I want to take you back to the summer of 1974. I was 14-years-old, and was in the car with my mom, who was dropping me off at the bus station in my hometown of Aurora, IL. I was about to go on a solo journey on a Continental Trailways bus to Green Bay, where I would transfer to a Greyhound bus and take it to my final destination in Mercer, Wisconsin. As I recall, the trip took fifteen-and-a-half hours, and in the end, I was neither kidnapped nor murdered on the bus or in the bus depot. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
Can you imagine allowing a 14-year-old kid to take a trip like this all alone today? There’s no way I would do that. Children and Family Services would get involved. Criminal charges would be filed, and the kid would likely end up in foster care. But in 1974, parents were much more trusting and permissive. I’ve written often about how much independence I had growing up, and it has served me well. But I still find it amazing that my parents once put me on a bus and sent me to Northern Wisconsin all by myself.
Of course, this post isn’t about the parenting skills of my mother and father. It is about Mercer, the place I ended up at the end of the bus trip. It was then, during that summer of 1974, that I fell in love with Mercer and the Northwoods of Wisconsin.
I had been invited to Mercer by my friend Brad Lyon. His family owned a cabin on Crystal Lake, just outside of town. The cabin was owned by Brad’s grandfather, Ralph, who everyone referred to as Papa. It was small, so Papa and Brad’s parents, Bob and Nancy, stayed in the cabin while Brad, his sister Pam, and I stayed in a camping trailer that sat in the woods nearby.
I learned several new things that summer. First, the indoor bathroom at the cabin was reserved for “number 2.” “Number 1” was meant for the woods or the lake.
I also learned how to water ski, although I admit I was a slow learner. It took me several tries to get up on two skies. I might have never figured out how to do it if it wasn’t for Brad’s dad, who finally clued me in on the need to have the leading tip of my skis out of the water when the boat took off. Once Brad’s dad shared this ancient secret with me, I could suddenly ski.
Papa used to get a kick out of watching me try to ski because he thought it was hilarious watching me fall. Once it became obvious that I was going down, I’d start taking steps across the surface of the water. Of course, that didn’t work very well for very long. After a step or two, I’d tumble like a rock into the cool lake. Papa began calling me JC—short for Jesus Christ—since I thought I could walk on water.
I also learned that in the summer in Northern Wisconsin, the sun doesn’t set until 9:00 or 9:30 at night, and until the sun sets, fun on and in the lake continues. There were many nights we continued to ski or swim until sunset, took baths in the lake at the foot of the dock, and didn’t have dinner until 10:00 at night. I loved it.
The summer of ’74 was just my first summer in Mercer. I was back for the summers of ’75 and ’76 with Brad and his family, and I made the journey on my own, staying at a hotel during the summers of ’78 and ‘80. After that first summer, I constantly wanted to go back, to play on the lake, and see friends I had made, including a girl named Rita, who became my summer flame.
When my homeless summer adventure began after selling my house in Southwestern Wisconsin this past May, I knew that at some point I wanted to return to Mercer. I wanted to spend time on the lake, visit the restaurants and bars in the area, and enjoy the beauty and comfort of a northern Wisconsin summer. So, I was thrilled when I found a place to rent about 20 minutes outside of town on the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage. Three weeks in paradise was exactly what I was looking for. It was going to be a great way to end my summer adventure.
If you’ve never heard of the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage, you’re missing out on a true gem. The Flowage was created in 1926 when the Chippewa and Flambeau Improvement Company dammed the confluence of the Turtle and Flambeau Rivers, creating a 13,000 acre impoundment that flooded thousands of acres of land, and more than a dozen already existing lakes, rivers, and creeks.
Although the Flowage is now a popular recreational destination, that’s not how it started. It was created to provide a predictable flow of water to electric utilities and paper mills downstream. What, if anything, it did for the local area and economy was not the primary concern.
Creation of the Flowage was initially controversial, but locals learned to make the best of a bad situation. In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, resorts started springing up around the shoreline, and fishermen began to flock to the area. In 1990, the State of Wisconsin purchased the Flowage from the Chippewa and Flambeau Improvement Company, as well as much of the land in the area. Today, Wisconsin owns 114 miles of mainland shoreline, 150 islands, more than 11,000 acres of water, nearly 8500 acres of woodland, and 3700 acres of wetlands around the Flowage. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources established the Turtle-Flambeau Scenic Waters Area in 1995, which today consists of more than 37,500 acres of spectacular water, shoreline, islands, woods, and wetlands.
The Flowage and the area around it are beautiful, wild, and pristine. It reminds me of the Canadian wilderness. The area is gorgeous, and is populated by black bears, wolves, deer, turkey, and even the occasional moose and elk. The other day, I watched out my window as an eagle circled overhead, then dove toward the water attempting to snag a loon. As far as I could tell, the loon was playing with the eagle, going underwater just as the eagle attacked, and surfacing several feet away. What a great show! Mercer and the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage truly are special.
In my next report, I’ll talk about what I’ve been doing since I got to the cabin, and I’ll talk about my plans for the immediate future once I leave. Until then, enjoy these final days and weeks of summer.
