Originally published in The Plain Talker, November, 2005
It was the Thursday night before Labor Day weekend, and it was getting late; since shortly after sun-up we had been moving from our old cabin to its replacement, and I was tired. But the day wasn't close to being over; I still had to pick up my boat at the marina, run by a friend's house to borrow some tools, go to the new cabin, and do some work to the dock. Then, and only then, would I be able to crawl into bed… if I could figure out which box the sheets and pillows were in.
I had spent the last few hours of daylight on the water. We had towed our old floating dock to the new place; it's about seven miles by water, and you can go only so fast when you're towing a large floating dock. (We hadn't used my boat for that, or I'd still be out there.) And that happened after we had loaded a U-Haul, unloaded it at the new place, loaded it again, and unloaded all of that, too.
So when I saw someone emerge from the shadows, and I heard words and phrases such as "new starter" and "dead battery," I feared the worst. And I was right; a boat docked not far from mine was dead in the water, and the occupants needed help in the worst way.
I had been in similar situations before, many times over the years; you can't be a boater and avoid them for very long. So I pulled my boat around to theirs, and together we tried to get their boat running. Our first attempt with jumper cables resulted in nothing, but on the second try their engine sounded as if it was coming back to life. We kept the batteries connected and let my boat run for a while; I wasn't sure that would work, but I know that, when you're stranded on a boat that won't run, you'll try almost anything to get it working again.
Nothing was working that night, though, and I started trying to figure out what time I was going to get to go to sleep if I added "take these people back to Pleasure Point" to my things-to-do list. Fortunately for all of us, someone they knew came by in a bigger, more powerful boat than mine, and I was able to leave them in much better hands. As I untied my boat and began to pull away, they offered me money, several times, but accepting it never crossed my mind; when I was growing up on the lake, I was taught that you helped people out when they were in trouble, and all you expected in return was for someone to do the same for you when the need arose. (Which it always did, and back then, someone was always there to lend a hand, even on the quietest of days.)
That was in the old days, though, when things were different. Back then, if the water was too rough for skiing, it was either July 4th or very windy. If you looked up and couldn't see a million stars, it was because it was cloudy, not because streetlights were stealing the darkness from the night.
Back then you could walk along the road for miles and never set foot on asphalt, and if a car came by you worried more about the dust it was kicking up than you did about how fast it was going as it narrowly missed you.
When I was growing up on the lake, people weren't judged by the size of their house or boat, and a man's worth had nothing to do with his bank account. Ersatz magazine publishers didn't use the phrase "fish camps" with the same tone they'd use for "puppy kicker."
Believe it or not, there was a time on this lake when you were allowed to have an opinion, even if it differed from that of the majority, or the controlling minority.
There was once a time when a local charitable organization would have gladly housed refugees from a nearby state who were made homeless by a hurricane, rather than reject the idea because doing background checks on those people was impossible.
And there was a time, not so long ago, when a magazine editor wouldn't tell you to apologize for someone else's mistake, write the apology for you, lie about printing it, and then place it in the same story you just wrote about your recently deceased mother.
But, those days are gone. Maybe someday decency and respect for others will live again on Lake Martin. Right now, though, it's far more endangered than the majestic bald eagles we see nesting in the tall trees. And at the rate we're seeing trees razed and replaced by ostentatious houses, those eagles are in a lot more danger than they think.