Cows with No Borders
In the late 40s and early 50s, we would often be awakened in the mornings to the sound of cowbells in our backyard. At the time there were hardly any fences around the yards and the cows, in this case from McArthur’s place a bit east of us, wandered all over the place with suitable cow-pie offerings here and there. But it did mean that no lawnmowers were necessary. It seems like the practice ended in the late 50s. And I remember once playing ball up at Ackerman’s fields (just past Doug McLay’s) and using cow-pies as bases!
Young Boys and Their Treacherous Toys
Ken & Ray McLay and I went through a phase of making and using slingshots one summer when we were about 11 or 12, around 1950. We would make them in Kenny McLay’s net-shed (between their house and ours), using forked branches and strips of tire inner tubes. I think we used lead shot for projectiles. Ken & Ray likely did some real hunting with them. I didn’t. One day, Ray and I, with not enough to do, walked along the back trail north on McArthur’s (where the municipality recently was briefly going to put a road so they could remove the ugly-bridge). We were plinking things along the way. When we came to the back of a house which we knew was not being lived in, we gave in to our inner devils and plinked a few windows out. Totally out of character for both of us, but such fun! So, of course, within a couple of days we were found out and had to pay for the damage. A life lesson, I reckon.
Bikes & Gravel & Girls Don’t Mix
I had my bike, a 1-speed beast, up at Stokes Bay when I was 13 or 14. Cousin Bill Hawes had a bike too. At one of the community dances, there were some girls who were vacationing at Pike Bay, about 12 miles south. Bill and I were enamored of the girls and decided the next day to secretly ride our bikes over the hill’n’dale (then) gravel road to Pike Bay. We made it somehow and even visited the girls. But on the way back in the late afternoon Bill had a flat tire about halfway home (maybe around Spry?). We did walk the bikes back. But we were not on time for supper and our cover was blown. We were in deep doo-doo. Never saw the girls again, either!
Commercial Fishing
Commercial fishing was done by license for a particular geographic location on the lake and covered a wide area. Most of it was for whitefish. Some for lake trout. Some for tullibee. It seems to me that most of the fishermen, like Kenny McLay, George McLay, Garney Hawke, netted mainly whitefish and some lake trout. Seymour Knight was the only one I can remember who netted a lot of tullibee. We often bought fish directly off the boat (sometimes we were gifted by Kenny McLay), when we didn’t have our own catch to eat. The super fresh fish cooked by my mother was a real treat.
Country Hick or City Slicker
When not in Stokes Bay, I grew up in Taylor, Michigan (then, Taylor Township) just west of Detroit. It was growing rapidly but was still somewhat rural. We didn’t have a high school yet, though one was being built. So the township contracted other districts to take our students. My brother (7 years older) went to Dearborn HS and I think I expected to also. But for some reason, my class of some 600 students (from a half dozen schools) was sent 11 miles away to an inner city school in Detroit, Southwestern HS. Since we came from outside the city, at Southwestern we were considered “country hicks” by the city dwellers. However, in Stokes Bay, since I came from around Detroit, I was considered a “city slicker”. Ah, perceptions. Anyway, such views tended to diminish with time and familiarity in both locations.
Fires 1
One warm and muggy summer day in the very early 1950s, when Ken & Ray McLay were still young enough (maybe 11 or 12) to not be assisting their dad most of the time, we were walking out near the Government Dock fairly early in the day. We noticed a tail of smoke over the trees towards Gauleys Bay. We had to go investigate. So we took off at a fast pace on the road to Gauleys Bay. As we got a ways along, we could see that the smoke was rising perpendicular to the road as we came to the long driveway into Jim Sprankle’s place, which sat on an almost island just outside Gauleys Bay. We headed in on the rough driveway, eventually coming to the Sprankle place. We had anticipated that it was a house fire, but upon arrival discovered it was in an unlikely spot, the ice house. It was more of a smoldering fire in the sawdust insulation than a blaze and we had little trouble putting it out. Seemed to be spontaneous combustion. There was no one there, as Jim came up from Ohio on an occasional basis. He may have been told about the incident by telephone, as it seems he was friends with Walter Charman who had a place just past Gauleys Bay and for whom Kenny McLay, Ken & Ray’s father, piloted his large boat in between his commercial fishing days. When he was next up, Jim thanked us personally.
Fires 2
In August of 1967, I was visiting my parents and staying in a small camping trailer they had out front. In the middle of the night I awoke to some commotion not so far away. Upon looking out the window the sky was lit up and I could see that there was a structure fire over at the Norman & Ellen McLay place just across the river. I got up and, with others, rushed over to see if there was anything we could do. Fortunately, it was not the house that was on fire, but a shed in the back. There were no heroics and it was just allowed to burn itself out.
By Jack Bertrand