Once More to the River

Sue Ellen Woodcock
April 3, 2008


I like E.B. White, or Elwyn Brooks White for those who like to be exact. Yes, he wrote cute children’s tales (Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little and Trumpet of the Swan). He penned essays that captured the heart of New York and Maine in an understated and humorous way. He makes you “feel” his essays. Prof. Taylor actually turned me on to him 20 some odd years ago in an undergrad non-fiction class. She asked us to pick out an essay we wished we had written and when I opened my E.B. White book I had folded in the corner of one essay. I had forgotten about it until I read him once more in the Norton Sampler. Twenty years apart and I had picked the same one. I would say that “Once More to the Lake” is one essay that hits home – for me he is talking about the St. Lawrence River. So here is my rendition. . . .

Once more to the River
There it is! There’s the old silo! That’s when I knew I had arrived. I turned the car down the road the same way my dad used to every August when we’d visit for a week; down a narrow and steep hill where you had to toot the horn to let others know you were coming, past the other camps on the river, then all the way to the end.
My car rocked and rolled into the yard just like the station wagon used to do. I sat in the car for awhile looking over the small two-story camp and the Air Stream trailer permanently jacked up on cinder blocks. My uncle had inherited all of this at Point Comfort but he didn’t keep it as neat as my grandparents did. I walked to the back door past the two-holer outhouse. I always wondered if two people ever did use it at the same time. For the most part it was used as a shed holding old life preservers, ropes and a few garden tools.
The screen door screeched as I opened it. Trying the knob on the main door I found it unlocked. This was a place where you could still do that. I looked around as I passed through the little kitchen and the living room. Everything was just one big L-shaped room. Right near the kitchen sink the water bucket still sat. You couldn’t drink the water from the river so you had to go get it from a spring. Many nights after dinner my brother or myself or both of us were sent. We made our way over some wooden boards that helped keep the path dry, up a sandy road and to the big round pipe sunk into the ground that held the water. I used to get the creeps sometimes going by myself. I used to think that Sasquatch (the latest rage of the 70s) was watching me in the woods. My mother always wondered how I got the water so quick.
Stopping at the heavy glass door to the screened-in porch I could see across the St. Lawrence River to Canada. Many times I had looked across the see the huge Laker ships carrying their cargo from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. The bed on the porch was still there reminding me of sleeping there summer nights, waking in the morning with the light dew on my face and my sleeping bag.
I looked up to the open loft above the living room remembering how we used to lay claim to one of three beds. My brother always getting the doubled bed that squeaked
with the slightest movement. I can picture him and his red hair moving up and down to purposely get the bed to make the most noise as possible. Sleeping in the loft was like camping out in the camp. We played flashlight games on the peak of the unfinished ceiling or we’d tell ghost stories, but mostly we would lay in bed in listen to the adults as they ate cheese and crackers and beer while they talked about whatever. Listening to them always felt like being let in on a secret that really wasn’t one.
Laying in bed in the loft during a storm you could hear and feel the rain. The window in the loft was propped open with a wooden block. In the mornings we could see a couple of chipmunks fussing about in the hollowed out tree by the camp. We’d see them mouth their little acorns and then we’d hear them scurry across the roof. Mothballs made sure they didn’t get in in the winter. I could barely notice the mothball smell. The camp smelled like itself; plywood, wooden matches to light the stove and damp bathing suits drying on the wooden kitchen chairs.
Now that I’m walking around in my memories I noticed a woodstove that had been added lately. The pile of Reader’s Digest hardcover editions weren’t in the corner anymore just a couple of fishing poles. There were always fishing poles and it was always the right time to go fishing.
I changed into a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt and headed for the dock. A flood of memories came back like bringing the oars to the rowboat or taking my grandfather’s hand to get into the motor boat. Every summer I fished everyday of my vacation only to catch cruddy “sunfish”. They had big red eyes and they weren’t for eating.
I cast off the dock and got the line out a good 50 feet. Slowly I reeled the line back in then I cast again but this time there was a little nibble. Of course it was one of those sunfish again and to top it off it swallowed the hook. With no one around to help me I had to get it out myself. I twisted and pulled a couple of times and it finally came out. Was this cruel to do to a fish? Some would say yes, but I would say I never thought much of thinking about it. I put the fish back in the water and it swam away.