Detroit, Toledo, Grand Rapids, Chicago, and Indianapolis. Those are just some of the summer round trip commutes that the dads made, leaving work behind on Friday nights to catch up with family life at Diamond Lake on weekends, all summer long. By the early 60’s the advent of the interstate highway system made a big difference in this arduous routine. With one way travel time cut to just two or three hours between the lake and these bigger hometown cities, more people than ever were suddenly encouraged to buy a little summer place for the family.
Although my dad was the one who endured this drive all summer long, except during his treasured two week vacation, the whole family also did a lot of back and forth travel on the weekends – in the spring and in the fall. Those weekends were called work weekends – spent winterizing the unheated cottage and taking out the dock and boats in the fall, just to reverse the process in the spring.
Our particular journey was from Chicago, which took us right by the steel mills lined up along the toll road – a wall of industry. Moments after crossing the Indiana line, a rusty haze hung low in the sky. If it was already dark the mills looked like fire and brimstone whizzing by. But the real issue for me was the choking acrid smell that always forced its way right into the car with us. My sister and I always complained bitterly from the “way back” compartment of the station wagon, like this was some new unexpected torture to endure.
It was the days of no seatbelts so we moved around freely on the foam pad that my mother had sewn inside dark denim for these endless treks to and from Michigan. Since we always took our favorite pillows along we soon realized that if we breathed through them during the “steel mill miles” at least some of the awful smells were filtered out.
Aside from the bad smells and the dinners of sandwiches eaten en route to save travel time, there was one other appalling aspect of these trips. News Radio. My dad was addicted, even though the headlines were repeated without a single changed word every eight minutes. In between there were five minutes of an often repeated feature story and three minutes of weather, sports headlines, and commercials to keep the mind from numbing completely. But it kept him awake. That and the frequent renewal of his Juicy Fruit Gum that my mother fished out of the pack and unwrapped upon request. On the way back to Chicago after a particularly taxing weekend of lakefront chores he would trickle water down his shirt front if he felt he was nodding off – sometimes with the window opened to keep all of us from becoming too cozy and warm.
Even though it was a time when families were generally close knit, cottage life resulted in even more layers of togetherness. Five hours spent with mom and dad and each other during these round trip excursions was a lot for a five, ten and fifteen year old set of siblings. The worst was when the station wagon was packed so full of that we were all assigned to the middle bench seat. I think I would have welcomed the restriction of seatbelts if it had served as a better demarcation of personal space on those rides. “Just keep your cotton picking fingers to yourself,” was my brother’s constant line while my little sister complained that being in the middle was unfair. Everyone knew that I needed a window seat or the famous bologna sandwiches would not stay in my stomach very long. To even things out our family dog was stationed on my lap for most of each trip.
In dog years it must have been a ridiculously long ride for him but as soon as we hit the gravel road that meant we really were “almost there” Pete would have his head out the window, sniffing the farm smells that would soon give way to the fresher breezes of the lake.
All the cottages on our shore of the lake had two or three little bedrooms, many with bunk beds and pull-out couches to accommodate the family. The kids were often relegated to a screened in porch or a tent in the back yard when guests needed a bed. Tiny bathrooms (usually just one) were so small that you could barely stand between the tub and the sink with the toilet to your side. Kitchens and living rooms were part of each other but the family dining table was usually big enough for one more than you expected at a meal.
No one had air conditioning except for an occasional window unit, reserved for someone with a severe mold allergy. “But that’s why we bought at the lake,” was the logical explanation if anyone even mentioned the need for more than a fan on a hot night. An odd floor furnace, barely enough to take the chill off, was a luxury in the spring and the fall in a few of the cottages. But being outside was the main plan and that’s why the small inside space didn’t really matter that much.
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