The clubhouse was shuttered and boarded and dead. The old lawn now a dirt patch field, the lot for the cars was yielding to hard early wild nature, decay of the concrete and blacktop, cracks for the seeds to land in and grow, the wild things bring all the 'fine' things back within gnarl. The North face of the clubhouse feet from a cliff. Some concrete stairs led down to the shore, a round rock pebble beach. An iron pipe handrail guided one down the off kilter slab stairs. Climate's weather and time had transformed the iron, smooth surface stability no more. No safe way down which made for great appeal- but of no appeal to me of course, I was not permitted to be on that site, those grounds. I wasn't really to be at that end of the block. I was already too far from allowed.

We might be tempted to think on this place with some fondness- Walking along a Great Lake, some idyllic state, or at least some peek at wave motion tranquility and lake side beauty. Not in this spot, and not at that time.

I had heard, back then, that my cousin was murdered at the bottom of those stairs, down the bent weathered handrailed trouble stepped trail on the shore of the lake on the North dark side of that clubhouse. It cannot be said I felt anything about that crime. I was a child, and no child ever knows someone that dies, some distant cousin, well sure, but no one of matter to me and my life- something I learned from Edna St. Vincent Millay.

I was a strange child, like some old man that had lost all memory. I knew I was not young, and not strong, not brave, no courage, nor reason. I drifted silently, season through season.