Home Away from Home
Chris Zasada June 6, 2004

I’m writing these words while sitting next to a pile of smoldering rumble, perched on a stump, hands reeking of gasoline, contemplating the events of the last couple of hours.

No, I haven’t just committed an act of violent arson, but by what you were just thinking, you clearly wouldn’t put it past me. No, I’m sitting on a chair made out of a stump in front of a recently-deceased fire, held in a newly-created fire pit by the water front of my cottage. This is the first time I’ve ever fired up my laptop around here, and it stands as the most advanced piece of technology ever to come in contact with this place. What better use for it than to write an article about the cottage? Give me a break, I’m sure War and Peace was written for basically the same reason.

Bringing up the cottage, as it is only known, sometimes creates an awkward conversation. It’s not really my cottage, obviously; I’m a college student, and I can’t afford a refrigerator carton under a bridge, much less a second summer home. It’s my mother who owns it, obtained from her mother, who obtained it from her husband, who bought it because he wanted to fish, but wouldn’t admit it to anyone. I always feel that I have to explain that it doesn’t belong to me, though I say it’s my cottage, which clearly an impossibility, because some loons in the American government think that hard-working college students shouldn’t get a lot of money for free.

The cottage is a small, three bedroom house. While that may not seem too small, keep in mind that the kitchen and living room is the same room, the single bathroom is difficult to turn around in, and the bedrooms are nothing more than glorified closets with mattresses in them. Also take into consideration that there is no phone, heat, air conditioning, or even that much insulation, and things start to come into perspective. We have electricity and water, but that water comes from a well, which is so saturated with sulfur that I have been tempted on several occasions to take my chances with the lake water, which contains dead fish and duck poop. Can’t complain about the electricity, though.

It’s the lake, though, that gives the cottage a higher level of appeal. Tucked away in a small, southwestern Michigan town, the cottage is connected to a channel that leads to a lake. Okay, very large pond would be a better way of putting it, but we can run pontoons in there, and that’s really all that matters.

Most of all, it’s a home away from home.

The cottage started out pretty humbly. At some point in the seventies (I’d check the date, but these articles don’t write themselves), my mother’s father purchased some waterfront property and built a house that could keep the rain and animals out. The area wasn’t exactly the most modernized, even for that time. With hardly any people around, it was paradise. Not that I actually know, since I wasn’t born yet, but I can assume. Anyway, you can bet that the peace and quiet didn’t last.

The area built up to what it is today: a retreat for lawyers, doctors, and rich idiots who wanted some place to throw their money into. Nowadays, four-story behemoth houses that consist of sixty-percent glass panes tower over the lake, making our little shack look like Uncle Cletus’s Rat Farm. It probably isn’t the worst looking place in the area, but it isn’t the Hilton, either.

When I was a kid, I went to the cottage with my parents about twice a year. It was owned by my grandmother at the time, and the entire family used it as an opportunity to get closer to her and mooch. My mother was the only ones to take her up to her cottage, which she paid for year-round.

I had many fond memories of trips to the cottage, which I always looked forward to. The fun times spent going on boat rides, playing Atari 2600, eating at the famous Jackson Ice Cream Parlor, and sleeping on an extremely small cot (I was a simple child) bring back a joyful smile even now, when I have other, more dynamic activities to occupy my time, like sex.

After my grandmother’s passing, my wholesome, friendly family turned out to be paranoid wealth grubbers. While not getting into the specifics of it, the cottage’s fate was uncertain, and the idea of having some rich snob tear it down and build a four-story glass house was not appealing. After looking at other places in the area to call home, the argument was settled, and the cottage’s ownership fell to my mother.

After the transfer of ownership, the cottage transformed from a special vacation spot to an exasperating chore. The lack of creature comforts is bearable, save for the water thing, which makes taking a shower impossible. It isn’t so much the water as it is the shower, which is a chamber of metallic sheets with no less than thirty-seven percent rust coverage. I’m always afraid I’ll go in there to get clean and come out with tetanus, so I avoid using it. We are not a pleasant-smelling bunch up there.

Maintenance is also an issue. The place wasn’t in the best shape to begin with, so painting, mowing, trimming, cleaning, scrubbing, cursing, and sweating are all requirements. In a previous article, I talked about having to go under the house to maintain the water pump, which I hate because of all of the icky bugs and the potential of being eaten by cattle-sized spiders. Again, the lake seems like a much better option.

The trip itself is obnoxious. Having to drive there and back takes over three hours, and it’s the same damn route every time. Taking a different route would get us lost or just take longer, and I prefer not to prolong the experience. Before the automobile, some people wouldn’t travel more than twenty miles from where they were born. A trip like this makes me yearn for those days.

Once we arrive (it’s usually Mom and me), it’s time for a couple of days of fun, fun, fun, whether I like it or not. My mother, who I state that I love dearly, is the most annoying person on Earth, and insists on taking a boat ride at least once every time we’re up there. It may not sound so bad, but there aren’t a whole lot of places to go with a boat up there, and looking at the same docks connected to houses of snobs that are (the docks) littered with goose droppings is not my idea of an enriching experience. Plus, pontoons aren’t them most peppy boats out there, so, in summary, a boat ride usually involves puttering along at the speed of a hair growth while looking at snob houses and droppings.

She gets a thrill out of this, but then again, she loves bingo.

The cottage is still a great place, however. After my mother’s ownership, it housed some fun times. I remember traveling to surrounding (by which I mean an hour’s drive away) tourist traps, having friends up there for a few days of annoying each other, and generally getting away from the norm. Even minor things, like a period of 3DO obsession, occurred partly up there. I almost had my first kiss up there, but it was rescheduled for the local park at home later.

And there is still mirth to be mined from that old place. Area restaurants provide a break from the usual selections at home, even if they sometimes, in the spirit of diplomatic and constructive evaluation, suck. For example, the place I ate at today with my mother and my girlfriend had a grand buffet of cold sauerkraut and kielbasa-that-didn’t-look-like-kielbasa and macaroni and cheese made from something similar to, but not exactly like, processed cheese powder with less flavoring and more powdered floor cleaner. I skipped the buffet and had an order of open-faced chili dog and oil-burned fries, which wouldn’t have been too bad had the waitress realized that I wasn’t going to get up, go back into the kitchen, and make it myself. It was bad that day, but even so, it wouldn’t be respectful to name names. It wasn’t the Cutty Sark.

The Jackson’s Ice Cream Parlor is still there, albeit a more sterilize version than before. While it now looks less like an operation run by out-of-work ice cream truck drivers, it lost some of its charm in the transition. The Parlor was known for its impressive ice cream scoop size, but cutbacks reduced these frozen dairy wonders to briefly eyebrow-jerking status. Still, if you claim to have finished a twenty-one scoop Dare to be Great in an hour, you’re big, fat liar unless you send me a photo of your lactose-bloated corpse. Or I can just check out the plaque there. Either way would work.

Besides the places of business around there, the cottage has some fun-filled activities. Boat rides can actually be fun, assuming you haven’t had one in the last three hours and your girlfriend isn’t trying to put seaweed on you. The atmosphere allows for some laidback (i.e.: time-wasting) lawn activities, such as Jarts. We have one of the original sets, not the wussy rounded kind. The old kind were discontinued for a stupid reason, which was that some kid was killed by one. We, as a society, ban Jarts, but allow the sale of guns, cigarettes, and Ford Mustangs to high school students. I’m amazed we’ve made it this far.

Fortunately, due to the grace, intelligence, and foresight of some lawmaker, I am allowed to set really big fires with gasoline. Bonfires were always a welcome tradition with my friends, where we would discuss important topics and play with torches. I’ve even watched anime’ out there before. The only problem with it was the fires were held in a small, metal ring; not enough to contain a real manly fire. Today, in fact, my girlfriend and I sneaked into a private forest, into the spot where the local teenagers smoke pot and have sex, and grabbed stones necessary to make a bigger fire pit. This secret spot was marked by soda cans and a stone fire pit of their own. I wisely left their stones alone, because nothing is worse than a raging teenager who is also high and horny.

After setting up the pit, we had its augural fire, which was marked by the making of S’mores and torches. Hopefully, these bigger, manlier fires don’t hurt someone. A friend who is actively ablaze can certainly ruin a vacation.

So is the spirit of the cottage, a type of place that not everyone is privileged to have. Hopefully those who have a special place, any kind, be it a tree house, a favorite restaurant, or the backseat of a car, cherish and appreciate it, because it’s likely to be torn down and be built into a bank or Wal-Mart relatively soon.

Home Away from Home
Chris Zasada June 6, 2004

I’m writing these words while sitting next to a pile of smoldering rumble, perched on a stump, hands reeking of gasoline, contemplating the events of the last couple of hours.

No, I haven’t just committed an act of violent arson, but by what you were just thinking, you clearly wouldn’t put it past me. No, I’m sitting on a chair made out of a stump in front of a recently-deceased fire, held in a newly-created fire pit by the water front of my cottage. This is the first time I’ve ever fired up my laptop around here, and it stands as the most advanced piece of technology ever to come in contact with this place. What better use for it than to write an article about the cottage? Give me a break, I’m sure War and Peace was written for basically the same reason.

Bringing up the cottage, as it is only known, sometimes creates an awkward conversation. It’s not really my cottage, obviously; I’m a college student, and I can’t afford a refrigerator carton under a bridge, much less a second summer home. It’s my mother who owns it, obtained from her mother, who obtained it from her husband, who bought it because he wanted to fish, but wouldn’t admit it to anyone. I always feel that I have to explain that it doesn’t belong to me, though I say it’s my cottage, which clearly an impossibility, because some loon in the American government thinks that hard-working college students shouldn’t get a lot of money for free.

The cottage is a small, three bedroom house. While that may not seem too small, keep in mind that the kitchen and living room is the same room, the single bathroom is difficult to turn around in, and the bedrooms are nothing more than glorified closets with mattresses in them. Also take into consideration that there is no phone, heat, air condition, or even insulation, and things start to come into perspective. We have electricity and water, but that water comes from a well, which is so saturated with sulfur that I have been tempted on several occasions to take my chances with the lake water, which contains dead fish and duck poop. Can’t complain about the electricity, though.

It’s the lake, though, that gives the cottage a higher level of appeal. Tucked away in a small, southwestern Michigan town, the cottage is connected to a channel that leads to a lake. Okay, very large pond would be a better way of putting it, but we can run pontoons in there, and that’s really all that matters.

Most of all, it’s a home away from home.

The cottage started out pretty humbly. At some point in the seventies (I’d check the date, but these articles don’t write themselves), my mother’s father purchased some waterfront property and build a house that could keep the rain and animals out. The area wasn’t exactly the most modernized, even for that time. With hardly any people around, it was paradise. Not that I actually know, since I wasn’t born yet, but I can assume. Anyway, you can bet that the peace and quiet didn’t last.

The area built up to what it is today: a retreat for lawyers, doctors, and rich idiots who wanted some place to throw their money into. Nowadays, four-story behemoth houses that consist of sixty-percent glass panes tower over the lake, making our little shack look like Uncle Cletus’s Rat Farm. It probably isn’t the worst looking place in the area, but it isn’t the Hilton, either.

When I was a kid, I went to the cottage with my parents about twice a year. It was owned by my grandmother at the time, and the entire family used it as an opportunity to get closer to her and mooch. My mother was the only ones to take her up to her cottage, which she paid for year-round.

I had many fond memories of trips to the cottage, which I always looked forward to. The fun times spent going on boat rides, playing Atari 2600, eating at the famous Jackson Ice Cream Parlor, and sleeping on an extremely small cot (I was a simple child ) bring back a joyful smile even now, when I have other, more dynamic activities to occupy my time, like sex.

After my grandmother’s passing, my wholesome, friendly family turned out to be paranoid wealth grubbers. While not getting into the specifics of it, the cottage’s fate was uncertain, and the idea of having some rich snob tear it down and build a four-story glass house was not appealing. After looking at other places in the area to call home, the argument was settled, and the cottage’s ownership fell to my mother.

After the transfer of ownership, the cottage transformed from a special vacation spot to an exasperating chore. The lack of creature comforts is bearable, save for the water thing, which makes taking a shower impossible. It isn’t so much the water as it is the shower, which is a chamber of metallic sheets with no less than thirty-seven percent rust coverage. I’m always afraid I’ll go in there to get clean and come out with tetanus, so I avoid using it. We are not a pleasant-smelling bunch up there.

Maintenance is also an issue. The place wasn’t in the best shape to begin with, so painting, mowing, trimming, cleaning, scrubbing, cursing, and sweating are all requirements. In a previous article, I talked about having to go under the house to maintain the water pump, which I hate because of all of the icky bugs and potential of be eaten by cattle-sized spiders. Again, the lake seems like a much better option.

The trip itself is obnoxious. Having to drive there and back takes over three hours, and it’s the same damn route every time. Taking a different route would get us lost or just take longer, and I prefer not to prolong the experience. Before the automobile, some people wouldn’t travel more than twenty miles from where they were born. A trip like this makes me yearn for those days.

Once we arrive (it’s usually Mom and me), it’s time for a couple of days of fun, fun, fun, whether I like it or not. My mother, who I state that I love dearly, is the most annoying person on Earth, and insists on taking a boat ride at least once every time we’re up there. It may not sound so bad, but there aren’t a whole lot of places to go with a boat up there, and looking at the same docks connected to houses of snobs that are (the docks) littered with goose droppings is not my idea of an enriching experience. Plus, pontoons aren’t them most peppy boats out there, so, in summary, a boat ride usually involves puttering along at the speed of a hair growth while looking at snob houses and droppings.

She gets a thrill out of this, but then again, she loves bingo.

The cottage is still a great place, however. After my mother’s ownership, it housed some fun times. I remember traveling to surrounding (by which I mean an hour’s drive away) tourist traps, having friends up there for a few days of annoying each other, and generally getting away from the norm. Even minor things, like a period of 3DO obsession, occurred partly up there. I almost had my first kiss up there, but it was rescheduled for the local park at home later.

And there is still mirth to be mined from that old place. Area restaurants provide a break from the usual selections at home, even if they sometimes, in the spirit of diplomatic and constructive evaluation, suck. For example, the place I ate at today with my mother and my girlfriend had a grand buffet of cold sauerkraut and kielbasa-that-didn’t-look-like-kielbasa and macaroni and cheese made from something similar to, but not exactly like, processed cheese powder with less flavoring and more powdered floor cleaner. I skipped the buffet and had an order of open-faced chili dog and oil-burned fries, which wouldn’t have been too bad had the waitress realized that I wasn’t going to get up, go back into the kitchen, and make it myself. It was bad that day, but even so, it wouldn’t be respectful to name names. It wasn’t the Cutty Sark.

The Jackson’s Ice Cream Parlor is still there, albeit a more sterilize version than before. While it now looks less like an operation run by out-of-work ice cream truck drivers, it lost some of its charm in the transition. The Parlor was known for its impressive ice cream scoop size, but cutbacks reduced these frozen dairy wonders to briefly eyebrow-jerking status. Still, if you claim to have finished a twenty-one scoop Dare to be Great in an hour, you’re big, fat liar unless you send me a photo of your lactose-bloated corpse. Or I can just check out the plaque there. Either way would work.

Besides the places of business around there, the cottage has some fun-filled activities. Boat rides can actually be fun, assuming you haven’t had one in the last three hours and your girlfriend isn’t trying to put seaweed on you. The atmosphere allows for some laidback (i.e.: time-wasting) lawn activities, such as Jarts. We have one of the original sets, not the wussy rounded kind. The old kind were discontinued for a stupid reason, which was that some kid was killed by one. We, as a society, ban Jarts, but allow the sale of guns, cigarettes, and Ford Mustangs to high school students. I’m amazed we’ve made it this far.

Fortunately, due to the grace, intelligence, and foresight of some lawmaker, I am allowed to set really big fires with gasoline. Bonfires were always a welcome tradition with my friends, where we would discuss important topics and play with torches. I’ve even watched anime’ out there before. The only problem with it was the fires were held in a small, metal ring; not enough to contain a real manly fire. Today, in fact, my girlfriend and I sneaked into a private forest, into the spot where the local teenagers smoke pot and have sex, and grabbed stones necessary to make a bigger fire pit. This secret spot was marked by soda cans and a stone fire pit of their own. I wisely left their stones alone, because nothing is worse than a raging teenager who is also high and horny.

After setting up the pit, we had its augural fire, which was marked by the making of S’mores and torches. Hopefully, these bigger, manlier fires don’t hurt someone. A friend who is actively ablaze can certainly ruin a vacation.

So is the spirit of the cottage, a type of place that not everyone is privileged to have. Hopefully those who have a special place, any kind, be it a tree house, a favorite restaurant, or the backseat of a car, cherish and appreciate it, because it’s likely to be torn down and be built into a bank or Wal-Mart relatively soon.