Pipe Lake

When I was a little girl, I thought all the pomp and circumstance of the 4th of July was to celebrate my dad’s annual rotation around the sun. You will forgive my naivety if you’ve ever met the guy. He’s a remarkable human being, and even at a young age I recognized that.

My two brothers and sister and I would pace incessantly at the front door for my parents to finally be ready to load the car up with mom’s sauerkraut that she had dutifully stewed over the last two days, swimsuits, towels, and a big cooler full of Shasta soda in purple and orange cans. Our minivan would make a quick stop through the KFC drive thru to pick up a family bucket of chicken and then we’d stop and get the biggest case of fireworks we could find at Summit Trading, the Indian Reservation up the street. We drove through suburbs to get to Pipe Lake and would literally burst from the van before it even came to a stop because we were just sure we were the last to arrive at the party.

Uncle Bob and Aunt Noreen’s home looked like a shoebox on stilts and we clambered up the steep stairs until we reached the top, greeted by Aunt Lissa’s brownies and aunts dressed in the latest 80’s fashions. From up above they watched the uncles caught up in a hot game of horseshoes below, fueled by the Rainier Beer in their hands.

Like a game of Frogger, I, along with my siblings and nearly twenty or so cousins, would dodge flying horseshoes and race to the edge of the pond where the lily pads gathered and wherein began my nightmares of getting caught and strangled in them. With a running start, I would kick dust as I ran to the end of the dock and jumped in (and would manage a dunk or two) before my mom’s high pitched voice bellowed, “Jennifer! Get your life jacket on!”—Cementing my realization that I could very well be wearing the bright orange life-saving device until I left for college.

Piccolo Pete’s went off every two minutes, and we wrapped our wet bodies in towels and stood huddled together, watching fireworks go off above the lake. We would hold our bladders until we couldn’t any longer and then, trembling, venture into the outhouse where the garden hoe and the shovel also resided.

We went on this way for the entire day, until all the dads sobered up and we all loaded up our cars and we kids collapsed in our seats, ready to settle in for the long drive home, enough family and fun to fill us up until next year.

Interestingly, these idyllic, classic, timeless memories and traditions have the ability to haunt my heart and make me hungry for just one more time. A little piece of me lives at Uncle Bobby's home — at Pipe Lake, and that offensive outhouse that (thankfully) does not exist anymore.