Read Online Cottage Daze by James Ross - Free Book Online Page A

no going back. You never seem to forget the secret, the secret that can be learned but never shared.
    Like learning to ride a bike — when they put it all together and rise from the water, there is no going back.
    He will open his eyes in the morning — the late morning — and look out at a lake as calm as glass, the perfect, still water for skiing. He will say, “Dad, can I go skiing?” You will put down your book and your coffee, drop whatever it is you are doing, and drag him around the lake. Sometimes you will ask yourself, Why did I ever teach him to do this? Mostly, you are just happy that you don’t have to swim around for hours in the cool lake water anymore, helping him out. Well, until it comes time for your next one, the six-year-old, the youngest, to give it a go.
    Life Is a Game
    I am feeling very dejected this evening. I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my head in my hands, looking down at a mess of cards and a cribbage board, while my seven-year-old card shark of a daughter dances around the cottage chanting, “I skunked daddy!” It doesn’t seem very long ago that we were teaching her the game and taking it easy on her while she learned. Now, I try my hardest, but … “I smell something skunky,” she sings. “Is there a smell in the room?”
    â€œIt’s a good game for learning her numbers, isn’t it?” I grumble to my wife.
    I don’t know about you, but we play a lot of games with the whole family when we are at the cottage. Most evenings, after the supper dishes have been cleaned up, we will sit around the big kitchen table and pull out a game. Sometimes, when the rain clouds have closed in and it’s wet and grey outside, we might spend an afternoon rolling dice and moving little men around a board. There is something about the cottage and the tradition of games.
    Perhaps it is because we have no electricity at our island cabin, and therefore no television, video games, or any such diversions. I believe it is more than that, though. A trip to the cottage is a step back to simpler times, and those simpler times are more conducive to quality family time.
    We have a storage bench where all the games are kept. Some have been there for thirty-some years, since I was a kid. Some are more modern. A couple are missing a piece or two, replaced by makeshift cards or odd trinkets. Some of the boxes have been taped up, while others are in mint condition.
    We have original editions of Clue and Monopoly, two perennial favourites. There are Risk, Full House, Masterpiece, and Life. There are checkers and Chinese checkers, chess, backgammon, and Mastermind. We have an old Rummoli game where we can teach the children how to gamble, in the same manner and on the same board where I learned how to play poker with my parents when I was young. In my dad’s handwriting on one corner of the board, now slightly faded and barely legible, is the order of what beats what, from royal flush down to ace high.
    Of course, there are several decks of cards, most of them complete. We love a good round of euchre or hearts. There are modern games like The Settlers of Catan and Cranium. When bigger groups gather, we can make fools of ourselves playing Pictionary, Balderdash, Trivial Pursuit, or charades. My wife and I will sit on the dock on a quiet afternoon and play a game of Scrabble.
    I remember my siblings and me cleaning up after supper while my parents went for an evening paddle. Then we would get a game set up and eagerly await their return. Playing a game with the parents was always something we looked forward to — it was a memorable part of cottage life.
    Another memory is of my parents going to a friend’s for dinner. They returned talking about all that happened in the evening, and I could hear them from my bed. I caught snippets of their conversation: some murdered body, hit over the head with a candlestick, in a ballroom. From what I