Sixty years ago

 

Our family used to go to Lake Wohlford in California.

 

We had a small cottage trailer that stayed there all year.  It looked like a little white clapboard house with green trim as I recall.  We visited every summer through my teen years.  The trailer had an awning and a wooden deck, a front yard, and a view of the lake.  Mom and Dad slept inside.  They boys slept outside on the deck on army cots with shipping blankets to cover up with and joked and giggled at night until we got yelled at.  When we got there, Dad would sprinkle the dirt yard with the hose to knock down any dust, then rake up the leaves and rubble.  It was his ritual.  It was our childhood paradise.

 

Lake Wohlford Website

 

My Lake Wohlford Map Link

 

I’m standing with my back to the lake looking up to where the trailer used to be.  I know where the trailer was, but the ground has been reconfigured so there is not a specific spot to point to.  (The Lodge is off to the right.)

It was right up about where that dark building in the middle is now.

 

The lodge is still there, looking mostly like it did then.  (The lake is off to the right.)

 

The restrooms are still on the left as you go in (and they are still TINY).

 

The old wraparound wooden porch has been enclosed.  Here is a photo of how it used to look.  (This is the side facing the lake.  My current picture was taken from the left side of this view.)

 

The interior looks about the same.

We toured the lodge and talked to the people inside about how it was sixty years ago.  None there knew it then, but they were kind enough to gather for a few stories.  They didn’t know about shaving off the top of the neighboring hill to make the airstrip.  They didn’t remember Earl.

 

Dad would go out fishing in the boat.  The kids that didn’t go out with him could watch the lake in the afternoon and run down to the dock to meet him when he returned.  Trout, crappie, and bluegill on a stringer.  I remember going to the fish house to clean fish more than I remember actually eating them.  There were bass in the lake, as brother Bill can attest.  Other fishermen fished for catfish, but we didn’t.  We saw catfish catches at the afternoon fish cleanings.

 

There were heavy wooden rowboats for rent.  Dad had a couple outboard motors he’d bring with him, or leave there, to mount on the rental boat.  I remember an old silver Neptune with the spinning flywheel on top that you wrapped a rope around, knot on the end of the rope hooked in a notch, and pulled to start.  The other, more sophisticated motor was a fully enclosed Mercury.  That one had a pull handle with a retractable cord.  Very cool.  Not everyone had a motor.  Some rowed.

 

We walked across the road and down the shoreline paths to the lake,

 

to the dock,

 

the dam, and the shoreline there where I had to run away from a rattlesnake,

 

and the rocks we used to climb on to play and to fish.  (Some of the rocks are closer to the water than this one.)(Sometimes the water was closer to this rock.)

 

It all seems smaller now, no surprise, but still very much the place I remember.  This revisit of such a time so long gone by was wholly engaging.  I got lost in it.  It was profound for me, and it struck Judy the same way, even though it wasn’t a part of her childhood.  She felt mine as I relived it.