The Baileys Harbor Bird and Booyah Club

Don’t Get Old before I Do

10 Don’t Get Old be­ fore I Do The sweet scent of burn­ ing pop­ ple ­ filled the liv­ ing room of Coot Lake Lodge. ­ George knelt in front of the cav­ ern­ ous field­ stone fire­ place,pok­ ing at some ­ freshly cut logs that were grudg­ ingly be­ gin­ ning to burn. It was the first Fri­ day of July, but the week had been cold and rainy, and Helen had sug­ gested a fire to drive out the damp. She was busy in the ­ kitchen. “The damn flue isn’t draw­ ing again!” ­ George ­ shouted to her. He ­ crossed the room and went out the front door. From the rocky quar­ ter acre that ­ served as the ­ lodge’s front yard, he could see that no smoke was ris­ ing from the chim­ ney. He shook his head in ir­ ri­ ta­ tion, but then ­ stepped back a few feet and gazed af­ fec­ tion­ ately at the lodge. “Oh, ­ you’ve got your ­ faults, but ­ you’re all mine, you big ­ beauty,” he said. And with some al­ low­ ances for a cen­ tury of wear and tear, the old tav­ ern was beau­ ti­ ful in its way: two sto­ ries of na­ tive white cedar logs, fit­ ted so pre­ cisely that only a lit­ tle chink­ ing was ­ needed. On warm days it ­ smelled ­ faintly of ­ spilled beer, and a neon Old Style sign still hung over the door. The day they moved in, ­ George­ flipped the ­ switch to turn on the sign and dis­ cov­ ered that “Old” would light up but“Style”was ­ burned out. They ­ thought about tak­ ing the sign down, but in the end they kept it. “Suits us to a T,” Helen said. “Lots of age, not much style.” Coot Lake it­ self re­ mained wild and un­ spoiled, ­ largely be­ cause the wet­ lands that sur­ rounded it had sty­ mied the real es­ tate spec­ u­ la­ tors.­ Choked with lily pads, ­ stunted blue­ gills, and non­ de­ script wa­ ter­ fowl, it was named in the 1850s by a sur­ veyor who stum­ bled out of the woods and said, “I came ­ across a lit­ tle pud­ dle back in there Don’t Get Old before I Do 11 some­ where, but I don’t know if I could find it again. It’s full of coots, shite­ pokes, and mud hens.” Back in front of the fire­ place, ­ George took off his ball cap and began to wave it at the smoke. Helen came out of the ­ kitchen and­ joined ­ George at the ­ hearth. “Well, it ­ smells bet­ ter than your pipe, but not that much bet­ ter,­ George,” she said, and ­ twisted the ­ cast-iron knob that ­ opened the­ damper in the flue. Helen al­ ways ­ closed the ­ damper to keep out the bats that ­ lurked in the chim­ ney, and ­ George al­ ways for­ got to open it until smoke from the fire­ place ­ stacked up like storm ­ clouds near the ­ high-beamed ceil­ ing. Helen held her palms to­ ward the fire. Now that the ­ damper was open, ­ flames began to lick ­ around the logs, and the ­ crackle of burn­ ing bark ac­ com­ pa­ nied the ­ steady hiss of sap boil­ ing out of the wood. Their ­ golden re­ triever, Rus­ sell, who had been lying in front of the fire, moved a few ­ inches to avoid the ­ sparks. “You know why I al­ ways burn green pop­ ple, Helen?” ­ George asked. “It’s be­ cause . . .” “It’s be­ cause that way you don’t have to carry water.”­ George ­ looked at her and ­ smiled. “How’d you know that?” “Be­ cause I’ve heard that old joke a hun­ dred times,” said Helen. “You tell it every time you light a fire in the fire­ place. Every sin­ gle time. But the truth is, you burn green pop­ ple be­ cause ­ you’re too cheap to buy oak.” She sat down on one of the faded sofas that sur­ rounded the fire­ place. “George, I’ve been mean­ ing to talk to you, and this is as good a time as any. Sweet­ heart, ­ you’re be­ gin­ ning to act like an old man some­ times, and ­ you’re the same age as I am, and I’m not old.” She ­ picked up a super­ mar­ ket tab­ loid from the sofa and ­ opened it to...