Pine Lake
Twenty five years or so ago Pine Lake and the surrounding Issaquah area was a rustic quaint nowhere kind of place. Now it has mansions on it and Little Caesars and property taxes and who knows what all. Where there was once a general store with plank floors there is now a Circle K. At least, that's what I've heard.
The Nelsons had a cabin on Pine Lake. They lived in their first-floor Bellevue condo in the cold months and switched to the lakefront cabin in the Summer. The Nelsons were Harry and Marian and you could drive yourself crazy thinking "Mary and Harian" in your head. Harry was just an old guy and Marian was just an old lady except she was in a wheelchair and freaked me out. I was their daughter's stepdaughter, which made me absolutely nothing to them. I felt it.
The Nelsons were Susan's parents. Susan was my stepmother except I called her Sue. I can't seem to call her Sue anymore, even though she's dead now.
Summers were all about Pine Lake. All I even remember about childhood was summer. We'd pack up and drive out there. I don't even know what we packed. I must have packed a swimsuit and extra shorts. What else did you need? If things were truly excellent, other people got invited to come too. My parents were both teachers and all their friends were teachers and these folks managed to make for good company to each other and secretly to me though I was never close to any of them and they treated me like I didn't exist. I liked them along side them instead of within them. I still do this.
The house faced backward. You entered the long gravel drive with cedar trees towering left and right and after awhile grass grew where the tire grooves weren't. You could park anywhere, up against the house, or off to the side. There was a newer bed house off to the side for sleeping over guests and that building had baseboard heaters and no mildew smell. A little farther down was a scary dark building that had scary dark gravel ground floors and that was worth venturing into because that was where the huge gigantic inner tubes were kept.
You entered the house through the back door. There was a mud room there. In it was only a particleboard shelving unit with sliding doors with diamond shaped indentations for sliding the doors. In there were those little cans of pineapple juice with the plastic seals you peeled off. Also Pepsi Light and most excellently those half size cans of Tab which for a long time you couldn't get anymore. I think there was also something called Pepsi Light with Lemon. It was good stuff in there. All the most poisonous diet sodas. The room was carpeted with indoor outdoor carpet. I think it had stripes.
Then you'd enter into the kitchen. When you opened the door into the kitchen, a musical thing, a hollow decorative little box thing attached to the door with metal strings on it and a swinging ball on a string went bong bong bing bong. You might play with that thing for hours. The kitchen had brown linoleum flooring. All I can remember from the pantry was corned beef hash in a can which was disgusting. The big bottom drawer had all the paper plates and plastic spoons and STRAWS which were everybody's favorite. There was some kind of funny thing on the wall about being "in the dog house", you know, shaped like a dog house. In the freezer were always homemade yogurt popsicles in Disney plastic molds. Marian would sit in her wheel chair and squeeze the frozen molds until they melted enough to release the yogurt popsicle for you. They were pretty tasty. You preferred the Donald Duck to the Mickey Mouse but you never knew why. I ate a lot of tuna sandwiches in that kitchen. You had to have a tuna sandwich before you could keep having fun. Fun fun fun tuna sandwich fun fun fun. There was no rhyme or reason to it.
Off the kitchen was the gigantic living room with speckled linoleum floors. The walls were lined with sofas. There was a tv. That was it. It was a gigantic empty dark as hell room, with no light getting to it through the cedar trees that surrounded the house. People slept in there on the foldouts. Going back was the one bedroom and it was light green and the only thing I can remember about that room was that there was Cherry Ludens cough drops in there and I stole those of course. I also got my ass spanked in that room when I told a guest to "get your dirty hands off that" when he was handling a large musical brass globe wedding gift. It didn't matter that the guest laughed when I said it or that he was horrified when I was spanked for saying it.
The only other room was the one bathroom. It was bright white with an old fashioned sink and Aim toothpaste. Aim was not approved by the American Dental Association and I lusted after it only after Close Up and Aquafresh. Sue was a strict Crest user. She was very brand loyal.
But who wants to be inside when you can BUST OUT THE FRONT DOOR onto the porch and out onto the beach? Wait, go back. The front door led to the porch. The porch had some tables and chairs but what I remember most about the front porch was the ashtrays made out of Beer Nuts cans covered in aluminum foil. It was an art.
You had to watch your step running down to the water because there were cedar roots ready to trip your ass bulging up all over the place. You fell on your face at least once per trip to Pine Lake. It was worth it.
In the center was the long wooden dock. THERE WAS NO RUNNING ON THE DOCK. This was the only rule of Pine Lake. On the right side of the dock was where the swimming and inner tubing went on. It was sandy on the bottom. You NEVER went in on the left side of the dock. You want to know why? I'll tell you why. The left side wasn't sandy on the bottom. The left side was deep in GREEN SLUDGE that wrapped itself around your ankles and threatened to drag you under and drown your face. You only went over there for a cheap thrill. Also for thrills was GOING UNDER THE DOCK ON YOUR INNER TUBE. This was horrifyingly exciting. The dock was for the men to fish on, or for the men to blow fireworks off of. You might jump into the water off of it. The wood felt perfectly hot on your feet.
At night, of course, there were bonfires and grilling shish kebabs with canned baby potatoes and onion hunks and big marinated chunks of stew meat and cherry tomatoes and my dad would get his guitar and sing Go Tell Aunt Rhody and there would probably be marshmallows and it was truly the best. One time I skinny dipped with Sue's friend Wendy's daughter Amy. Wendy was mesmerizing because she drove a lime green Fiat with ruined red naugahyde seats and was a single mom. How Sue had all those friends was mesmerizing because she was so mean to me. I still haven't solved the puzzle of that.
One time I found a tiny little seedling growing in the sand on the beach. It couldn't live there. Sue was kind and told me to dig it up and plant it back along the driveway with the other cedars, where the delicious tiny red huckleberries grew. I did plant it and it did grow and I'd check on it every time I went to Pine Lake.
My dad divorced Sue of course. And that was the end of Pine Lake. And then they sold the cabin when Harry died. And then Marian died. And now Sue is dead. You can go to Pine Lake. The state park is three lots down from the cabin, which is probably now a big hulking rich people's house. But it's not the same. I went by there once and tried to find my tree but I couldn't tell which one it was or if it was even there.
The Nelsons had a cabin on Pine Lake. They lived in their first-floor Bellevue condo in the cold months and switched to the lakefront cabin in the Summer. The Nelsons were Harry and Marian and you could drive yourself crazy thinking "Mary and Harian" in your head. Harry was just an old guy and Marian was just an old lady except she was in a wheelchair and freaked me out. I was their daughter's stepdaughter, which made me absolutely nothing to them. I felt it.
The Nelsons were Susan's parents. Susan was my stepmother except I called her Sue. I can't seem to call her Sue anymore, even though she's dead now.
Summers were all about Pine Lake. All I even remember about childhood was summer. We'd pack up and drive out there. I don't even know what we packed. I must have packed a swimsuit and extra shorts. What else did you need? If things were truly excellent, other people got invited to come too. My parents were both teachers and all their friends were teachers and these folks managed to make for good company to each other and secretly to me though I was never close to any of them and they treated me like I didn't exist. I liked them along side them instead of within them. I still do this.
The house faced backward. You entered the long gravel drive with cedar trees towering left and right and after awhile grass grew where the tire grooves weren't. You could park anywhere, up against the house, or off to the side. There was a newer bed house off to the side for sleeping over guests and that building had baseboard heaters and no mildew smell. A little farther down was a scary dark building that had scary dark gravel ground floors and that was worth venturing into because that was where the huge gigantic inner tubes were kept.
You entered the house through the back door. There was a mud room there. In it was only a particleboard shelving unit with sliding doors with diamond shaped indentations for sliding the doors. In there were those little cans of pineapple juice with the plastic seals you peeled off. Also Pepsi Light and most excellently those half size cans of Tab which for a long time you couldn't get anymore. I think there was also something called Pepsi Light with Lemon. It was good stuff in there. All the most poisonous diet sodas. The room was carpeted with indoor outdoor carpet. I think it had stripes.
Then you'd enter into the kitchen. When you opened the door into the kitchen, a musical thing, a hollow decorative little box thing attached to the door with metal strings on it and a swinging ball on a string went bong bong bing bong. You might play with that thing for hours. The kitchen had brown linoleum flooring. All I can remember from the pantry was corned beef hash in a can which was disgusting. The big bottom drawer had all the paper plates and plastic spoons and STRAWS which were everybody's favorite. There was some kind of funny thing on the wall about being "in the dog house", you know, shaped like a dog house. In the freezer were always homemade yogurt popsicles in Disney plastic molds. Marian would sit in her wheel chair and squeeze the frozen molds until they melted enough to release the yogurt popsicle for you. They were pretty tasty. You preferred the Donald Duck to the Mickey Mouse but you never knew why. I ate a lot of tuna sandwiches in that kitchen. You had to have a tuna sandwich before you could keep having fun. Fun fun fun tuna sandwich fun fun fun. There was no rhyme or reason to it.
Off the kitchen was the gigantic living room with speckled linoleum floors. The walls were lined with sofas. There was a tv. That was it. It was a gigantic empty dark as hell room, with no light getting to it through the cedar trees that surrounded the house. People slept in there on the foldouts. Going back was the one bedroom and it was light green and the only thing I can remember about that room was that there was Cherry Ludens cough drops in there and I stole those of course. I also got my ass spanked in that room when I told a guest to "get your dirty hands off that" when he was handling a large musical brass globe wedding gift. It didn't matter that the guest laughed when I said it or that he was horrified when I was spanked for saying it.
The only other room was the one bathroom. It was bright white with an old fashioned sink and Aim toothpaste. Aim was not approved by the American Dental Association and I lusted after it only after Close Up and Aquafresh. Sue was a strict Crest user. She was very brand loyal.
But who wants to be inside when you can BUST OUT THE FRONT DOOR onto the porch and out onto the beach? Wait, go back. The front door led to the porch. The porch had some tables and chairs but what I remember most about the front porch was the ashtrays made out of Beer Nuts cans covered in aluminum foil. It was an art.
You had to watch your step running down to the water because there were cedar roots ready to trip your ass bulging up all over the place. You fell on your face at least once per trip to Pine Lake. It was worth it.
In the center was the long wooden dock. THERE WAS NO RUNNING ON THE DOCK. This was the only rule of Pine Lake. On the right side of the dock was where the swimming and inner tubing went on. It was sandy on the bottom. You NEVER went in on the left side of the dock. You want to know why? I'll tell you why. The left side wasn't sandy on the bottom. The left side was deep in GREEN SLUDGE that wrapped itself around your ankles and threatened to drag you under and drown your face. You only went over there for a cheap thrill. Also for thrills was GOING UNDER THE DOCK ON YOUR INNER TUBE. This was horrifyingly exciting. The dock was for the men to fish on, or for the men to blow fireworks off of. You might jump into the water off of it. The wood felt perfectly hot on your feet.
At night, of course, there were bonfires and grilling shish kebabs with canned baby potatoes and onion hunks and big marinated chunks of stew meat and cherry tomatoes and my dad would get his guitar and sing Go Tell Aunt Rhody and there would probably be marshmallows and it was truly the best. One time I skinny dipped with Sue's friend Wendy's daughter Amy. Wendy was mesmerizing because she drove a lime green Fiat with ruined red naugahyde seats and was a single mom. How Sue had all those friends was mesmerizing because she was so mean to me. I still haven't solved the puzzle of that.
One time I found a tiny little seedling growing in the sand on the beach. It couldn't live there. Sue was kind and told me to dig it up and plant it back along the driveway with the other cedars, where the delicious tiny red huckleberries grew. I did plant it and it did grow and I'd check on it every time I went to Pine Lake.
My dad divorced Sue of course. And that was the end of Pine Lake. And then they sold the cabin when Harry died. And then Marian died. And now Sue is dead. You can go to Pine Lake. The state park is three lots down from the cabin, which is probably now a big hulking rich people's house. But it's not the same. I went by there once and tried to find my tree but I couldn't tell which one it was or if it was even there.