Record Store Tales

#1071: Hot Town, Summer in the City

RECORD STORE TALES #1071: Hot Town, Summer in the City

Setting:  The 1980s.  Southern Ontario.

Our summers always began with a week at the cottage.  For a kid, being out of touch with friends from home, not to mention the latest happenings in WWF wrestling and music videos, it was a challenge!  We took everything we had for granted back then, and what kid our age didn’t?   The cottage was not a place I looked forward to going.  I didn’t like the isolation.  Sometimes I wonder if I’d dislike cottage vacations today as much as I did then, if we didn’t have high-speed internet and all the entertainment and connection that it brings.  Literally the first thing I do when I arrive at the lake is connect to my family and friends and tell them we’ve arrived safely, often with a photo or video.  But back then….

For me, the summer excitement didn’t begin when we arrived at the lake.  It began when we got home from that first week’s vacation!  I’d race into the house and check my mail.  Would it be comic books straight from Marvel?  Or a cassette from Columbia House?  Mail was the most exciting thing about coming home, and it sucked when there was no mail!

Next up:  check the VCR.  Did the many hours of WWF wrestling that I had programmed record properly?  Usually not!  Programming a VCR was tricky back then, and you had to count on power failures resetting everything.  There were many times that I would come home to find no wrestling!  Other times, it would record like a charm.  If successful, the morning after returning home would be spent watching the wrestling I missed.

Speaking of the almighty VCR, the week spent at the lake would mean I missed at least two installments of the Pepsi Power Hour.  What videos and interviews did I miss?  I preferred not to think about it.  In the summers, there was a lot of metal that I missed.  I didn’t want to set the VCR to record whole shows – I was compiling music videos and interviews, ad-free.

After the July holiday, I’d come home with some new music purchased at the lake, and want to show my new albums to my best friend Bob.  In 1989, one that I was particularly enthused about was The Headless Children by W.A.S.P.  It took Bob some time to believe me when I said it was great.  Later that year, the ballad “Forever Free” convinced him.  Meanwhile, Bob would be filling me in on anything important happening in our neighborhood.  It wouldn’t be long before we were back at it, getting into mischief in the summer of the city.

Our interests changed as we got older and more independent.  Bob was driving by the summer of ’90 so we could go virtually anywhere we wanted to.  We made excursions downtown to buy music!  There we had Encore, Sam the Record Man and Dr. Disc all waiting for our dollars.  Today it’s just Encore, who have moved twice but is still alive!  The longest serving record store in Kitchener still lives today.  I can recall bringing home treasures such as Rocka Rolla by Judas Priest.  Vinyl, of course – cassettes were impossible to find of that oldie.  The idea was, if you went downtown, you wanted to score something that you couldn’t get at the mall.  It had to be something special.  A single, an import, a record you couldn’t buy on cassette in these parts.  The city had record stores, but so did the cottage.  What the cottage didn’t have was Sam’s, Encore, and Dr. Disc.  No access to music that was hard to find.  Coming home to the city meant buying rarities.

We rocked hard and we played hard.  Summer meant basketball, baseball, and tennis.  Usually with music blasting!  Sports weren’t my thing but they were a thing that we did.  Hours spent at the park.  In driveways.  In backyards, playing.  Or we’d be getting into trouble, exploring the nearby woods on our bikes.  We did a lot of exploring.  We came back scraped and bruised, and it was awesome.  Constantly exploring!

Occasionally we’d go to the waterpark at Pioneer Sports World, which no longer exists.  I can still smell the chlorine!  One thing about summer in the city, you can smell the chlorine from nearby pools.  Chlorine always smells like summer.  Of course, for non-chlorinated water fun, we set up sprinklers at home.  One summer, we built an obstacle course in the back yard with lawn chairs and sprinklers.  Only we understood the rules, but it was a race against the clock!  My new digital stopwatch was timekeeper.  Just couldn’t get it wet!

Sprinklers gave way to water balloons.  Bob and I would go to the store and buy a few bags of balloons.  We made such a mess!  Parents would be furious about the wasted water and rubber fragments all over the yard.  Those rubber bits always took a while to clean up.  Parents did not enjoy water balloon days at our house.

The next door neighbor George was always a misfit.  One day Bob and I decided to hurl water balloons at his bedroom window.  The barrage of water was never acknowledged, but I do recall Bob and I remarking how dirty his windows were!  The water revealed years of accumulated dirt on his screens.

Playing outdoors was the thing.  Parents didn’t want us in their personal spaces.  In the olden days, we would have played GI Joe or Lego in the yard.  Later on, we’d grab our guitars, amps, tape decks and power cords and record!  Whether on the front patio, or in the garage, we recorded a lot of garbage.  It didn’t matter how bad it was, just that the record button was on.  I have seven cassettes called “Mike and Bob…” littered with garbage we recorded!

Bob and I would raise hell for a month or so, but then it was time again.  My dad usually had two weeks of vacation booked for August which would be spent at the lake.  Sometimes he’d go home for a day and bring us our mail, but there was rarely anything good.  The two weeks of isolation in August was worse than July because the weather was wet and cold.  Worst of all, the TV would start showing “back to school” ads.  Now that was something in the city that we didn’t want to return to.  By the time we got home, kids were already sporting their new “back to school” haircuts, and had new shoes waiting for the coming year.  All we had left was Labour Day and then back to the daily fall grind!

Time changes everything.  Once Bob finished highschool, he was allowed to drive to the cottage.  No more friend-less holidays!  Then we got phones, cable TV, and VCRs.  (There are actually three VCRs in storage at the cottage right now!)  When these things changed, so did my attitude.  Now I’d rather be there, than anywhere else in the world!

I wonder if Bob’s up for a garage jam session this summer!

#1070: Guilty of Vinyl Abuse (1987) – Kiss Killers (VIDEO)

RECORD STORE TALES #1070:
Guilty of Vinyl Abuse (1987) – Kiss Killers

Not much backstory here to tell!  I was a bored kid at the cottage, away from my best friend Bob.  We had an ongoing (and absolutely terrible) series of comedy sketch tapes called Mike & Bob.  The video you are about to watch contains some audio from Mike & Bob Vol. II, and some explanations as to what you’re hearing.

The cottage could be very boring when you’re a teenager.  I was either 14 or 15.  Typically I packed all my records, all my tapes, my ghetto blaster, my turntable, my microphones, and every piece of equipment I had to bring to the lake when we went for a lengthy time.  I missed my friend Bob.  Normally, we always recorded together.  This is a rare example of some of the only stuff I recorded without him.

We did a lot of really bad sketch comedy but some of the listenable ones were parody ads.  In this one, I advertise Casablanca Records & Tapes…for those who don’t have money to buy the best.  I abused my copy of Kiss Killers in order to do this.  My only excuse is boredom.

That summer, my sister’s friends were renting the cottage next door.  They figure in at the end of the video, if you choose to go that far….

Enjoy this blast from the past, brought to you by TDK D90 cassettes, and my new Kenwood tape deck from Max the Axe!

One record was harmed in the making of this video.

#1069: A Tale of Three Seizures

RECORD STORE TALES #1069: A Tale of Three Seizures

It happens every few months.  Clusters of seizures, wreaking havoc on our mental health and chaos in the house.

We had a great weekend, but a weekend without seizures of some kind is very rare for us.  We made it all the way to Sunday morning without an event.  Although I didn’t witness them all, I counted three seizures on Sunday morning.

I figure there was one before 2:00 AM.  I woke up around then, and I found my Lego trumpet player smashed.  Jen had no memory of doing it, but she did manage to pick up most of the pieces and put them all aside somehow.  The final missing piece was found in the morning.  They only way we know a seizure happened was because the Lego was smashed, returned, and she had no memory of it.  It’s a bit like piecing a mystery together from the evidence left behind.

The second seizure happened before 5:00 AM.  I am certain that Jen could not get into the bed, because I was sprawled over the whole mattress.  I went looking for Jen.  Not on the couch.  Not on the spare bed.  Not on the parents’ bed.  I lit up all the lights in the house and called for her.  Not in the bathroom.  That’s all the rooms.  I went back into the spare room and she was on the floor.  I assumed she went to bed in the spare room due to lack of options, had a seizure and fell off the bed.  It was very difficult to wake her up and get her into a proper bed.  She was uninjured.

Third seizure was the one I witnessed.  I was outside working on the porch.  In between songs, I heard unpleasant noises coming from the bedroom window.  I looked in and Jen was convulsing.  It took her approximately three hours to come back to reality after that seizure.  And a lot of cleanup that I won’t get into.  Suffice to say it was a tiring and difficult morning for me.

For Jen it was a day of sleeping.  She spent most of it in bed.  I spent the morning watching two of the greatest sequels (with two of the greatest sequel soundtracks) of all time:  The Empire Strikes Back, and The Wrath of Khan.  I wasn’t in the mood to be outdoors.  I wanted to be in where I could better monitor Jen’s recovery.

Incidentally, we have a pretty good idea of what caused the seizures this time.  She missed her meds the previous day.  That’ll do it.

We try not to let these things ruin our weekends.  We had a great five days at the lake, regardless of Sunday being a writeoff for Jen.  We made the best of it.  We had a tomahawk steak for dinner, but I was just wiped out afterwards and called it an early night.

Nobody said it was easy.  But we don’t quit either.  We don’t give up on each other.  We’ve been through enough this year already.  This wasn’t even a roadblock or an obstacle in our lives.  Once it’s over and done with, all that’s left is to write the Record Store Tale.

#1068: Happy Fourth of July!

Happy fourth of July to my American friends and acquaintances!  While your party is beginning, we are recovering from ours!

Jen and I have returned from an amazing five day weekend at the lake.  It’s amazing how I can “rest” for five days and come home completely exhausted!  I’m not getting any younger.  My right arm and hand are in bad shape with arthritis and even though I slept 12 hours, I could use 12 more.

Summer’s officially here.  Lots of projects on the go!  Grab A Stack of Rock will be back later, as I work on these projects:

  1. A super-secret taping with Tim’s Vinyl Confessions
  2. Another with Grant’s Rock Warehaus
  3. A pro/con Vinnie Vincent Invasion show with Peter Kerr
  4. A live Helix show with Grant and Tim

And that’s not including the projects I am cooking up with Harrison and Jex!

Although it might be hard, I need to take this July slow and steady.

Happy summer and happy Fourth of July,

Mike

 

#1067: The Distance

A sequel to #322:  Highway to Hell

RECORD STORE TALES #1067: The Distance

Regardless of “improvements” on Highway 401 and King St. in Kitchener, commuting continues to be a highway to hell.

I was spoiled for many years with pretty easy commutes.  During my first two years (1994-1996) at the Beat Goes On in Stanley Park Mall, I was able to walk to work.  Talk about the dream situation!  Working at a music store, coming home with amazing used CDs every week, and only a 10 minute walk home!  No wonder I was so skinny.  However, working part time buying and selling used CDs wasn’t sustainable forever, and I sought advancement.

Though I was skipped over on the first managerial promotion, I was selected to run our new Fairway Road location in 1996.  This was especially exciting, because it was the biggest store yet.  I admit I let this go to my head.  I boasted a bit.  This new store had six listening stations for customers, each equipped with a five-disc CD changer.  Our store was to be 95% used CDs, with a small selection of charting new releases.  The only thing I didn’t like was the location.  Across from Fairview Mall, it was kind of…trashy, in terms of clientele.  There were jazz snobs and strippers in equal measure.  It was only a ten minute drive from home though.  Not bad, though I only walked to work once.

In 2004 I was transferred across town to Highland Road.  This is where I really learned to driving to work.  I experimented with different routes to and from, eventually coming up with an optimal way to, and another one from, work.  The accountant Jonathan lived near one of my routes and gave me tips.  I improved my musical arsenal by putting a Discman in the car.  The commute was now about 20 minutes each way, but unfortunately now I also to do pickups and drop-offs as part of the relocation.  My old location was the hub store, so I didn’t have to do a lot of pickups or deliveries.  This commute was more prone to disruption by construction, weather and accidents, but hey…I had a Discman in the car now.

I quit the hellhole in 2005, with my final day coming in January 2006.  I worked a number of jobs in 2006, before settling in at United Rentals, which I loved.  They had music piped in on the radio, which was my introduction to the great local rock station Dave FM.  Hard to believe that relationships I made there are almost two decades ago now.  That was life changing, but the commute was the thing.  10 minutes, with a Tim Horton’s right on the route, and all back roads too!  Never any traffic issues.  I had a new car too, with a factory CD player.  Another quantum leap for me!

United Rentals was probably my peak happiness for driving to and from work.  Now I work in Cambridge, and have done for the last 17 years.  My commute used to be 10-15 minutes.  Now, it’s pure agony.

Construction is perpetual.  Every way I go, I run into construction.  There was a brief four month reprieve, where one of my routes had no construction.  That oasis of good driving has now ended.  To get home from Cambridge, I need to not only cross over Highway 401, the busiest in Canada, but also the Grand River.  And guess what?  The Grand River bridge right around the corner from my place is now needing repair.  They’ve already blocked truck and bus traffic.  Next year, it’ll be out of service.  That means I’m going to be forced to take the 401 to and from work every day.  Which I already do anyway, now that construction has resumed on King St.!

Now, of course, I have my 2T hard drive in the car, so I can listen to literally everything I have ripped to PC.  That helps to alleviate the tension a little, but the drive home is still a nailbiter several times a week.

Still waiting on that flying car!


Video filmed by the Grand River bridge

#1066: Sausagefest Intro by Jeff Woods

RECORD STORE TALES #1066: Sausagefest Intro by Jeff Woods

Jeff Woods is a radio personality known for The Legends of Classic Rock, and the Records and Rockstars Podcast.  Mr. Woods was kind enough to record a sketch for our Sausagefesting adventures, and you won’t believe what the guys got him to say.

Three cheers for Jeff Woods, a good sport and a great human.

 

May 25-28 2023 at the Cottage with the Woodpecker from Mars

Music: The Last Train by Tee Bone Erickson.

 

RECORD STORE TALES #1065: Even the Best Weekends Can Turn to Crap

It started great!

Thursday night, the music on the trip up to the lake was amazing. We began with The Cult’s Fire Woman EP, and moved on to Michigan Left by the Arkells.  Jen fell asleep in the car and I was left to sing along by myself.  Never a problem!

We came packed with lots of Lego, and plenty of new music to unbox live on Grab A Stack of Rock.  We arrived with coffee, treats and tunes!  Immediately I set up on the front porch and started playing mellow music.  Jim Cuddy’s All In Time is one of the best cottage front porch albums for dancing that I have ever heard.  From rockers to tear-jerking ballads, what an album!  I used to consider it “just a Blue Rodeo album without Greg” but it’s actually far more than that.  Articulating it is hard, but the album evoked emotions and dance moves that Blue Rodeo didn’t.  We also played some of Alice Cooper’s more emotional, cinematic tunes that night.  It was a magical start.

Friday was a wonderful day!  I commenced with some more porch music, and then we hit The Beef Way for our weekend meat!  We chose two T-bone steaks, a turkey breast fillet (for Jen) and a beautiful duck breast (for me).  It was my first duck breast.  I seasoned heavily with salt, pepper and garlic powder to offset that gamey taste.  I scored the fat, cooked it skin side down in a frying pan for 10 minutes to get it cripsy, and finished it in the BBQ.  When finished, you could have mistaken it for steak, it was that good.  The skin was the best part, and I’ll get duck breast from The Beef Way again.  Just an awesome lunch!

Of course, Friday night was Grab A Stack of Rock, and an excellent show was had, almost two hours long!  I’m calling it the “No More Heels Tour of 2023”.  This was my first cottage weekend since August 2022 where I wasn’t making videos and taking pictures for my former friend, Manda.  With that friendship now ended, it was hard to be motivated to produce fun nature images.  However, one door closes and another opens.  I focused on music instead, and Grab A Stack really did rock this time!  Lots of new music revealed, to be reviewed in the coming weeks/months, including Journey Through Time.

First thing Saturday morning, I taped an excellent Tim’s Vinyl Confessions, reviewing the new Def Leppard Drastic Symphonies.  I cannot wait until this airs!  Although we were both kind but critical, I’m sure the Fanboy trolls will be out when it’s released on YouTube.  I will of course be posting it here for ease of viewing.  It was possibly my favourite Tim’s Vinyl Confessions that I’ve been involved with to date!

We did “Jazz Saturday” morning with Herbie Hancock’s Quartet.  By recommendation of Robert Lawson, next Jazz Saturday will be to Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life.  It’s ordered and on its way.  Then we switched to the back yard, and built Lego all afternoon.  We are both enjoying the Lego “Speed Champions” series of licensed car models.  They are all roughly the same scale and although they are similar in design, very few of them use the exact same design techniques.  Jen also build a New York City skyline, while I finally finished my knockoff Titanic set.  I’ll never buy knockoff Lego again.  It looks cool complete, but it was very hard to build with confusing instructions and bags.  The final fitting pieces were not up to Lego’s standards.   It does look good, but never again.

It was Saturday evening that turned everything to shit.

I made the steaks, damn perfect if you asked me, and Jen proclaimed “I’m gonna eat the whole thing!”  I was already half full from snacking on chips so I knew I was keeping leftovers.  As she took a mid-meal break, Jen had a seizure.

The coffee spilled.  The Coke spilled.  I could stop neither because I was busy keeping her from falling off her chair.  Eventually I got her safely down, where she soaked herself in spilled coffee.  It took some work to get her into bed.  More seizures later that night.  She fell off the bed, and once again Mike managed to pull off a save.  I’ve lost track of the rest of the seizures that night but we figured it was four or five total.  Not the most restful night, and I was completely exhausted from cleaning up the spills.  I went to bed early and slept in late.  Not the way I usually do things at the cottage.  I like to stay up late and enjoy the creatures of the night.  That didn’t happen this weekend.

I came home Sunday completely exhausted and Jen slept the entire way.  Music on the way home was also mellow:  Ward One: Along the Way and When the Bough Breaks by Bill Ward.  Really good and felt appropriate to my mood.

We will have more Lego to build next time.  My Jazz Quartet set looks challenging and interesting.  Hopefully the next trip will be less eventful!

#1065: Even the Best Weekends Can Turn to Crap

RECORD STORE TALES #1065: Even the Best Weekends Can Turn to Crap

It started great!

Thursday night, the music on the trip up to the lake was amazing. We began with The Cult’s Fire Woman EP, and moved on to Michigan Left by the Arkells.  Jen fell asleep in the car and I was left to sing along by myself.  Never a problem!

We came packed with lots of Lego, and plenty of new music to unbox live on Grab A Stack of Rock.  We arrived with coffee, treats and tunes!  Immediately I set up on the front porch and started playing mellow music.  Jim Cuddy’s All In Time is one of the best cottage front porch albums for dancing that I have ever heard.  From rockers to tear-jerking ballads, what an album!  I used to consider it “just a Blue Rodeo album without Greg” but it’s actually far more than that.  Articulating it is hard, but the album evoked emotions and dance moves that Blue Rodeo didn’t.  We also played some of Alice Cooper’s more emotional, cinematic tunes that night.  It was a magical start.

Friday was a wonderful day!  I commenced with some more porch music, and then we hit The Beef Way for our weekend meat!  We chose two T-bone steaks, a turkey breast fillet (for Jen) and a beautiful duck breast (for me).  It was my first duck breast.  I seasoned heavily with salt, pepper and garlic powder to offset that gamey taste.  I scored the fat, cooked it skin side down in a frying pan for 10 minutes to get it cripsy, and finished it in the BBQ.  When finished, you could have mistaken it for steak, it was that good.  The skin was the best part, and I’ll get duck breast from The Beef Way again.  Just an awesome lunch!

Of course, Friday night was Grab A Stack of Rock, and an excellent show was had, almost two hours long!  Grab A Stack really did rock this time!  Lots of new music revealed, to be reviewed in the coming weeks/months, including Journey Through Time.

First thing Saturday morning, I taped an excellent Tim’s Vinyl Confessions, reviewing the new Def Leppard Drastic Symphonies.  I cannot wait until this airs!  Although we were both kind but critical, I’m sure the Fanboy trolls will be out when it’s released on YouTube.  I will of course be posting it here for ease of viewing.  It was possibly my favourite Tim’s Vinyl Confessions that I’ve been involved with to date!

We did “Jazz Saturday” morning with Herbie Hancock’s Quartet.  By recommendation of Robert Lawson, next Jazz Saturday will be to Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life.  It’s ordered and on its way.  Then we switched to the back yard, and built Lego all afternoon.  We are both enjoying the Lego “Speed Champions” series of licensed car models.  They are all roughly the same scale and although they are similar in design, very few of them use the exact same design techniques.  Jen also build a New York City skyline, while I finally finished my knockoff Titanic set.  I’ll never buy knockoff Lego again.  It looks cool complete, but it was very hard to build with confusing instructions and bags.  The final fitting pieces were not up to Lego’s standards.   It does look good, but never again.

It was Saturday evening that turned everything to shit.

I made the steaks, damn perfect if you asked me, and Jen proclaimed “I’m gonna eat the whole thing!”  I was already half full from snacking on chips so I knew I was keeping leftovers.  As she took a mid-meal break, Jen had a seizure.

The coffee spilled.  The Coke spilled.  I could stop neither because I was busy keeping her from falling off her chair.  Eventually I got her safely down, where she soaked herself in spilled coffee.  It took some work to get her into bed.  More seizures later that night.  She fell off the bed, and once again Mike managed to pull off a save.  I’ve lost track of the rest of the seizures that night but we figured it was four or five total.  Not the most restful night, and I was completely exhausted from cleaning up the spills.  I went to bed early and slept in late.  Not the way I usually do things at the cottage.  I like to stay up late and enjoy the creatures of the night.  That didn’t happen this weekend.

I came home Sunday completely exhausted and Jen slept the entire way.  Music on the way home was also mellow:  Ward One: Along the Way and When the Bough Breaks by Bill Ward.  Really good and felt appropriate to my mood.

We will have more Lego to build next time.  My Jazz Quartet set looks challenging and interesting.  Hopefully the next trip will be less eventful!

 

 

#1064: “Mean People Suck”

RECORD STORE TALES #1064: “Mean People Suck”

Working retail, year after grinding year, can wear you down.  I have friends who have been doing it for over 30 years, and I don’t know how.  I barely lasted ten.  In the end, I checked out before hitting my twelfth anniversary.

I outlasted T-Rev by a couple years.  He had been complaining to me a long, long time about retail.  He managed our Cambridge location.  He was really tiring of the predictable daily routine.  People arguing over prices, condition, or the right of the customer to use our washroom or not.  (Not!)  I worked at his location for many weeks one summer.  They had a cutout from a magazine in the bathroom that said “MEAN PEOPLE SUCK”.  They modified it to read “PEOPLE SUCK”.  Not the kind of thing you want your customers to see.

It was true though.  We were inundated with a such a myriad of stupid and flat-out meanness over the years that it could wear down Mt. Everest to gravel.  I’ve been called an asshole, four-eyes, deaf…and you’re just expected to take it all.  You have to take it with a smile on your face when a customer tries to pull one over on you.  You have to absorb all their rage when you screw up.  Just take it.

I couldn’t always take it.  Some of these guys triggered me and I lashed back verbally.  And I was better at it than any of them.  It happened three times, that I can remember.  And let me tell you, they had it coming!

I paid for it in spades, but they had it coming.

One thing that I blame for this was management’s strict rules about things like returns and reservations.  I didn’t like getting yelled at for accepting returns that I shouldn’t have, so I erred on the side of caution.  I probably could have gotten away with things, like a return without a receipt, and I think other people probably did, but instead I got blasted by customers.  It was kind of a lose/lose.  Having said this, if I remembered the person buying the CD, no problem!  If I didn’t…

Here’s something funny, a lot of customers expected you to remember them.  “Hey!  I’m back!” was a phrase I heard frequently from strangers.  We had regulars that we knew by name, but there were always total strangers who would say, “I was here two weeks, and you sold me a Skynyrd CD, remember?”

When I was a kid, grade 3 or 4, I remember being put in charge of selling things from a table at a school sale.  I had to take change and sometimes make change.  I loved it.  I loved the interaction with the other kids, and all the smiles.  I  think I was only there for an hour, but I felt amazing.  I came home from school that day all aglow, telling my dad that I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.  It’s a shame the reality didn’t live up to the childhood expectation.

Smiles were infrequent.  You’d think people would be happier buying music.  I am.  On the other hand, just as those customers who berated me on every visit didn’t know me or anything about me, I also did not know them.  Their reasons for their ill tempers were none of my business.

I think we can still all agree on one thing:  mean people suck!

 

#1063: Life is Like a Lake

RECORD STORE TALES #1063: Life is Like a Lake

Over the course of 51 years on the shores of Lake Huron, I have witnessed the power of nature and the change it brings every season.  Change is the one constant in life, isn’t it?  For better or worse, everything changes.  Nothing can remain static.  Things wear and decay, and are eventually replaced by newer, younger things.  This is obvious every spring on the shores of Huron.  The coast changes, the rocks, the trees, everything.  In a way, life is like a lake.

When we returned this spring, much had changed.  The seasons are unrelenting.  We found several large rocks, freshly cracked, and sharp like blades.  Over the summer and fall, water found its way through microscopic cracks in the stones.  Over winter, it froze and expanded, breaking rocks clean in half.  The remnants are like ancient stone cutting tools, sharp and jagged.  In a way, that’s parallel with relationships.  Sometimes things set in, year after year, until they eventually expand and crack the relationship in two.  I’ve experienced this recently.  The edges that cut are still painful.

Things die over the winter.  Some young trees do not survive.  Older ones fall, only to become firewood for the coming year.  Just like life, and the losses we experience more and more as we get older.  It never gets easier.  It’s a matter of picking up the pieces are carrying on.

The only constant at the lake is change.  Eternal change.  This is especially obvious when you look back at old photographs.  The lake levels change, the beach is covered with rocks one year, and sand the next.  The changes cannot be predicted, except that the land will change.  Where men once pushed the forest and weeds back, now they encroach again when left untended.  It’s quite amazing how quickly nature can retake a patch of land left untouched.  Just like life.  Neglect an aspect of your life, be it physical or mental, and you will notice the difference.  Life must be worked, at constantly, or you will lose what you gained.

Some years, there is more life than others.  Some years, wild turkeys.  Other years, foxes.  Perhaps the foxes scared away the turkeys.  Once in a while we’ll have a dear, or a bear.  Raccoons, porcupines and skunks are common.  When the animals disappear, you can only guess as to why.  Kind of like being “ghosted” in life.  Sometimes they return unexpectedly.  Always a delight.  Like a friend returning after a long absence.

One thing that is clear at the lake:  You cannot return to the past.  The past is gone, like the ghost of a memory.  Things only move forwards, not backwards.  The massive winter ice sheets we used to get are gone now, likely never to return in my lifetime.  The rivers carve away the landscape, leaving different shapes.  The cliffs we used to walk as kids no longer exist, or are now on inaccessible private property, built over and paved.  There is no return.  Those things are gone.

And that’s life in a nutshell.