought Canadian goods in the gift shop and ate delicious meals in the restaurant. My dad and I bought matching berets and hooded sweat shirts.

The next day, our fishing guide took us out to the best fishing holes in the area and we caught our fill of walleye and northern pike. Other people baited my hook and removed the fish, but I caught a 21-inch northern and was shocked. I have never had as good a fish lunch as we had over a fire that day, prepared by our guide. Fresh walleye, lightly breaded, pan fried, and little white potatoes that had come out of a can, I remember it vividly. Mmmmmmm...tasty.

I had no qualms about eating the fish but at the end of the long day, my dad wanted a picture of me holding the stringer of fish. He was bursting with pride. Due to my recently-acquired, delicate sense of care for all creatures, I begged not to hold the cruel instrument of the fish’s destruction. He insisted. I think I still have the photo of me in my Canadian beret, holding the stringer and crying hysterically.

But I got over it. At the end of the trip, my only negative impression was from the hundreds of black fly bites I received all along my scalp and hairline. I scratched myself raw.

Back at Lake Leander, we had another night and then would return to California. I had had the time of my life. Waterskiing, polkas, card games, Polish sausage, potica, and unparalleled hospitality from beginning to end. It left a real impression. And more warm and caring adults than I had ever met in one place at one time. “You’ll come back and see us again – hey, Karie?”

You bet I did. Later, there would be nephews and more cousins than I could keep track of. There would be a new generation of cabin stewards and a lot more waterskiing, followed by the Sauna. We’d play cribbage and Smear until we couldn’t see straight. But the hospitality and the friendly welcome were and are still the same. I’m still going back to Lake Leander...I rarely miss a summer.

My mother's garden

On Mother's Day, when I was around 29 years old, I gave my mother a little children's book I'd written about working in the garden with her. I think she liked it. (Sorry, this is a long post...I got carried away.)

Chaos reigned in our home when I was growing up. Hampers overflowed, people were stressed (or, alternately, unnaturally relaxed), relationships were complicated. My mom was, let us say, adrift. She tried to find purpose and security in a home, in a relationship that was irretrievably flawed and insecure. As a parent, let us also say she was oblivious – to her children’s needs, to their gifts, to the affect her life’s craziness was having on us. All of that said, there was one place where all the turbulence subsided: our backyard.

My mom, as a minister’s wife, had never had her own home. She had lived in a series of parsonages – and just when she’d get settled, the bishop would tell them it was time again to move. My dad left the ministry not long after our eventful trip to the Holy Land, when I was about three years old. They bought a house for the first time in their nearly twenty years of marriage.

For Mom, it wasn’t so much the house itself as having a yard, a place to grow and nurture plants, that was exciting. Mother was not a great housekeeper or cook. Her mother had died when she was born, and her dad had raised her. He didn’t really help to foster her domestic skills, but he was a gifted gardener. My grandfather was not the best parent (to put it mildly). But it seems that working together in the garden was a good experience for her, as it was later for me.

Mother loved fuchsias, geraniums, and anything in a hanging basket. She was inspired by great hanging displays and beauty in various gardens – the Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park, the botanical gardens near Monterey and Fort Bragg. In the yard behind our little home, Mom was relaxed and grounded. She taught me at an early age the difference between the weeds and the plants, helping me memorize the names of each. We weeded together for hours - not talking, just working. Mom had a full-time job outside the home, so she was limited to weekends and evenings for this hobby – but she rarely missed an opportunity. She’d come home from work, make dinner, feed us; we’d wash the dishes, then head outside to the backyard.

Sometimes my dad would get it into his head to join in, but his garden projects never really panned out. One spring he dug up the whole side of the house to plant a vegetable garden. Within a month it was filled with weeds – and I’m not sure if we picked a single pea, bean, or tomato.

Gardening was different for my mom. It was a stabilizing force, a refuge. On hikes, she knew all the wildflowers and trees. In our yard, she knew the names of these, as well as the birds, the bugs, and their habits.

One project my mom and dad did complete together in the yard was the “lath house.” They built a raised bed garden in one corner of the yard and then added a structure – two walls and a roof made of lath. It was light and airy. The lath provided shade and a place for creeping vines to anchor and grow. It must have been something they found in Sunset Magazine. Anyway, my mom loved it as a place for her fuchsias and tuberous begonias. A few of the sunnier boxes held colorful geraniums. The shadier corners grew lush clumps of baby’s tears.

I learned how to dig peat moss into the hard, clay-filled soil, how to tell when things needed watering, and how to water them without doing damage. Sometimes, while my mother worked on an area, I would explore and play in the “woods.” One side of the yard had tall evergreens against the fence, beside them ran a little path of gardening stones, then some decorative bushes (mostly junipers) and large-leaved ivy. In the far corner beneath the tallest tree, was a wild, open area under the big tree’s canopy. I loved to play there and explore. When I heard stories of fairies or elves, I was certain that if they existed anywhere, they would exist in this corner of my backyard.

But there was one backyard gardening duty that I found difficult to tolerate. My mom and I would water the yard in the evening after we had weeded. Then we’d go inside for an hour of TV until the sun went down. After dark, my mom would grab a flashlight and a coffee can for each of us. Then we went out back, got down on our hands and knees, and searched (with flashlights) for snails and slugs. Ugh. There were hundreds.

Our watering seemed to force them out of hiding and to stimulate their urge to visit the leaves of Mom’s flowers. We could follow their shiny iridescent trails of slime to find their location. As I write, I can still smell the moist peat moss and geraniums, and I can feel the slight “pop” of suction as I pull each snail from its perch on a leaf. I can hear the “plunk” of dropping it in the coffee can (of course, as the can filled with snails, there was more of a thud than a plunk). One trick was opening and closing the lid quickly and as slightly as you could. The snails tended to crawl up and try to climb out each time the lid was opened. If you didn’t do it just right, things would squish. Just let your imagination fill in the blank. When I found a big slug, I often called my mom over to get it. She wore gloves and I didn’t.

On our flashlight expeditions, Mom would call me over when she came across “Mr. Toad” the big grandpa of all toads who left an impression where he slept. Neighborhood cats liked to follow us around the yard as we worked and sometimes scared us when their glowing eyes appeared within a bush.

But it must have been the same year that I gave up playing with the neighbor boys that I gave up the snail hunt. I remember going to bed and imagining the snails, now out in our garbage, sealed in their coffee-can world. I knew they were gasping for breath and would die slowly. I knew this because I had checked them in the morning and many were still alive, but some had expired. My mother initially tried to rid us of snails using poison pellets. It hadn’t worked. Then she tried squishing them with her shoe. That was just gross and left a big, messy residue. Hence, the coffee can solution. It was that or no flowers – and Mom couldn’t give up her flowers.

Working in the backyard with my mother is one of my favorite memories. It was her form of therapy, and years later, it would work for me, too. I am still an outstanding weeder and nothing can bring me back to my Self more quickly than digging in the dirt. I don’t miss the snails or slugs…and I’ll never be a fan of escargot. But the smell of moist earth after the rain still takes me back to a very special place – to working in the backyard with my mother.