John Pepin

“I remember to this day, the bright red George clay and how it stuck to the tires after the summer rain. Willpower made that old car go, a woman’s mind told me that it’s so. Oh, how I wish we were back on the road again,” – Lobo

In this spot on the map there’s a lake I knew well from my childhood, though it is hardly recognizable today.

There’s a little hill that rises over the shoreline where there used to be a campsite, one of about a half dozen that were located here, along with a couple of picnic tables, fire rings, pit toilets and a gravel boat launch.

We used to stop here as a family for picnics while on rides in the woods to look for animals, pick berries or apples and just be outside in the fresh air of the natural world.

The picnic table we liked was just a little way up the hill away from the boat launch.

My mom and dad could sit and relax at the picnic table, while keeping an eye on us four kids. We loved to play around, wading in the shallow water.

My brother and I would catch some of the dozens of leopard frogs lurking between the shoots of bright green lake grasses and blooming lily pads.

Leeches would sometimes attach themselves to our legs and my dad would make them release from our skin by putting a flame from a cigarette lighter near them. As might be expected, my two younger sisters hated those leeches.

My brother and I went out to the lake a couple of years ago. The woods around the lake had recently been logged, which completely changed the character of the location.

He didn’t recall much from the place, but he’s four years younger than me and I was probably nine or 10 in those old picnic days.

Except for enough of the gravel boat launch to be sufficient, the rest of the campsite amenities had all been removed years ago. One thing that has never changed is that the two-track road, at its point nearest the lake, has always been bad, with deep mud holes to get through.

We never fished here, never camped here, never boated, but nonetheless, the memories from those simple picnics we had decades ago remain well ingrained in my mind and held tightly in my heart.

I started thinking about all this after finding one of our old family can openers in a kitchen drawer at home. It has one rounded end for opening bottles, and the other end has a V-shaped punch for opening cans.

We used the pointed end for opening Hi-C cans, which was a favorite drink in those old kid days. Prime flavors included “Pineapple Grapefruit Drink,” Citrus Cooler, “Orange Drink” and “Florida Punch.”

We often filled up our trusty Tartan picnic jug with Hi-C. The jug was insulated to keep our drinks cold. It had a slide out spout. It was cool. The jug was brown with a yellow top and Tartan-style black-red-and-yellow plaid on the body of it.

There was also a caricature of a bagpiper pictured on the jug.

We ate off paper plates with plastic forks, spoons and knives and we drank from paper cups. We carried all our stuff in a picnic basket my mom had gotten from my grandma’s house.

Good bets for the rest of our picnic lunches would have been hot dogs or bologna sandwiches on white bread with Miracle Whip, Pik-Nik shoestring potato sticks, Bugles or some sour cream-and-onion, barbecue or onion-and-garlic potato chips.

We traveled the two-tracks in a Chevy Impala station wagon in those days.

The AM radio was king, broadcasting all kinds of cool music from assorted styles. So many of the songs that are classics today I heard for the first time cruising the woods roads with my parents in their station wagon.

I am always struck by the power of simple objects to produce treasured memories.

Some of the other items I have that possess this power include my dad’s aluminum worm can that fits on my hip and is held in place by a belt, some of his work hand tools he used in remodeling our house and old 45-rpm records me or my folks had when I was a kid.

This old lakeside overlook doesn’t hold much charm anymore – at least not in its current condition. Out there, past the timber slash, the rest of the woods are still wild though.

The lake itself doesn’t appear to have changed hardly at all. There are still leopard frogs, water lilies and, I suppose, the leeches.

This place remains a fantastic place to stargaze or watch a meteor shower. There are no visible lights around to spoil the view.

Fireflies returned last week to the nighttime skies, along with thunder and lightning in recent days – plenty to enjoy in that regard.

The woods here seem to be happy with the rain we finally got. Everything in sight seems to be at maximum green. It seems like late May to me, more than mid-June. I think we struggled longer than usual to get past wintertime.

However, I’ve noticed that the morning choruses of birds have already decreased appreciably. That occurrence lines up with mid-June.

I walk the road here at the lake that goes in a circle past the used-to-be rustic campsites. People still sometimes drive truck campers into the spots here or put up tents for dispersed camping on this state-managed land.

I notice that a lot of the shrubs and bushes that grew low along the lakeshore are now up much higher than I remember. The trees closest to the lake were not cut down. Their branches hang obscuring the view of the sunshine reflecting off the water out there.

I can still feel the old energy in this place that reminds me it is special, regardless of the changes that have taken place here.

It’s a soft and tender feeling that creates a warm spot in the middle of my chest. I also feel a bit emotional just being here. I also smile and even laugh thinking back on those times.

I kick the mud off the heels of my boots and sit on a stump to take in the scene a while longer. I am happy there’s no one else here. The peace and isolation at this place is superb.

A cottontail rabbit hops out to the edge of the road down where the mudholes are. It’s gone when I look back a moment or two later.

It’s soothing to just sit and stop everything.

I watch several Eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies land around a puddle in the road. They fly up in groups of two or three and then float back down to the mud again. They are beautiful creatures.

Closing my eyes, all I hear is a chestnut-sided warbler, a red-eyed vireo and a blue jay. The warbler sings intermittently. The jay scolds while the vireo keeps asking, “See me? Here I am.”

There is no wind. There are wildflowers and the air smells sweet and clean.

After a nice soak in the atmosphere, I decided to stand myself up and finish my walk around the road loop.

I end up here at the lake again. I took a couple of pictures of the water. It’s a big, blue-sky day today. Puffy cumulus clouds float past lazily, like they have no place to be anytime soon.

I slowly push and pull my Jeep through the mud holes. It rocks side to side. I roll up the incline on the opposite side. I point the vehicle in the direction of the main road.

I open another can of ice-cold pop from my cooler, and I switch the radio on softly. It’s satellite radio these days, with no commercials and reception just about anywhere. I find some of those same old tunes to listen to.

I roll down the front-seat windows, and I take my time getting back.

I think about what I’ve just experienced.

It gives me a brief chill to realize that both of my mom and dad are now dead and gone. It’s a strange feeling to have. I never thought I would feel like this. It makes me feel more pressure than I would have expected.

Now, for the first time, I don’t have any parents left to ask about life or to tell me about those old times, in the days when I was too young to remember.

The Jeep shifts to the front right as the wheel drops into another mud hole.

I pull the wheel back to the left.

The Jeep rocks side-to-side again.

I keep moving.

John Pepin is the deputy public information officer for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula. Send correspondence to pepinj@michigan.gov or 1990 U.S. 41 South, Marquette, Mich., 49855.