Family has been an ongoing on again, off again thing that my family has always had issues understanding what the meaning of family is. I honestly don’t believe that we have really gotten it really figured out until Jennifer came in the picture. She had recently lost her mother, and her brother is a real turd, who has not called or reached out in over a decade now. With that, she has really become attached to my family, talking to my mother daily, and regularly calling my sister to keep in touch with her as well.
Growing up, we had grandparents, my mother’s dad and step-mom, my Opa and Grandma (Pauline), who lived on beautiful Sweetwater Lake, in Brown County, Indiana. From the early 1970’s, we would spend many weekends there from spring to fall, as well as several of the weekend or week long vacations over the winters and summers. I think it was a convenient place for my parents to send my sister and I away for a week, so they could have a break. I think that was necessary, as I was told that while a brilliant mine I had, I apparently chose to use it for “evil” when it came to having too much time on my hands.
When we started going to Sweetwater, there were very few homes built on the lake, as they had just recently opened the lake for new building, with only small 3 season cabins dotting the shores. We were lucky to have a 6 car garage with an apartment above, where the adults stayed, and a little boat shed that we could sleep, if we could get past the spiders. I am not quite sure, but I believe I sleep either in the car, or on a chair on the deck. Later, when the house was livable, I would sleep inside, in whatever room I could find, sometimes on the floor, on the grey commercial flooring, that smelled of the glue that held it to the concrete, an orange leather couch, or if I was lucky, I would get one of the second floor bedrooms in the 5000+ square footage overkill of a house.
Don’t get me wrong, the house was spectacular. Each and every bit of it was built during the weekends when Opa, a German master cabinetmaker and woodworker, the uncles, all who were German carpenters, cabinet makers and craftsmen, and my dad, who taught vocational building trades and home building. With this muscle the home went up fairly quick, with them working together to build the house.
The home was spectacular, a huge A frame, with a large extension on both the left and the right and with a full porch around both the ground level, as well as a deck on the 2nd floor, with a full glass wall on the side of the home facing the lake.
As it’s past 2 am, I’m going to leave this post here, and leave you with a few pictures of this magical place for me.
