Before I was born, just after the middle of the previous century, my uncle bought a small cottage on the shore of the Sandusky Bay in Ohio. The yard sloped down to a beach where there was twenty feet of sand to the water. Our family visited him at his cottage often, and those childhood memories are some of the fondest for me.
My uncle hosted family gatherings at the cottage so there were aunts, uncles and cousins along with family friends. There was food, drinks and snacks. In bad weather, we crowded into the cottage but no one complained. There was more food and more drinking.
My uncle doted over the cottage, taking care of his tiny garden plots, making it attractive to see and comfortable to visit. Being a single man, it seemed, at times, he loved that cottage as much as he loved anything in this life. And for many years, we all enjoyed the refuge he’d built on the shore of the Sandusky Bay.
Nature vs. Man
It was a fine example of dealing with chaos to establish order. The land was a vineyard before the owner got the idea of selling plots of land along the shoreline. That’s not to say that nature, and its inherent chaos, is bad. The owner could have created a refuge for migratory birds and local animals along the shore. But this was the 1950s and he was out to make a buck.
Land-holding Americans tend to value things in terms of money, so he built these tiny cottages and sold them off. The cottages had cisterns for water — which meant we brought bottles of water to drink — and tiny little drain fields for the septic system.
The landowner built a refuge for humans, rather than birds, and we sat on the shore thinking we had gotten the better of nature.
Mother Nature, the Unruly Guest
At some point though, the water levels in the bay rose. At first, it seemed temporary, as the water covered the beach and lapped at the lawn for weeks before receding. Then the beach was covered for months. The adult men discussed how the Army Corps of Engineers must have done something to change the level of the Great Lakes. Or maybe that the Corps of Engineers needed to do something, like dredging the bay or Lake Erie, or something, so that the water could go deeper instead of spreading out.
Then the water levels stopped receding, and the beach was lost. My uncle worried about the lawn and his cottage.
Going Dutch
The neighbors along the shoreline hired a company to install a sea wall. They drove huge steel plates into the ground at the edge of the shore and poured cement on the landward side; it was highly effective for keeping out the Sandusky Bay.
But my Uncle wanted to tackle this problem himself. He was do-it-yourselfer of the first order, as evidenced by the handywork in and around his cottage. Years earlier, he had dug a basement under his house, by hand and while living in the house, wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, installing footers and concrete walls along the way.
He brought in huge boulders to hold back the bay. The storms and wave action eroded the soft ground beneath, and the rocks sank too low to keep the water out.
My uncle brought in more rocks, built a fence on the seaward side to stabilize them, then backfilled with gravel. It became his main project in life, dealing with the wall, mixing and pouring cement by hand, trying to hold back the water.
Water Being Water
The gales of November, as the song goes, brought heavy waves to the shore, and the cottage was flooded from time to time.
Water, as I’m sure you know, wears down its opponents slowly. It can turn a jagged edge smooth. Given enough time, it can dig a hole as deep as the Grand Canyon.
I think it began to wear down my uncle, as well. Into his 60s, he didn’t have the same energy to fight the waves.
This Being a Story
We don’t fight these battles alone, and others will come to our aid. But, this being a story…
…I’ll tell you how it ends anon.
Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…
I’m working on publishing a thriller, called Ruthless. It attracted the attention of an agent, but he passed, so I’m doing it myself.
I absolutely enjoy laying out a book, creating the cover, and all the myriad tasks needed to publish a book. At times, however, it feels a bit like digging a basement by hand in your own house while still living there.
Upcoming Books and Stuff
Either way, if that’s your thing, grab a copy and let me know via a review what you think about it.
Maybe You’d Like
I’m promoting a fellow author’s book, as I often do, because it’s similar in genre to my own HIVE. This book is called No Freedom: An A.I. Thriller by Inge-Lise Goss.
It’s a sci-fi thriller about artificial intelligence, a topic that I fear will haunt us in days to come.
No Freedom: An A.I. Thriller Kindle Edition
Next Month
Next month will be next week, as I’m sending out one Picayune a week for a few weeks to tell the cottage story while also promoting HIVE and other books I’m sure you’ll love.
Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune