The Shack – The Next Generation

Today the shacks are classified as historic and thus are safe (for now).

When Pa built the place it was just him.

Then he had four children who each had a bunch of kids. Then each of those kids had kids, and so on. Now reservations are needed to get time at the shack.

I remember when I started taking my girls there. Many were worried how they would survive without electricity. My girls were avid readers from a young age. The best present was always a new book. They were also very imaginative. When we would do long car trips they would pick out a car and create a story – the back story and where the occupants were heading. Long car trips also warranted new coloring books and crayons. So they were amply supplied to survive without television.

We typically would spend a week there, hoping to time it that we would have particularly high tides.

Getting there involved a 6 hour car ride; punctuated by dinner at Bob’s Big Boy on the Jersey Turnpike. The three of us had our standard meals. An order of spaghetti with butter for my little one, a grilled cheese for my older daughter and a patty melt for me. From here we would continue the journey to grandma’s house where we would spend the night anxiously awaiting the genuine start of our vacation.

Food and water for the week were packed in the morning and loaded on the boat that would take us to the island.

Upon arrival it was difficult to focus on unpacking as everything needed to be done first – swimming, rowing, kite flying, sunning, fishing, picking wildflowers, and so on. There was always the ritual mud fight on the mud bar most every trip – better than a day at the spa. Ultimately, it all would happen, but the first order of business was hauling the supplies for the week from the boat to the shack and put it all away.

Showers after a swim were a favorite pastime as they would take place outdoors. If a better cleaning was needed before sleep a sponge bath with heated water from the well would be added later in the evening. As night fell evening activities would transition to playing cards, coloring, reading, star gazing, relaxing in the hammock and so on. The finale each evening was a self-scripted puppet show. Always creative and always entertaining, and more often than not included a musical number. There was a window between the porch and the main room that served as a perfect stage for the puppet shows.

There was so much to do at the shack that the classic things from home that were not there were never missed. Since they never were at the shack, they were never looked for.

This was long before cell phones existing as they do today, so we were truly away from it all. In all the years I did these trips I only regretted being so out of touch once. We had a one of my daughter’s friends with us. She ran headlong into a piece of equipment for transitioning the row boats from storage to the water and back. Head wounds bleed profusely and it took us many hours to get the bleeding to stop, had we been able I would certainly have taken her to the emergency room.

I’ve been fortunate to share this gem with one set of grandchildren and look forward to many more legacy moments with all of the.