Lake Johanna.

 

Mothers are wonderful creatures – whether they’re from Idaho, California, or Minnesota.  

Mothers, like my mother, mostly tended to their homes and family.  My mother didn’t even drive – she depended on my father to take her places that she couldn’t reach by bus or by walking.  She did not attend to the affairs of state, and didn’t like the limelight one little bit. She considered herself demure; a virtue she had been taught by her own mother.  This type of American homemaker may be a dying breed, an anachronism, but lemme tell ya, they could still play Old Harry with the Powers That Be when they wanted to!

On summer weekends it was the practice of the Torkildson tribe to drive to Lake Johanna, twenty miles distant, for a day of picnicking and swimming.  It’s no Coney Island, but it was plenty good enough for us.  My dad always found a nice, shady tree to set up his folding lounge chair under and snooze away the hours, awaking only long enough to pour a Hamm’s beer down his throat before sinking back as if he’d been shot.  My mother worshipped the sun; she slathered on the coconut oil and broiled happily on a blanket on the beach.  We kids, of course, turned into naiads and manatees, splashing and floating in our native element, refusing to come out even for lunch.

There was a whitewashed wooden pylon set up for the lifeguard on the public beach at Lake Johanna.  He, or she, wielded a large tin whistle, frequently tootling on it to gain the attention of some freshwater malefactor who was swimming outside the roped off area or otherwise acting the maritime scofflaw.  The year I turned eight Ramsey County decided not to stock the pylon with lifeguards anymore, no doubt as an economy measure, and neglected to inform patrons of the public beach, outside of a teeny weeny sign, the size of a flyer, that was tacked briefly onto the whitewashed wooden pylon, and fluttered away in the breeze soon after being posted.

That was the year I decided I could swim out to the wooden platform anchored in about twenty feet of water – and nearly drowned in the attempt.  Luckily, there were some adult swimmers nearby; they hauled me back on shore, vomiting water like a disgruntled geyser, and turned me over to my mother – who was incensed to suddenly learn there was no longer any lifeguard on duty.  Ever.  

Her fury at this perceived dereliction of the Ramsey County Park Board’s duty was grim and determined.  After making sure I was reasonably responsive, she clouted me on the ear for being such a dumming and strode over to the concessions shack, where sandy hotdogs and lukewarm soda pop were vended by bored teenagers.  She found the most likely-looking boy in the group, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and frog-marched the astonished youth over to the white pylon, where she instructed him in the kind of motherly tones that no one who values their life ever ignores to climb up and keep an eye on things until she relieved him of his duty.  The teenaged boy, seeing the dangerous sparkle in her eye, meekly obeyed – and once again Lake Johanna had a lifeguard, albeit a shanghaied one.  He stayed up there until it started to get dark and we packed up to go home.  Then he quietly slipped off the pylon and skedaddled for all he was worth.  I’d like to know what he told HIS mother when he got home that night.

Word must have gotten back to the Park Board, for the next weekend there was an older man glumly perched on the white pylon, gazing about him with bitter resignation.  I can’t say for sure, but I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that he was a member of the Park Board itself.

 

Note:  I normally post these things on my Facebook page so people can read them there, but I have been sending these mini-essays to some newspapers that demand exclusivity, so I'm not taking any chances that someone will copy one of them off my Facebook and post it where it can be noticed.  This one went to the Christian Science Monitor.