By Mitch Lee
Limekiln Lake had come to life the Friday afternoon of Memorial Weekend 1978.
On the bus ride home from school we came to a halt in backed up traffic on my Limekiln Road.
Waiting to get into the campground were hundreds of station wagons and pickup trucks stacked high with camp gear.
Motorcycles and small pop-up trailers could be seen, along with a menagerie of wide-eyed moms and children who, even before they were out of their vehicles, began swatting at bugs.
With radios blaring and folks popping open cans of beer while they waited in line, it was clear to me that the weekend at and around my lake was going to be loud and raucous.
My house was a short 100 yards from the entrance to the campground and I could plainly hear the bustle of it all as I stepped off the bus.
Through the slight breeze I could plainly hear a mix of Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees and the low throated rumble of a Harley Davidson FXE-1200 Superglide Shovelhead.
Up until that day I had the entire lake to myself.
The sounds of the woods and smell of the first emerging greens accompanied me like a companion, as I made my way on adventures around the shoreline.
But now I had a thousand human sounds to muddle up the quiet of it all.
I ran in the house and threw my books on my bed before following my dog Mutt back out the door to find my fishing pole.
This was the perfect time of year to catch Splake down on the docks on the north shore of the lake.
I was pretty sure most of these people came to get away from it all and enjoy the quiet solitude of the lake.
But somehow, as Mutt and I fished from the old red boathouse our quiet time was interrupted by all sorts of noises floating across the lake.
“They brought it all with them,” I said to Mutt.
I reckoned that it was going to be a bit more challenging—even for us—to get away from all the rukus as the summer progressed.
We were going to have to retreat farther into the woods to get away from it all.
It was like the change of seasons…I knew it was coming. I didn’t hate the crowds or lament the end of my quiet time.
I just understood that it was time to share space with our visitors. I just kept on casting my bobber, as the fish didn’t seem to notice the change.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller,
lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com
