Consider, for a
moment the effect super bowl chicken wings have, not only on nature’s ground
water, but the habitat water supports;
“If you’re lucky
enough to be at the lake, you’re lucky enough” , is a sign I saw in a shop one
day, I lingered a long while, succumbing to the flood of childhood memories,
memories that still today sustain the legacy of that place. “The Lake”, a cottage resting on the lake
shore at the end of Sandy Beach road, where I would spend the summers of my
years and where my mother before me spent hers, is a common reference we all
understand.
The road, which
obtained its name reflective of the massive sand beach along the shore for
which it followed, was really only a little more than a car width wide and
ended two cottages down from ours. Really, it served as a walk way, bike way
and conversation pit to those of us residing, visiting, or wanderers curious of
what lies ahead. The occasional vehicle
had a purposeful mission elsewhere, to and from.
It was a small
cottage, white wood siding with a dark green gable and windows across the front
that once were only screen and canvas, sitting on the southwest side of the
road with the lake beyond. A box, I
suppose longer than wide with a narrow space and another box cottage on the
other side. One named EXQZME, the other
SUZIEQ, the latter had been demolished in a tornado when I was three, so the bare
foundation footing left behind is how I remembered that space for most of my
youth. Yes, in natures furry I, an older
brother, a younger brother, and my pregnant mother were tossed from that
cottage along with the siding and roof, clapboard rooms and all its contents. My father, away at work in our home town
received police escort to the hospital where his children and wife were tended
to. Lucky enough, we all survived.
Ah,
The Lake, the water not more than thirty feet from the cottage and held back by
a four foot tall rock wall, sparkling blue, fresh water spring fed with many,
many rocks, as it is named “Rock Lake”. Rocks and sand and clear, clean water,
naturally occurring cycles of weed growth were easily kept under control with proper
tools of the time. A rake, or rakes depending
on the weed quantity and if your brother was lucky enough in his coaxing for
help.
A
magical time, those years, we took for granted but knew well the draw to the
bounty of fun the water would give us.
It was common, if not expected to look down from our drifting inner-tube
or row boat and see the bottom of the lake and all the details laying
there. The water so clear the depth
almost magnified the detail. Rocks and
sand and weeds, tiny and tall, snails making their trails along the sand, blue
gills and minnows, clam shells open or closed, an occasional lake bass
wandering to shore in search of lunch, all mixing about their habitat. Clear,
clean water let us witness these curiosities, allowing us to wonder. Swimming and diving and splashing about with
hardly a care over swallowing the occasional gulp of lake water.
A
bit of hot dog dangling at the end of a not so long string tied to a bamboo
pole, dancing in the water, tempting a group blue gills. One, two, three, into
the bucket they go and soon there will be dinner. Fresh water blue gills fried crispy like potato
chips.
I
took this for granted, in my youth of the nineteen fifties and sixties, a time
where technology hadn’t given us the opportunity, or easy access to worldly
concerns. The seventies brought in
thoughts of ecology and environmental hazards, or maybe that’s just when I
finally realized there was an end marker on forever. I was the dreamer of the group and perhaps
caught on later than sooner. I would
hear passing comments and conversations concerning water runoff and sewage
coming from the trailer park across the marsh on the other side of the railroad
tracks, which ran parallel behind the cottages. The marsh connected to the lake
through an opening under the railroad trestle a distance down the tracks.
However, the
greatest concern seemed to be the chicken farm ever expanding some five miles
to the south which would deliver to us the most awful, should we say, foul air,
and always on the most humid of days. Certainly
good thing the breeze from that direction was not frequent.
At
first the effects of pollution became most apparent in the marsh water, where
the bottom became soft and deep with – muck? – carrying the same strange odor
one would expect from raw sewage of human or foul. Perhaps in the nineteen twenties and thirties
the waters supported the ability to clean themselves of these intruders, but as
lake popularity and populations grew, along with the temptations of financial
opportunity, over use of nature’s balance took a turn and pollution became a
real issue. As this realization hit me like
a streak of lightning, I immediately took up arms and the boycott against
anything to do with chicken, including the egg; beef was not far behind. I suppose I figured at least there would be one
less chicken whose poop would make its way to the clean clear water of the lake
I desperately wanted to cling to.
I remember clearly
the seventies and the warnings of urgency over our failing natural resources,
grave concerns. Yet today, some sixty
years later I drive to The Lake, pass the massive chicken farm, ever expanding,
and now I must not only roll up windows and turn air vents off, I hold my
breath while passing. I wonder why this
is allowed to happen, this destruction of a once pristine piece of nature. The
contamination of ground water that is seeping and felt some five miles away at
the bottom of rock lake. The air thick
with God knows what, I can feel it in my lungs, in by body as I am forced off
the dock and into the cottage in order to escape the danger.
Year after year small
groups of people would petition to put a halt to the over growth of the chicken
farm, for the sake of the waters. To no avail.
With the ever
growing demand for exports and the economic desire for the US to do so, who
will we trust to regulate the waste, to monitor our environment? The government
DNR and all of its wisdom, rules and regulations, insisting the chicken farm is
within proper waste management guidelines will not put a limit to the hazards threatening
a natural resource as valuable as clean water. Yet, preventing a lifelong ‘lake-r’ from freely oaring a canoe without being
saddled down by numerous regulatory floating devices, or handing out warning
tickets should a water skier run a minute over the time limit at dusk.
It’s still there,
the draw to The Lake, but it is much different now and I am deeply saddened
that future generations will not have had the opportunity to witness the
wonderment of lake bottom habitat, clean fresh spring fed lake water, or
experience the tasty blue gill chips.
Oh,
did I mention the beef farms I drove by in Texas, well, next time.
. . . and if you've reached the end of this bit, thank you for listening.
