This is coming to you live from my hometown of Three Lakes, Wisconsin. Okay, technically not live because I can’t upload this until tomorrow when I get back to the cities; the only internet is on my phone. And technically not Three Lakes because I live in Eagle River now. Whatever, I’m ten miles down the road. I was just there.
Which is the purpose of the blog. I just had dinner at the Black Forest, a restaurant/bar I’ve frequented since…I don’t know, possibly forever. The earliest time I remember going there is when I was twelve or thirteen. It is pretty much a fixture of the town. Everyone knows it, the building has probably been there since the 1890s. It has outlasted tornados, forest fires, robbery, and the old bowling alley caving in from too much snow. It is very comforting to go to a place that literally hasn’t changed a bit since you were twelve. They have the same carpet, the same chairs, the same table cloths, the same animal heads on the walls and the same menu. The tables are in the same spots.
So as I was sitting there in the German-lodge themed dining room (cream plaster walls, dark wood beams and trim)eating my Hickory Bacon Cheeseburger I was thinking about all the times I’ve been there and all the tables I’ve sat at.
For instance I can see my sixteen year old self sitting at the second table in from the entrance, next to the window. I wish I could tell her that it’s okay, even though she’s on her way out of town after moving out of her home and the only town she’s every been able to consistently been able to call home, in ten years she will be able to move back.
I’d tell the same thing to my eighteen year old self, sitting at the six person table next to the entrance, drowning in the cigarette smoke from the close proximity of the bar. This is her first time back in her hometown since the sixteen year old version above, and she is depressed because it is too hard for her to “just visit” her home town. I’d tell her the same thing—it’s okay, give it nine years and you’ll move home again. In the mean time, you’ll visit often and live in a tent. Okay, maybe I won’t tell her the tent part. It’s not very appealing especially on cold nights.
Oh, I’d also tell her to dump that idiot sitting next to her because she’s not going to marry him and he’s only going to cause her a world of problems and annoyance.
And to my fourteen year old self sitting at the table right in the middle of the dining room—don’t worry, you will eventually get away from your parents and come up here alone like you dream about. And that guy you’re thinking about that’s not in the room but in a camper over on Big Lake…yeah he’s not worth your time either although he does like you just as much as you like him, even though he has a funny way of showing it.
I was thinking about it tonight and realized I don’t talk about Three Lakes very much on here. I don’t know why, since it’s what I named my whole blog after. I can’t really go back and double check because it’s pretty hard to read my blog on my cell phone. I would like to change that. There are so many stories.
I’ll just leave one; the reason Three Lakes is my home. I’ve move around a lot, that’s no secret. At least, I don’t think it is. I’ve moved five times. Some of those moves I was more than happy to make. Some of them I thought would kill me and some of them almost did. The one thing that always got me through was knowing I had Three Lakes. It is a town my great-great grandparents discovered as their vacation spot, that is how long my family has been here. Needless to say I grew up here. Since I was a baby. It is the only place I’ve ever lived consistently. So for a kid who moved five times, that’s a pretty huge deal. It has always been the only home I’ve ever known. Granted I had to move a few times here, too. I went from our cottage on Four Mile Lake to the campground on Big Stone Lake and now I’m at a campground in Eagle River. In between the last two I was mostly in the National Forest campground on Seven Mile Lake in the afore mentioned tent. I am glad to be out of that tent. It was great for what I needed it for, it served its purpose for many years but I’m glad to have four walls, running water, heat and a permanent address again. Nothing can replace that.
Three Lakes is the greatest town, too. You know I’m very partial to Minnesota and the Twin Cities but Three Lakes is the best---actually just named Kraft’s Single Best Town in America. We smoked the competition. The second runner up somewhere in the Carolinas had 4,600 votes. We had over 7,000. For a town of only 800 people, that’s pretty crazy. Anyone who’d ever heard of Three Lakes voted for us.
This is the kind of town where everyone knows what you did last summer…and the summer before that, and the one before that… Where everyone says hi to you whether they know you or not. You are in the same town at the same time, that makes you friends. Where you know who owns every restaurant/bar/business and they probably know you by your first name. Where you know when the owner is cooking at said restaurant, he comes out to talk to you while you eat dinner, and when you’re leaving you just pop your head back in the kitchen to say goodbye. Where you don’t have to lock your car and your neighbors look out for your property even though they don’t have to. For instance, we left our awning down last weekend. Thursday night we had a bad wind storm up here and our next door neighbors were afraid we were going to lose it. So instead of just watching it rip off our camper, they came over and put it up for us.
So take some time to appreciate your home town (and its residents), whether it’s as great as mine or not.
