World's All Right When You're Up to Camp in Maine

Spent the weekend up to Dot and Tommy’s camp on Moose Megantic Lake. It was just Dot and Tommy, of course, Charlie and me, and Shirley and Junior. Rita had to work down to Smitty’s hardware. She runs the store with her husband, Smitty. Betty and Pat were off golfing in Bethel, I think. And Celeste and Bud were visiting their grandkids in Veazie.

So, since it was just the three couples, we did an overnighter. It’s nice to get away, though I did miss our little dog, Scamp. Too many people to have him under foot, so he went to stay with my sister, Irene. She’s great with him, and Scamp comes back even more spoiled than when we dropped him off (hard to imagine, I know)!

Charlie just loves Dot and Tommy’s camp. For one thing, he gets to visit his old barcalounger. Dot bought it a few years back at our yard sale. The only way I could get rid of that thing was to promise Charlie it would go to a good home. And it did.

Oh, is he ever glad to see it! We arrive, Tommy hands him a Bud, and Charlie bee-lines it for his old recliner. He settles in to that mangy upholstery like it was some long, lost pal, and nothing short of fishing or the dinner bell will get him up again.

So, what did we do up to camp? Nothing that breaks a sweat, I’ll tell you! Oh, the boys did some fishing: catch and release. Us girls love it because it gets them out of our hair. Plus, we don’t have to clean and fry up the fish.

We did a little cooking, of course, but mostly we just sat around and talked. There’s a killer view of the lake from the screened-in porch. Better than TV! Dot and I love to rock on the squeaky old glider loveseat. We rock at the same speed, which is probably a little faster than some people would like. Shirley goes, “You two think that glider is some kind of amusement park ride? I’m not sitting in that thing with either of you. You rock so fast, it makes me seasick!”

Dot and Tommy’s camp is just plumb chucka full of old furniture and tacky knick-knacks that have somehow accumulated over the years. Dot bought the camp from her parents when it got too much for them. She hasn’t changed it a lot because her parents still get up to camp a couple times a month during the summer. She wants them to feel at home with their stuff.

Every time we go up there, I discover some new treasure. I’m sitting at the table Saturday noon, when I see something brown and lumpy on top of the fridge. “Dottie,” I says. “What the hell is that?”

She takes the treasure down from it’s perch. “What does it look like?”

I study it hard. “I don’t know. A big ceramic baked potato?”

“Got it in one!”

“That’s one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.” Shirley chimes in.

“Wait!” Dot goes. “There’s a matching one in the cabinet, only bigger!”

“Serving bowls, right?” I ask, lifting the lid.

“Yup. But I’ve never had the stomach to use ‘em.”

Shirley goes, “So why don’t you just get rid of them?”

“Believe me, the minute my mother goes, they go. I’ve tried to break it dropping it on the floor, you know, “accidentally,” but it’s not only ugly, it’s indestructible.”

The other thing that got us going were these two ceramic animals hanging on the wall in the stairway up to the second floor. They kind of look like squirrels, but have buck teeth, so they could be beavers. It’s hard to tell. “What are these things, Dottie?”

Dot told us that when her nephew Bobby was there, he dubbed them “squeavers.” He fancies himself a singer/song writer (when he’s not working down to Home Depot), and he come up with a limerick about them I copied down to share with you folks:

Have you heard of the North Country Squeaver?

He looks like an underachiever

His tail kind of curls

Like that of a squirrel

And his buck teeth are big as a beaver!

“Bobby shouldn’t quit his day job,” Tommy quipped. God, we have some laughs!

My favorite thing about camp, I think, is falling asleep to the loons. It’s a lonesome sound, but comforting, too: a far away melody behind the rumble of my friends snoring. Then it’s morning with coffee brewing and bacon sizzling. Eating breakfast out on the screened-in porch, looking at the lake, smooth as glass. Seeing Charlie relaxed, all of us talking and laughing, and feeling like right here on Moose Megantic Lake, right now, the world is doing fine.

That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!

(Listen to the podcast of Ida's column here [2].)