There’s a chill in the air tonight. People still “at the lake,” watching their fires fade to a cadmium glow, put an extra quilt on the bed. Lights scattered along the shore say they’re not alone. It’s time for folks at Sturm & Drang to bring in the dock, drain the pipes and batten the cabin down for winter.
Agincourters resort to the lake — I like that verb, “resort: to go, especially frequently or customarily” — three months of every year whether they have a lake place, or not. Day trips are convenient, too. The comfort derived at Sturm & Drang includes the twenty-five-mile drive time, a time warp from 21st century cares. I’d say at least two years per mile, maybe three, because it’s still 1930 there, despite the slow economy, political posturing, and our dread that irreversible change is afoot.
Those twilight nights around the council ring are an assurance that families still matter, whether natural or constructed, like mine; that friendship counts for a lot; that Ernest Hemingway may have been right: ‘The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for.” These words were spoken by Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) in the 1995 film “Se7en, where he qualifies it, “I agree with the second part.” Do you agree with Hemingway or Detective Somerset?
Lacking a “lake place” of our own, Agincourt has become my place of frequent resort for quiet introspection. And since I neither swim nor fish, even an imaginary council fire has recuperative power.
