When I married Michael Burry and he took me to Desbarats, I fell in love with the area. Michael went to Desbarats the first time in 1933, as a four year old. At that time, his parents and Anita and Keith Carpenter shared a camp. Michael and his brother Bill and the Carpenter girls, Ann, Alice Keith and Rowena had by all accounts a great time. Michael still remembers that his mother and "Peach" Taylor haggled over vegetables when the farmer Smedley brought his vegetables to the Ferry dock on Campment d’Our’s island. But this is another story I will come back to later on...
As for myself, fortunately I love the outdoors, swimming, hiking etc. etc. Despite that, however, there were a few things that I had to get used to. One was the retelling of old stories at the weekly Fishnet gathering....it used to bore me to death. It must have been a thousand times that I heard: "Remember when in 1946 Farwell went up the Debra River on water ski's dressed in his proper business suit ready to leave Debra and he ended up in the water?" I heard it so often that three four years later I found myself saying: "Remember when Farwell went ...etc. I was sure I was there myself.
What wonderful memories I - we - have...partying on Ed Sylvester's deck, having a great time at Jack and Debby Haight's gatherings, getting slightly tipsy at the Douglass's "old" camp and barely making it home in very, very windy conditions. It would have been even scarier if we would have been cold sober, I am sure.
The good times we had at Georgia and David Welles's old and new place and all the wonderful dinners and parties at the Bowens little Venice island.
I remember the time when Canada decided we all need a septic tank...what a furor that caused....and after we had our new septic tank installed Donald Welles cruising by in his ocean liner shouting through his megaphone "Congratulations on your wonderful new sewage systems Burry's" Loud enough that the Debra population and probably Bruce Mines heard it too.
Then there was the time when Michael was in Virginia and I was by myself and we had one of THE worst thunderstorms ever. I have never heard such a loud thunderclap. I am not afraid of thunderstorms, in fact, I find the lightening often quite interesting, but that was scary. The next day it was discovered that a huge rock on Portlock had been split in half.
I also remember the day when Taddy Dann visited us with her new dog Luke. Fifteen minutes after she left I happen to look to the end of our dock and there was Luke sitting, with a very worried look in his face. So I said to Michael, Taddy forgot her dog. He said don't worry, she will come back to get him I am sure.....well, Taddy did not return at least for severally hours, so I took Luke and boated over to Taddy's place to return him. Oh Taddy said, I forgot that I forgot Luke at your place. Oh well, she says, I once forgot him in Pennsylvania. ( Taddy as everyone might know, lives in N.Y. state.) No wonder Luke looked worried when I discovered him.
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