Pageants and Pina’s

When I was around nine years old growing up in North West New Jersey, my summers were spent at the lake. As soon as the air got thick with the sound of honeybees my Mom would pack my brother and me in the station wagon, and we’d hit the beach with a cooler full of sandwiches and orange soda.
There were several lakes in my town, six come to mind, including the two within walking distance from my house. The one at the bottom of my street was no longer in use, ever since my Mom stopped the fight to keep it clean and safe for swimming.

When we moved to the country from Bergen county, she started a lake association and appointed herself president. She organized a neighborhood clean-up and enforced rules for the local teenagers to stop partying down there, leaving their broken bottles and debris on the shore. She collected dues and with the money had white sand shipped in and placed around the grassy bank, then stocked the water with trout for fishing. She did this because she was a crusader in those days, an organizer. But mostly she did it for her kids.

It was a grand old time. We’d play on the freshly paved basketball court, and barbecue when we were tired from racing each other to the dock. I even won a neighborhood beauty contest trophy and all. It would be the only one I would ever enter. Only five contestants, why push my luck?
It didn’t last long though. I can remember hearing the older kids from my bedroom window setting off firecrackers and playing loud music at night. The warm lake breeze carried their drunken howls up the street and through my screen. It’s a comforting memory now as I sit here writing about it though. Maybe I identify it with a happy time in my childhood. Falling asleep under the safety of your parents watch.
It only took one time of my brother coming out of the water bleeding from his foot after stepping on a broken beer bottle, to call the whole thing off. A few choice words and some stitches later, and we were members of another lake across town.

This one had a long line of cars to get in, and a grumpy old man in a golf shirt pointing out where to park. It had bumper boats, two water slides and a snack stand that sold virgin pina coladas and nachos with pump cheese. It even had a beer garden where the adults got buzzed to a one-man-band.
We spent five summers or more at that lake, with the throngs of bussed in tourists enjoying a day in the country. It was a great place. Not exclusive, or intimate, but entertaining. Multi-cultural, with enough space for me to walk around and feel a false sense of independence. I learned a lot there, made some friends, but you couldn’t fish, and I imagine any beauty competition would be fierce.

After my Mom lost her battle with our little lake down the street, it became overgrown and desolate. The basketball court began to bleach and crack. The sand turned to mud and the water grew dark and scummy. I see it every time I go home and I think about all my parents did to whip it into shape. It’s hard to fight the system. It’s exhausting. How long do you keep fighting a one-man war? At some point, if you can’t beat ‘em, you join ‘em….it’s only human.

Then, I suppose you can look at it another way. That at least you tried. That when most people are accepting the status quo you made a grander gesture. I mean, isn’t that what it’s all about? All invention, all advancement came from someone’s willingness to stand in the line of fire in the interest of the greater good. And what would happen if those people ceased to exist? If no one did anything for fear of failure or perceived failure, that is. Maybe by merely making the attempt you set something in motion that can transcend the thing itself? Maybe you inspire another just by the desire you show. Or the tenacity. Is it really a failure if you had the guts to try? Maybe that’s actually where we win or lose?

I guess the next time I walk by the lake I’ll think of the few great years it had.
And instead of feeling sad about it’s deserted shore, I’ll remember that it may not have been anything more than a scenic location were it not not for an ambitious transplant trying to do something nice for her kids.

Thanks Mom.
Hey, was that beauty contest rigged?