Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by René Hackstetter.
Dear Rachel,
“ Received your card. Thank you. Here is the one I said I would send you of our little cottage. We are as close to the water, that when it is rough the spray wets our steps. One night it was so rough the waves washed right over the rocks and came under the piazza.
“We had the Annual Regatta here yesterday. The races were very good and everyone seemed to enjoy them.”
One might imagine that U - kum tu Lodge as shown in the adjoining postcard was likely an outlying cabin for patrons of the Ojibway Hotel.
Social historians centuries from now will look with amusement at their ancestor’s penchant for living a primitive existence. Silence, they will say, as they rev up their cigarette boats for another thunderous run down past Giant’s Tomb.
What is that? Let’s face it, Old Testament prophets have difficulty finding work these days as all they can do is fulminate on little pulpits set up at the Coldwater Fair or work as real estate agents.*
If we forget what silence meant, we can examine these photos or postcards and reflect on what has been lost...a precious heritage. Why do we allow ourselves to forget what doing nothing and doing with nothing means?
These days we may have a chance to recollect.
If we convert all these little cottages to monster homes on the water, will we recognize the cottage as the retreat from things it once was? If we gun our engines when we leave Friday afternoon for up the shore, do we pause for a moment to think of the noise we make while getting there?
Year after year we make our Exodus looking for the Promised Land. Where is the elusive Eden?
These days we may have a chance to recollect.
Copyright, René Hackstetter, May 25, 2020.
* The author is a Real Estate Broker.
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