Summer Mornings

     I’ve always spent my summers in northern Michigan. It’s no wonder I’m a lake girl. It was not only gathering stones that filled my days, but also water skiing, diving from the boat off of Red Pine Point (the deepest part of Mullett Lake), and swimming with my sister and our best friend, Kevin; it was packing lunches and meandering down Indian River as we ate. There was an abandoned hotel that I loved to dream up ghost stories about as we passed. We motored across the lake to Topinabee, a tiny town with the best ice cream parlor on the lake. We would get huge Blue Moon Ice Cream scoops and then swim at the beautiful white sandy shore.

     Mornings were my favorite time of the day. By 8:00 a.m., I would get in our fishing boat, start the motor, and slowly drive to Kevin’s dock, which was two docks down. Everyone around our cottage was up early, and he would be looking for me after a quick breakfast. We would head through the tube, which once was an old rickety bridge, and take a slow early ride down Little Pigeon River, where swans were just emerging from their nests, frogs and turtles were already at their stations on their logs, guarding the reeds, ready to watch over their river for the day.

Slowly, we puttered so as not to disturb them and then finally turned around back through the tube and headed out into the bay. I would open up the little motor full speed and skim across the water as fast as I could go, darting left and right, churning up the water, often causing Kevin to hold on for dear life and yell, “Slow down, Denise!”

     My mom told the story for years that she used to laugh every morning when she would hear the motor scooting across the bay and Kevin yelling, “slow down, Denise!” Kevin is in heaven now, but I hope he chuckles as he remembers those perfect mornings on Mullett Lake. And I know when I get there one day, we will have a lot of good memories to share. Even as I’m writing this, I’m smiling and feeling good.

I don’t know if I’ll always have a verse to share with my entry, but for now, I have one.

Romans 15:13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

My sister and me on Mullett Lake. I'm not the one in the tube.

                  

A very faded picture of me in our fishing boat with our dog Suzette.