The honorary grandfather. Part 1.

We met him on a blustery day at Stoney Point Marina where Zolt wanted to introduce us to the “young man” who was taking over his cottage caretaker business. Zolt was as weathered as the docks that fingered out into the choppy gray waters - many with boats still moored. It was mid-October and the season was over. More to the point so was Zolt. He had looked after a bunch of cottages at our end of the lake, which included Rebel’s Isle. He also ran the marina for several decades but he was done with that and parceling out his business to trusted friends. I never got to know Zolt; the sum total of our relationship was the introduction to Jim and his stern warning about shoals.

The day before he had watched with one hand half covering his eyes as I motored straight through the middle of a vast rocky shallows. The luck of the innocent saved me from grounding the boat and wrecking my prop, but at least Zolt was watching and would have come to my rescue. He patiently explained the purpose of those floating red balls out there, “They’re called shoal markers, they mark shoals. Go around them.”, he said. I thanked him for his advice to which he offered one more bit of wisdom, “And tie off your lines, don’t drag them behind the boat or they’ll tangle in your prop.” This as he pulled a stern line from the water and cleated it off. I was about to thank him for that but his back had turned and he was walking away. And Jim was there with his hand held out for the shaking. This “young man” was twenty years my senior if he was a day. His seamy face framed a shy smile and two wonderfully bushy red Scottish eyebrows that fluttered in the wind. His hair had greyed, but his eyebrows were the sort that grow ever more vigorous as he aged. He didn’t seem to age for quite a long time; I think he was too busy to bother getting old.

I don’t know when Jim retired and I’ve only a vague notion of what he retired from. An accountant? A lawyer? Don’t know but he was born and raised and worked until he retired in the little town of Lindsay, the archetype of small town Ontario. He now lives full time on Lake Kasshabog and he does care taking and renovations for us city people who don’t have the time, the skills, or the desire to do things for ourselves. He does this work because he hates just sitting around. To Jim it’s a lot more fun to gather his buddies and buzz down the lake in their tin boats to a place like Rebel’s Isle to do major renovations. Jim took us under his wing as a kind of honorary grandfather and he was kind enough to let us think we knew what we were doing. With his help we tore apart our little shack and turned it from a cottage that once slept two adults, nine kids, uncounted grandkids and nieces and nephews, into a place where two could cottage in peace. There was this day before the weather closed in and it was time to beat our way back to the city, when Jim came to visit and we discussed our simple plan. We didn’t think of it as major. We thought we’d like to take down the ceiling and open up the space to the peak; remove the walls that formed bedrooms we didn’t need; build a sleeping loft; expand the one remaining bedroom; open up the west wall and add a full length porch, plus more windows on the North and South walls. Simple, manageable things, we thought. Jim suggested he shutter the place as usual and we’d talk more in the spring. Through the winter we dreamed and schemed, drew lots of pictures and settled on a simple plan that would make the space more livable. Our idea was to keep things pretty much as they were for the first season and see how it all worked. Or didn’t work as things turned out. The plumbing system was designed with the minimalist approach of a sailor. There was a pump that drew water from the lake. Hot water came from a propane-fired flash heater. The bathroom had a toilet we were advised to use sparingly because its holding tank was a barrel under the cabin that hadn’t been pumped out for years. But there was a perfectly good outhouse. Well, it was a bit worn so we had Jim build us a better one. It’s still standing. It leans a little and the porcupines have gnawed some large vent holes in its skirts but it’s still there. There was no shower so we bathed in the lake. The water system featured a bomb-like water tank in the bathroom, about shoulder height, that was filled and pressurized by an old Briggs and Stratton gasoline powered pump. It was simple to use. Annie would station herself in the bathroom to watch the water level rise in a glass vial on the side of the tank. I would pull the rope and fire up the pump. When the water in the tube reached a certain level she would holler out the window to stop. As I was standing next to a roaring unmuffled gasoline motor I often didn’t hear her immediately. No problem, because there was no risk of the tank exploding, the tank had a safety valve at its top that would blow open and spray its contents towards the ceiling and thence throughout the room. When this happened Annie would holler even louder and I would hear her and shut off the pump. To shut off the pump one pressed a piece of metal down on top of the spark plug thus shorting it out. The interrupted engine would cough and die. Usually. Sometimes it’s momentum would keep everything spinning and the magneto would begin to spark again and the engine would roar back to life. And so would Annie. Over time we got ever more skilled in our co-ordination of the pump and there were fewer soakings of the bathroom and Annie.

Throughout the Summer it never occurred to her that she could run the pump and I could stand inside and watch the gauge. There's more to this story, a lot more, so watch for The honorary grandfather, Part 2 in a week or so. And please remember to like and share.