It was summertime near Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I was covered by a musty quilt, clutching the toy bow-and-arrow I’d received for my birthday.
My brother, Kenneth, and I were asleep on a pull-out sofa in our family’s rented cabin on Morrison Lake when our older brother, Jimmy, bunking on a mattress on the floor next to us, shook us awake at 1 a.m. with news that a plump mouse was galloping back and forth across the kitchen floor.
On that night long ago, my sisters and other brothers were behind closed doors in the bedrooms. Although I had turned 10 three just days earlier, I was still wary of rodents. But Jimmy always had a knack for lending adventure to our lives so I gathered up a feeling of something like bravery and listened to the plan.
“I’ll be Daniel Boone,” he whispered, holding a shoe he was poised to throw, “and you’re Cochise,” he said, referencing a Native American character we knew from the TV series “Broken Arrow.”
And suddenly there it was, in the yellow glow of a night light overspreading the kitchen floor: a black ball of fuzz with a long tail. As it spun around spasmodically, I let loose my arrow as Jimmy flung his shoe, which banged noisily against the oven door. The mouse scampered safely away, my arrow with its rubber suction cup tip lying on the faded green linoleum short of its target.
Today, half a century later, it’s August, it’s stifling and we’re still stuck at home thanks to COVID-19, forced to skip the vacation up north my family has always taken as far back as I remember.
It’s not just the cabin fever. I miss the cool nights, the smell of the woods, the whisper of a wild river. But more than anything else, it’s the sense of renewal you get from a journey, each one a new beginning. With travel, we trick the universe into allowing us multiple lives.
I miss it. Really bad.
But last Sunday I discovered while participating in a Zoom birthday celebration with my three children, their spouses and our grandchild that recalling aloud summers past is a viable substitute.
In the middle of our Morrison Lake trip, memorable for our mice-infested cabin and a swimming beach in which your feet sank to the ankles in muddy ooze, my father decided we should cut our losses, repack our suitcases and visit Mackinac Island.
“It’s only another two-hundred-and-fifty miles,” he told my mother, a shiny glint in his big brown eyes. The old man loved to drive, and gas in 1961 was 31 cents a gallon.
We packed and left Morrison early, and I could scarcely believe how the open road, and baloney-and-mustard sandwiches at a roadside table near a waterfall on the Boyne River, could feel like a second vacation trip in a single year.
The nausea I felt on the ferry ride to Mackinac disappeared as soon as we landed. And the shock of stepping into a world of horses and no automobiles was like learning there really was a heaven, validating cowboy dreams and fantasies, extending a little longer my belief in Roy Rogers, the Cisco Kid and the Lone Ranger.
When I described this episode of “ancient history” to my kids in their separate Zoom boxes last week, I could see their eyes trying to picture Uncle Jimmy, whom they know today as a kind, mirthful elder with a cane, as a child and the head of our mouse brigade.
Each of the three was subsequently eager to recall their own more contemporary summers with principals still alive, voices familiar.
Mike remembered when the freezing Chippewa River offered actual relief for the two of us, wade-fishing in 1990, when we plunged in up to our Adam’s apples to escape the stinging bites of black flies.
Janet added how she only pretended to like fishing so as not to miss the breakfasts at the Lakewoods Restaurant in Winter, Wisconsin, with its inch-thick toast and homemade strawberry preserves.
And Jackie loved the permissive atmosphere on summer vacation, Mom looking the other way when our black lab Biff cozied up with her on chilly nights, our hard-and-fast rule about dogs and beds on hiatus.
It’s worth noting that the ancient Ojibwa who once lived in the northern states we visited would share stories around the fire in winter when they were snowbound, passing on the cultural traditions and family history to the next generation.
Bound by COVID-19 instead of snow, we look forward to our granddaughter’s birthday on Aug. 25, when family from Illinois, Florida and Arizona will again be celebrating at another Zoom party. And embarking on new journeys into the past.
David McGrath is an emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage and the author of “South Siders,” a recently completed collections of columns on life in the Midwest.
