In the good old summertime HEATHER DAVIS
Summer is about being hot and cold.
Hot in the sun and then cold in the pool. Hot in the sun and then cold eating a popsicle. Hot in the car and then cold in the air-conditioned mall.
Hot in the sun and then cold after the sun goes down, hot again by the bonfire, cold after a night-time shower, hot in bed, and cold in the morning after having thrown the bedcovers away in the middle of the night.
By these standards, Saturday was a great day.
The morning was sweltering. It was thirty degrees at noon when, at a friend's urging, we left our stuffy house and drove to Magog to canoe Lake Memphremagog. It was hot when we left, cooler on the highway, and hot again when we arrived.
We grabbed our dented, rented canoes and hit the lake along with hoards of tourists riding ridiculous water contraptions like surf-bikes and idiot-proof kayaks.
We were turning over the possibility of canoeing to the United States when we noticed black storm clouds and what looked like rain falling in the far distance. We opted instead to canoe the narrow canal route.
Canoeing in the canal was easy. We had time to admire the lily pads and the deadheads that we thought resembled beavers.
"Hey, what's that? Is that a beaver?"
Soon we pulled our canoes up alongside a newly constructed boardwalk. It looked like a good place for a picnic. We were neither hot nor cold. We should have known it couldn't last.
Then we saw lightening and heard thunder. But we were still amused. The storm looked like it was going to pass right by us. But a minute later, the wind changed and we saw that it was coming our way.
Suddenly we felt very tall and attractive to travelling bolts of electricity.
As we paddled back towards the lake, I thought about the newspaper story I had read. There had been a woman on an island. She had been hit by lightening twice during the same storm. And I think she's okay, too. The story had made me laugh guiltily because of the old adage – lightening never strikes the same place twice.
But now I wasn't laughing. One of the staff motored by in a speedboat yelling, "Gros orage!" Our arms were getting tired.
"Switch sides!" Ghis kept yelling.
Rain started to fall, and it was fun. Feeling it land on my tired arms and cramped legs. Seeing the big plops the drops made when they hit the water. Anyway, we were not that far from the safety of the rental shack.
By the time we reached the lake, we were drenched. But as we turned towards the public beach, the storm came closer. More lightning. More thunder. But this time in unison.
I thought about the magazine article I read that said that getting hit by lightening can knock your fillings out. I wondered how many fillings I had. Apparently some people who keep their fillings can pick up radio stations with them.
We canoed along the lake until the storm was right on top of us and we realized we were the only bumpy thing on a very flat body of water. We paddled to shore and pulled the heavy canoe up behind us.
We decided to run the canoe back to the beach. It wasn't too bad. There were lots of trees around to protect us. Then it started to hail.
"I never thought I'd say this today," I shouted gleefully through chattering densely-filled teeth, "but I'm freezing!"
Finally, the beach was in sight. But there was a fence. We couldn't go around it. Couldn't go under it. Couldn't go through it. Had to go over it!
Somehow Ghis coached me along and we managed to get the canoe halfway over the fence. This was quite a feat seeing as I was reluctant to get out from underneath it.
We basically threw the yellow canoe, which was just a liability to us at this point, over the fence and sprinted to the shack. There were about half a dozen dry staff members huddled together there. And they were all laughing.
Huddled in the car, we cranked the heat as high as it would go, turning the car into a transportable sauna.
Ahhhh, summer.
Copyright © 2000 Heather Davis/Log Cabin Chronicles/07.00 |
