The Cottage Years by Alice Morse On one side of the lake there is a Six Flags Theme Park with four new roller coasters, and on the opposite side is Sea World. Geauga Lake in Ohio is a springfed, freshwater lake over 90 feet deep, named for the county in which it is located. Geauga is an Indian word meaning raccoon. There wasn't always so much tourist activity in the small community by the lake. In 1924, the year I was born, my parents and grandparents built a cottage in this community. When I was growing up, summers there were a constant joy, with family and friends. Everyone liked to swim in the lake. It was so clean and cold. Afterward we would ride home on the running board of Dad's car to dry out. We still have pan lids with wooden knobs painted yellow, and an old corkscrew and can opener with painted yellow handles. These are reminders of the cottage years. My grandmother loved to paint. As a result, we had a colorful, cheerful summer home with rockers gray and red, tables green and pink, and everything in the kitchen yellow. It went well with blue-and-white checked curtains on the windows and coverings on the shelves. There was no electricity at first. Grandmother painted by the light of oil lamps. We had a kerosene stove for cooking and used a large tub in the car to carry ice from an icehouse. Rainwater was collected in a big barrel and piped in to a hand pump at the sink. It was wonderful for washing hair because it was so soft. A shower was also rigged to the rain barrel. We took milk cans to a spring for drinking water. Later, we found a spot for a well with a dowsing rod and we had an outside pump. Our outhouse was deluxe--real toilet seats, linoleum on the floor, pictures on the walls and a magazine rack. But the wooden door latch sometimes slipped, and a person might be locked in for a while till he or she was missed. The luxury of indoor plumbing didn't arrive until 1950. On weekends there were usually picnics and parties, with much laughter and singing. We played badminton and croquet while the men pitched horseshoes and played baseball. We had two straw suitcases full of dress-up clothes and costumed ourselves in them to perform hilarious skits. As time progressed, 35mm slide shows replaced magic lantern shows and everyone brought favorite pictures to share. Eventually radio and then television entered the cottage, but we still played records on the old wind-up Victrola. We got sweet corn, chickens and milk from nearby farms. The milk wasn't pasteurized, but no one ever got sick. The cream was thick for whipping, too. Mother made pies from the elderberries we gathered. Next to the cottage were three Northern Spy apple trees, which provided shade and late apples for applesauce. Dad had a hammock between them and my grandfather built a sandbox under them for the children. We always had dogs. One of them had her three puppies in the living room. Raising them that summer was great fun. Dad loved flowers and had beautiful gardens in the front and back. He planted gourd vines along a fence. We dried the gourds, painted them with bright colors, fastened them onto strings, and used them to decorate our porch. One year, Dad tried to raise Louisiana bullfrogs, thinking he could sell them to restaurants for frog legs. He dug two ponds, but the frogs left during the winter, so that was the end of that. Then he connected the ponds to make one lovely big one that attracted much wildlife. In addition to the songbirds, a mallard duck came every year to raise a family. A blue heron fished from the bank. A woodcock strutted along by the water too, unafraid of us. There were muskrats in the pond and the boys sometimes trapped them. Lythrum lined the shore, and we enjoyed the purple blooms bending in the breeze and reflecting in the water. Now they say this loosestrife chokes out cattails, but it didn't seem to bother ours. Beyond the pond were open fields, and on the Fourth of July we could stand in the backyard and watch fireworks being fired from a small park by the lake. In August we gathered there to watch meteor showers. When friends reminisce with me, they often say, "Remember what fun we had at the cottage?" And I do.