5670-R3_CIC_May2018_Calendar_Web

Marty’s Memories: Opening Up the Cottage by Marty Trower

May, Mum, and the mice. Those memories are all mashed together. Mice and their winter occupation of the cottage were enough to undo my mother as soon as she walked into the summer house. As my sister and I were running to the edge of the bank, gulping in that sweet, hard-edged salt air, she would be stepping into the closed-up cottage, bracing herself for what she might find. We were no help. The smell of trapped air and winter-long mice dwelling made us gag. Our mother showed us chewed bars of new Ivory soap and stamped her foot, raging at the gluttonous rodents. When she pulled open the chest of drawers to get out the sheets to make up our beds, she recoiled in horror, finding them soaked through in old brown blood; ruined. A bullet hole through the front windowpane had allowed water to come in and damage the table that had always been in front of it, between the two wooden chairs we sat in.The veneer had curled up, but we continued to use it anyway and I still do, as the cottage is my home now. Dad made us pick up the thousands of branches and twigs on the property that had been torn from trees by winter winds. Jen and I never finished monotonous jobs like that.We wanted to get away, go out walking, and find the friends we hadn’t seen since the summer before. We wanted to be seen, here. Getting the cottage warm in May was not easy. The slanting red brick fireplace was always out of wood, and it was our job to go out and get it. We would first use the fallen tree branches for fuel, but those

didn’t last long. We would then have to gather driftwood from the beach, but that was usually wet and had to dry out for a while before it was any good. We also had a horrible upright kerosene heater that crowded the space in the kitchen–dining area. Our parents always grumbled about it, but they were the ones who were in charge of getting it going and keeping it going. One Saturday night, my sister and I were home alone and the fire in the heater went out. We thought we were pretty clever to get it lit again until an enormous roar told us that something had gone terribly wrong. Flames were jumping out of the opening, terrifying us. One of us said, “We have to throw water on it to stop it!” I was probably the one who grabbed the nearest receptacle and filled it. Unfortunately, it was the tin bucket where we put our garbage scraps before taking them outside. Oh, that was so long ago, but I can still see inside the circular opening of the kerosene heater—the oil, the water, and garbage floating around in a sizzling, smelly mess—and the two of us gaping at it. Yes, the fire was out, but we were wrecks, afraid it would erupt again. We tied Skipper, our huge springer spaniel, to a long rope and hauled him over with us, in the pouring rain and raging wind to where our parents were visiting. The fear of telling them what we had done has erased any other memories of that incident. I’m sure they were not happy about it, but maybe they were pleased that at least we had not burned down the cottage. I know I am grateful too, if not a bit embarrassed at the memory.

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MAY 2018 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR