Recent events stir old memories

My Uncle Hollis passed away this last February. He was the last of that generation of family members for the Floria/Dean clan. The remaining family members are the 1st Cousins. To honor my Aunt Ann and Uncle Hollis a memorial was held in Traverse City on July 12, 2008. In addition to honoring the passing of Ann & Hollis the memorial was extended to cover all of the family members associated with the Dean's and seeing my Mother was the oldest of the Dean children I was invited to attend. My two sisters Carol and Phyllis were unable to attend.

Everyone looked the same, just older. The last time this group had gotten together was at my Cousin Deanne's home near Fountain, MI in 1982. It had been 26 years since I'd seen several of my cousins.

The memories were still alive and active. Living in Munising, MI I was not as close to the group in Traverse City so I did not see them very often. However, they were up in Munising numerous times, and I did visit Traverse City several times and have some memories of those visits.

My Cousin Art is about my age. I recall one summer I stayed with my Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Art for a week when they had a home on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay. Uncle Art had a small canal dredged into his property so he could keep a small rowboat accessible without having the try to maintain a dock. The summer I spent a week there Cousin Art and I made good use of that little boat.

Two activities stick in my mind, almost literally. The first was Art and I would row out from shore until we were in 10 feet of water or so and toss golf balls overboard. We would dive down to the bottom to retrieve them. This was no easy task as the bottom consisted of huge boulders that made the bottom rough and uneven. Sometimes the golf balls would get into cracks and crevices that made retrieval difficult. Nonetheless, as young adventurers we were successful most of the time.

The second memory prompted the statement about sticking in my mind. Art had a bow and arrow set for target practice. We took that bow and arrow set out with us on several occasions and would shoot the arrow into the air trying to get it to land as close to the boat as possible. The arrow traveled in almost slow motion. How high it went is anybody's guess, but given the bow was an old fashioned long bow and not too high in poundage the arrow probably went 70 to 80 feet in the air. You could follow the arrow in its trajectory. It would slow down, hit the apex of its flight and then turn over and start back to earth, or in this case water. Sometimes we got the arrow so close that when it went into the water and popped back up you could grab it out of the air. So we spent many an hour shooting that arrow into the air, never dreaming it might come back down in the boat.

Sure enough on one occasion one of us shot the arrow and we watched its flight soar high against the aqua blue Michigan sky. Slowly the arrow succumbed to gravity, slowed to a stop, started to fall backward, the flocking caught the wind and turn the arrow over so the blunt target point was now aimed in the down position. On the arrow came accelerating as the gravity that had slowed its upward flight now brought the arrow back to our spot. OUR SPOT! Holy Shit! Art was at one end of the boat and I at the other, as it became apparent the arrow was heading for us and we were ground zero we bailed. My head came back up out of the water in time to hear the arrow hit in the bottom of the aluminum boat with a resounding THUNK! It did dimple the bottom, thank God it didn't punch a hole in the boat, we would've been in deep trouble.

Needless to say the bow and arrow went back to shore and was used to shoot into a bale of hay. We resumed our ball retrieval exercise and kept our mouths shut. Art does not remember that incident, but I have recalled it several times. It is a good example how two kids can take a routine play exercise and turn it into an adventure. I will always treasure that memory.