Cleaning Out the Cottage September 20, 2018

Copyright © 2018                               John F. Oyler 

September 20, 2018

Cleaning out the Cottage 

We have begun the melancholy task of cleaning out our Conneaut Lake cottage prior to putting it up for sale. Last Sunday my daughter Beth, her husband Mike, and I drove up there in my van intending to retrieve the small amount of personal items we wanted to retain. 

When we bought the cottage, in 1980, it was a strange duplex – a fairly conventional rental property in the front with a tiny apartment for the owner stuck on the back. As the years passed we converted it into a very comfortable summer home for our family.

Consolidation of two kitchens into one created a lovely sunroom which quickly became our music room, dominated by an obsolete home-made entertainment center and record cabinets. Remote speakers allowed us to have music in every part of the cottage.

We used the central room which runs down the middle of the cottage as a living/family room and greatly enjoyed fires in the fireplace. It was as dark and forbidding as the sunroom was bright and welcoming, so we installed skylights in the roof which converted it into an extremely pleasant room.

We eventually enlarged the old “owner’s apartment”, providing Nan and me with a first-class master bedroom. The large deck on the back of the cottage was perhaps its best feature. We planted four tulip tree seedlings around it; as they matured the deck took on the feel of a tree house.

As we went through each room and the pile of “must-keep” items began to grow I began to suspect we really should have rented a large U-Haul truck. Fortunately Mike is a world-class packer, undoubtedly because of his life-long experience packing things into his Piper Pacer when he is going to fly somewhere.

Beth commented that Mike and I would end up in a head to head tie if we were in a contest to determine the world champion in a “We can’t throw that away” contest. She is probably right, but I have a perfectly logical reason for every decision to save rather than scrap.

Case in point: When my wife’s sister Betty downsized to move into a retirement community, the cottage inherited a lovely, highly polished carved wooden elephant that has guarded the entry into our kitchen ever since. I have a distinct recollection that one of my McCance grand-children admired it years ago; consequently we must salvage it and send it to them.

The cottage was full of wonderful things my wife and Betty had painted. Distributing them among our three children may well be a challenge. The main difference between these two “Grandma Moses” style artists is that Nan was a perfectionist. She painted on wood and when something didn’t satisfy her, out came the sandpaper and it was “back to the drawing board”. Betty, however, was as apt to produce something that simply didn’t work as she was to turn out a masterpiece. We brought them all back; perhaps nostalgia will triumph over mediocrity.

Two priceless items were joint works of art. For a while we were obsessed with “overboards”, long slender painted boards that were displayed on top of doorsills. Nan produced at least a dozen of them, each of which is a treasure. One weekend when both our daughters were at the cottage with us, we found a weathered piece of barn siding that was just the right size. 

Each of us painted the profile of a different duck decoy on the overboard. Betty’s wood duck was magnificent, enough to make up for the deficiencies of my Redhead duck. The overall effect is marvelous; the overboard has graced the inner doorway of the cottage for decades. Several years later the same five folk artists repeated this with an overboard displaying five different owls.

We also retrieved work by professional artists. The signed framed print of Robert Griffing’s “Unconquered”, complete with a cachet of two bird feathers, is now proudly displayed over the fireplace in my living room. I will soon find a new home for my signed print of Andrew Knez Jr.’s “False Gobbler” as well. Somehow this link with the memories of thirty-five years at the cottage is a positive thing.

I am not sure why I brought back the remnants of my old carving hobby. For years I whittled out ducks, shorebirds, gnomes, and Civil War soldiers during our weekends at the cottage. I never carved at home, partly because I needed to work somewhere that scattering shavings on the floor didn’t matter. The deck at the cottage was a perfect venue. Maybe I should try making a comeback in our garage.

Betty’s photo albums and envelopes full of photos are a problem. There are just enough pictures of our kids when they were young or of my wife scattered throughout that I daren’t trash the whole collection. One more sorting chore for long winter evenings.

Records are another major problem. We ended up with an effective sound system at the cottage, including wireless speakers on the deck, where we spent many happy hours. Our collection of 33 RPM records, CD’s, and tape cassettes provided us with continuous “good music”. 

My house is already full of such media; can I possibly absorb any more? Certainly not, but could I possibly trash our CD of the Broadway show, “Candide”? Or the LP of Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers that includes “Cool Water” and “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds”? Or the tape cassette of ‘A Prairie Companion” I made when Willie Nelson and Johnny Gimble were guests? Looks like more storage boxes in the garage are in order.

The gentleman who functions as our caretaker for the cottage has done a fine job of keeping things in working order and in taking care of the bushes and trees on the property. He has it looking better than I ever did.

When we acquired the cottage there was a large, sickly butternut tree close to one of its front corners. It eventually died, much to my wife’s distress. She couldn’t bear to see a tree die or have to be removed.

We cut it down, leaving a minimal stump. Sure enough the next spring four or five suckers popped up. Nan pruned the less promising ones and carefully nursed the strongest one. In a few years it grew back into a healthy tree. A year ago the caretaker showed me that it too was dying. 

Apparently I told him it was okay to remove it. At any rate this trip we found an empty space where the butternut had been. I feel guilty that I didn’t make an effort to keep it alive a few more years; I don’t know how I could ever break the news to my wife.

Sorting through old memories invariably produces lots of emotion. Our family, and especially my wife and I after the kids were gone, enjoyed many happy weekends at the cottage. I am finding it difficult to close the door on that experience.