Memories of days at the lake kept close to the heart

If a snapping turtle bites your toe, Mama used to say, he won’t let go till it thunders.

The lake has plenty of snapping turtles, which sun themselves down by the pier until I approach, then they slide into the boat slip with synchronized splashes.

Like bobbers on the end of a fishing line, their heads poke up through the murky water. Or is that the head of a snake? It’s hard to tell the difference from the distance I intend to keep.

Occasionally, in the early mornings before the sun bakes the grass, a long-legged crane stalks the lake edge where Mama used to stand for hours fishing with a tangle of worms and a cane pole. She swore she could smell a bream bed – the fragrance sweet as honeysuckle – and her string of fish at the end of the day gave testimony to that fact.

Things have changed out at the lake house. The dirt road was paved by the county supervisors years ago. One of those gated subdivisions sprang up across the lake, and where cabins with screened porches used to stand there are ostentatious homes, mostly brick the color of native red clay. Youngsters glide across the lake in newfangled paddle boats.

There was a time when only the noisy mockingbirds broke the quiet as I rocked in the hammock beneath the towering pine trees. Now, an interstate highway pulsates nearby, and a four-lane boulevard winds its busy way just beyond the tree line to the west.

The house itself hasn’t changed, its woody smell as familiar to me as the whiff of magnolia blossoms. Once the windows are opened and the ceiling fan whirls away any mustiness, the place just seems to embrace me as in a hug from an old friend.

A fancy sign marks our dead-end lane – a new Methodist church uses it for an emergency exit though the road is private – and a shopping center sprawls across property where we used to buy minnows and hoop cheese at an old country store.

I sit in the rocking chair and gaze at the dogwoods planted 30 years ago on the slight ridge. (An oak tree draped with wisteria vines was cut down a few years ago after lightning split it in half. Azaleas and pink spirea were planted in its place.)

The boathouse roof is covered in pine straw, and a windowpane in the door is broken. The sweet gum trees that were scarred by beavers a long time ago have grown so tall by the lake, and there’s a cypress tree I never remembered, sending out its knobby knees.

After several weeks, deep in the belly of the Southland, I’m leaving behind my lake house but I’ll keep forever the memories. Someone else will make new ones from now on.

My home is Maine, where my heart is. And it’s time to let go.

Like an old snapping turtle, I’ve finally heard the thunder.