Part Two: Tribes

 

September 21, 2020

 

Greetings from Part Two: Tribes

 

Walking out along the pier was never the same thing twice.  These boys fishing would be different boys tomorrow, or a string of old men with their lines slung into the water, buckets of slimy things at their feet.   This boat became a different one, the seagulls propped on different pylons.  The sky would change, the texture of the water, the color of things painted by the sun.

 

The planks on the pier were splintered and worn, tattooed with gull droppings.  At the end of the pier there was a wooden fence where many a soul had carved the number of planks they had counted, from one end of the dock to the other, an ambitious project I had attempted and never completed.  The numbers varied immensely.

 

Boats of various sizes bobbed in their slips, from simple aluminum fishing trays to luxury cabin cruisers, adorned with corny names or double-entendres I didn’t understand.  Giant spiderwebs draped across the creaking wood, outlined in dew, and each wave that lapped against the pylons made them tremble. 

 

From the end of the pier I could look back at the campground across the water and see where my family was.  There was a spit of land that jutted into the bay, at the end of which was a dilapidated barn perched half in the water, a ramshackle business called Captain Mac’s.  It was one of the places I was not allowed to go, and so my visits there were always more exciting.

 

As soon as I was aware enough to form opinion it seemed to me that we were divided into tribes of sorts.  Central among these were Grown Ups and Kids.  Grown Ups made all the rules.  Don’t go near the water, don’t go out on the pier, don’t go into town or sit too close to the fire.  Don’t touch the top of the tent, or the screens on the windows.  Don’t leave the screen door open but don’t slam it.  Don’t bring sand in the Add On, or godforbid the trailer.  These rules each came with the suffix ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’

 

The Kid’s primary role was to follow the rules instituted by the Grown Ups.  Our secondary role was to break those same rules without attracting the attention of the other tribe.  In the ragged ecosystem that was East Tawas, it was an interesting challenge.  In the summers we stayed there we had lots of time to apply ourselves to the challenge.

 

There were other tribes that I floated through, sometimes interacted, sometimes skirted.  Teenage girls, at this point in my life a mystery I was indifferent to, the ‘local’ Kids, who had their own rules and traditions that didn’t welcome transient campers.  Even the people who fished along the pier were a separate brotherhood.  I could speak to them and we would be polite to each other, but there was a segregation that was clear.

My sisters were a related tribe but they were still different.  They would sit on the beach and get sandy with me, all of us brown as espresso.  We would find shells and fish carcasses, dig holes and fill them, splash each other, drag driftwood up onto the sand.  We ate together, teased each other (I didn’t start it) and slept crammed in our trailer at night.  Sometimes we would go to the camp laundry room, with its shower-like acoustics, and sing Temptations songs, or any other we knew the lyrics to.  But even though they had membership as Kids, they were still girls.  My brother, for most of our growing up years, belonged to the Baby tribe, as foreign to me as herons.

 

My parents, Chiefs among the Grown Ups, would take us to town, which meant walking across a busy street.  We would go to Marion’s Dairy Bar for ice cream or walk in and out of the various shops intended for real tourists, not regular people of our ilk.  We looked dreamily at the moccasins and authentic pine jewelry boxes, and then walked another block to the Ben Franklin where our aspirations might be more realistic.  The only other reason for going to town was to go to church and swelter through the ritual, taking passing pleasure in the novelty of attending a Catholic service wearing shorts, fragrant of woodsmoke and mosquito repellent.

 

We would sit around the campfire in flimsy webbed aluminum folding chairs and set fire to marshmallows.  Our faces, likely still sticky from ice cream or popsicles or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, became a pallet for sand, or small insects.  It was an ongoing battle for my Mom who tried scrubbing us regularly, trying to maintain some semblance of civilization in a bed of sand.

 

One of the unwritten rules of camping was this: other campers, sitting outside around their fire, or at their picnic table, were to be treated as if they were in their living room at home.  You did not wander into to their space uninvited.  Unless they had kids about your age, which was the passport visa to any territory.  I would prowl our campground, and the one across the road, where I was not supposed to go, and seek others of my tribe. 

 

I don’t know if my parents actually had a strategy about our activities, but over time Grown Ups grow tired, and what was once forbidden became forgivable and then ordinary.  Five kids who had eighteen hours a day to find rules to break, eventually wear down even the most devout of rule makers.

 

And so, I would roam unfettered.  Diving off the pier, swimming out beyond the sandbar, climbing the fence, crossing the highway to prowl among the stores in town.  Swinging too high at the playground, loitering at the bait shop, talking to the stranger who had the metal detector.  Scrounged coins were spent on foolishness at the hardware store or a ‘dip’ at the Dairy Queen, blocks beyond my restrictions.  In the company of my tribe or exploring solo, I traced the edges of the rules, piercing a few, ignoring others altogether.

 

I recognize now, having informally joined the Grown Up tribe, that this was a unique time, these summers filled with hours of unregimented but diligent exploration.  The freedom we had as Kids, some taken, some given, led to a level of independence we adopted as we grew older.  Each summer that came found us in new tribes, going new places, trying out our new roles as ten or twelve year olds, with less sand around our faces perhaps, but still Kids.  We learned to adapt, to take chances, try new things, to be ourselves in our tribe or among strangers.  Maybe our parents, hapless Grown Ups, even as besieged as they were, knew what they were creating all along.

 

Hope this finds you in good company,

 

David

 

 

 

Copyright © 2020 David Smith