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Traditions Unite My Family At The Cottage

A visit to my sister's cottage prompted us to reminisce about cottage traditions. All those things you do, the glue that holds a place together and keeps you coming back year after year. It all started with the tradition of visiting her place, something I have been doing for 50 years.
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Outdoor Family Staffelsee
Poncho via Getty Images
Outdoor Family Staffelsee

A visit to my sister's cottage prompted us to reminisce about cottage traditions. All those things you do, the glue that holds a place together and keeps you coming back year after year. It all started with the tradition of visiting her place, something I have been doing for 50 years.

At my own cottage there's a veritable banquet of family traditions.

The first is not so much a tradition but a statement that cottage life is different from being in town. There is no cable TV. Horrors you think, how do we survive without some connection to the outside world? We survive quite nicely with CBC radio. Canada Lives Here as the used to say.

For years Saturday night has been Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap. His musical wisdom spans rock history all the way back to the emerging rock and roll in the 1950s. The whole rock and roll world came to Winnipeg in the 1950s and Randy was there. He is our Saturday night "date night" at the cottage.

Full disclosure, there is a TV for watching movies. But it is out of sight in the bedroom. No big black screen winking and blinking at you in the living room. When all other activities have been exhausted, the occasional video does get played.

My old CD player and a stack of CDs from Frank Sinatra to Janis Joplin add to the entertainment options.

Dishwasher? You are looking at her. Just like my push mower that gets used now and then. Starts up every time.

Breakfasts on the weekend include at least one artery threatening big fry up. And with that fry up goes fried green tomatoes. My son and I have been known to go through a grocery bag of green tomatoes over a week at the lake. Tart and salty, nothing goes better with bacon than those succulent, glistening green disks.

Water activities include a variety of paddles, kayaking or launching the big old flat bottomed row boat. The inflatables come out for a toss around the bay. This year I added an electric air pump. The foot pump, although effective, is the Model T of plastic inflation.

In the afternoon my grandchildren ask for their bowls of peanuts in the shell. They sit on the deck, just like their fathers did so many years ago, and feed themselves and the local chipmunk population. Not sure who gets more peanuts.

Happy hour on the deck has a special name "The Fixins Hour." My grandchildren pull up their chairs to their own little table and work their way through a selection of goodies. Smoked oysters with crackers and cheese being a very old family standard. My grandchildren usually pass on the oysters.

For the adults of the crowd assembled, manhattans or a good local craft beer with names like "Naughty Otter" are the order of the day to wash down those oysters.

At some point over the holiday we have a huge lobster dinner. Many lobsters have given their lives over the years to provide us with an evening of shell cracking fun. Along with that lobster dinner goes a very huge bowl of very garlicky Caesar Salad. My brother's famous homemade salad dressing recipe is dusted off along with several cloves of pressed garlic.

A family cottage is so much more than a place to holiday in the summer.

A late night run in the paddle boat is also a very long standing tradition. On a clear night, sitting in the middle of the lake under the stars of the Milky Way can be just about the best show you will ever see. There is no urban light pollution to dim that show. Nothing but the peace and quiet of the lake and twinkling stars.

And just as you are completely relaxed and taken with the spectacle, a beaver might decide he's had enough of your invasion of his territory. When you least suspect it, he gives a mighty whack right beside the paddle boat.

For those of us who don't make it to the paddle boat, there is the taste of a good single malt beside the fireplace as we solve the problems of the day. My sons and I have never run out of conversation. Not sure if it is being fueled by scotch but our chats have been known to go on for hours.

Fireworks never need a holiday. Letting off fireworks at the point into the night sky is part of the cottage tradition along with sparklers for the kids of all ages to twirl and spin.

The night ends with an ear tuned to the swamp and the local bullfrog population. Those big granddaddy bullfrogs spend their evenings with cheeks puffed out calling for a mate. That sound drifts in the bedroom window as we drift off.

A family cottage is so much more than a place to holiday in the summer. Traditions are the ties that bind a family together.

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