Home away from home

I’ve been going to Spearhead Lake as long as I can remember, or at least it seems that way.  I go there for summer camp and for family walks.  When I think of Spearhead Lake, I think of loons, painted turtles, frogs, mud, rain, cattails, red-winged blacked birds, wild grapes, old ash.  I remember one night canoeing in a thunderstorm.  It felt like we were the only two left in the world, Niki and I, and there was no stopping us.  We were part of the waves and the wind and the thunder.  There was no difference between us and the spray in our faces.  We were wild, wild, wild.  I felt like giving a wild cry, but it wasn’t a war cry, no!  It was a cry of joy.  Yes, I’m free!  I remember one time when Dan, the naturalist, showed us how to make whistles out of young poplar saplings.  He showed us how to cut a section of the tiny trunk and tap the bark very gently all around it.  Then he showed us how to cut a hole in the whistle in just the right place.  All this might be tricky, but the time you figure out if it really will work or not is sliding the bark off the wood inside.  If you had tapped the bark too hard, then the whole thing would crack.  But, if you tapped it too gently the cylinder of delicate bark wouldn’t come off at all.  I’ve been going to Spearhead Lake so long that it is part of me.

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