The House That Jack Built
Drive towards the ski hill. Turn right at the Palisades Campground sign. Take the second right. Stay on the main road and take a left at the fork for Beaver Trail. Turn onto Pine Trail. The cabin is the first one on the right. Turn the water on. Start a fire. If there is snow, shovel the deck. Put out the flag and fill the bird feeder. Go for a walk around the circle. Pick a bouquet of wildflowers for Grannie Annie. Make popcorn for Grandpa Jack. Enjoy a gin and tonic on the deck.
My heart is here. When visiting, it is the first glimpse of the ski hill and turning onto Palisades Campground Road that makes me feel that I have truly arrived back home. The cabin was built in 1961. Until it was expanded, my grandparents slept on two twin beds in the living room and their five kids slept in two bunk beds and a crib in the adjacent room. Anne and Jack eventually had ten grandchildren. We all grew up here, running wild and playing in the woods, on the deck and in the kid’s room. When the bell rang, we knew it was time to come back for dinner. We hiked with our grandpa, played solitaire with our grandma and skied with our parents. By my teens, this became a place I would come to for solitude and bring my friends to for shenanigans. My sister was married on the cabin deck and both my mother and I got ready for our weddings at the cabin. Great-grandchildren now make forts in the kid’s room and run around on the deck-just like we all did growing up here.
Fill the wood box. Leave this place better than you found it. Write in the guestbook. Open the cabinet below the sink so the pipes don’t freeze. Turn off the water. Lock up and set the alarm. Drive home safe and make sure to look out for deer.
Grandpa Jack passed away in 2007; his ashes were spread off of the deck. Grannie Annie was reunited with the universe on June 27, 2023. It is time to say goodbye to this place for good. How do you say goodbye to a place that has given you so much in return?