The older you get, the more often it happens. You hear of someone who has died and you never knew at the time. The “someone” in this case is a man who was my boss at the Four Seasons Nature Resort back when I was one of four live-in summer helpers in the season between high school and college.
The Hamilton Spectator ran a rather lengthy piece about the Resort and how last year, it converted to “textile”. In other words, it’s not for nudism anymore. Yes, it was when I worked there, which is what made it so startling to my parents and still allows me to trump anyone else’s summer job story. The last I had read about it, it was being run by Mike, the son of the owners Hans and Lisa Stein. Imagine my shock to read that Mike died of a heart attack in 2008 at the age of 52.
I figured Mike for just a few years older than me when I worked at “the camp”, as we all called it, but I couldn’t really be sure. Authority makes a person seem older. We called it the camp because hundreds of people lived on the grounds in cottages, tents and trailers. Mike was a gentle soul, not brash or bossy. Despite being somewhat of a rich kid he was just patient and low key with us worker bees. He also didn’t go parading around in his birthday suit very often. He swam and used the sauna but if he was just hanging around he wasn’t, you know, hanging out. He was married at the time (but anyone around them knew it wouldn’t last) and later I read that he had married a woman I worked with that summer, Jade, who was another decent, smart, simply nice person who loved horses. I was so happy for them. Now I suppose she’s a widow of about 50. The article said Mike had owned a horse stable and I hope Jade still has it and her horses.
Mike’s parents Hans and Lisa are in their 80’s now and devastated by Mike’s death, they sold the place in 2009. It’s called Fernbrook Resort now but it still has a lot of the features I remember. I smiled at the description of the clubhouse’s “8 ton dance floor” because I remember so well the lowering of that floor over the pool for special occasions. They worked us very hard there but when we were off, we were having loads of fun in the lake or by a bonfire or making ourselves a feast in one of the professional kitchens. It was and is a beautiful place, at Freelton outside of Hamilton, and now that everyone wears clothes I had this idea that I might actually go for a visit. But there is no point really. The only people who would have remembered me at all – if anybody – would have been Mike and Jade. That summer is burned into my memory more so than many others for some obvious reasons, but also for the independence I was carving out for myself. And because I was working for a nice guy named Mike whose life was cut way too short.
PLEASE one day write a book – or at least a good long story – about your experiences there. We all know you’re an exceptional writer. Change names (yours/theirs) if you need to, but I think most of us want the naked truth: just what goes on at those places (and, I suppose, what comes off). Sorry to hear this loss closes a chapter on your youth, but for heaven’s sake, don’t ever lose those stories, girl.
I wrote a novelized version of the story of that summer but now I think non-fiction is the way to go, just changing some names. So much happened that summer. I think I will write it, even if only to preserve it before my memory fades for good!
Oh those teenage memories, to borrow a line from Mathew McConaughey in Dazed and Confuzed, “I keep getting older and they stay the same”. So many memories from back in Smithville years gone by. I know I would be second, ok maybe fifth in line to buy that book. Come on Lisa, pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard!!!!