June 8, 2023 at 1:45 p.m.
The Lake Where You Live
A long weekend with the boys
By Ted Rulseh-
During that time grandsons Tucker (now 11) and Perrin (9) stay with us at Birch Lake. This is my chance, subversive Grampa that I am, to acclimate them (or get them addicted?) to the charms of the Northwoods.
Since they were little the boys have called our place the Green House, because that's the color of the siding. They both love the lake and what Tucker used to call "the tree forest." They are also different enough not to be easily recognized as brothers.
Tucker, brown-haired and blue-eyed, is husky, robust, approaching the leading edge of puberty, but still with his trebly child's voice. He isn't athletic, has a lumbering gait and runs with an unusual shuffle. He loves music, is studying piano and acoustic and electric guitar (for the electric he has a distortion box that plugs into the amp) and next year will oom-pah on the tuba in the Plymouth Middle School band.
Even when only four or five, he'd carry on long conversations with me, and he still does. Most kids ask questions. Tucker makes assertions, true or not. "Grampa, walleyes are the apex predators in Birch Lake." Or, "Bullheads are the fish that have the strongest jaws." Or, "Hemlocks are the tallest trees." A conversation with Tucker usually isn't over until he decides it is. And that's fine, because they're always interesting.
Perrin, brownish blond hair, shiny brown eyes, brims with energy. On waking on Green House mornings he hops out of his bed in the knotty pine nook beneath the stairway, bounds up the steps and often as not pounces on me as I lie on the living room sofa.
Perrin is slender, agile, and well-coordinated. He earned a spot on a traveling soccer team and moves on the field in ways that show he might become an excellent player. He takes drum lessons, and it's easy to picture him one day in a band, on the edge of the chair behind the kit, head bobbing as he pounds out a beat.
Perrin alternates between extremely talkative in his high-pitched excited voice and all but silent, trying to communicate with gestures. I wonder sometimes if I need to learn American Sign Language, or if I should just suggest he try using words.
Noelle and I treasure our days with the boys. My favorite times are on the pontoon boat with them fishing. One late morning during the holiday weekend, Perrin stayed home doing art projects with Gramma, while Tucker and I endeavored to catch half a dozen perch to fry for lunch.
We succeeded, and as a bonus Tucker got to watch a pair of eagles repeatedly circle overhead, one of them swooping down to snatch a fish in its talons. One of the eagles tried to land at the tip of a birch tree; its weight broke the branch, and Tucker laughed out loud.
Interludes like that have no price. There's nothing quite like a long weekend with the boys.
Ted Rulseh is a writer, author and lake advocate who lives on Birch Lake in Oneida County. His new book, "Ripple Effects," has been released by UW Press. You can learn about it by visiting my website at https://thelakeguy.net.
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