If I were a painter, I would paint pictures of The Camp over and over. In my mind’s eye, I can see it through the years: what it was when I was very little and what it became as my grandfather and uncle added addition to addition. I know that my memories have faded because the years have passed and The Camp was wiped off the earth, but my heart remembers…
The Camp is what we called the 2nd home my grandparents built on the water, away from normal life. The only road was the bayou and there were no phones, only CB radio. We lived off of a combination of wildlife, of both land and sea, and supplies that the adults picked up before getting in a boat to head away from civilization. I would head off to weekends after the school week and come back sunburnt, wearing random fish scales, and with tangles in my hair. It was wonderful!
There are so many stories that I could tell about my time at the camp. I should tell them. So, I’ll start with the sensational… the otters.
My grandparents’ camp was built on pilings with a ramp that led over land down to a wharf where boats were docked. They sold bait and soft shell crabs to fishermen heading out into the lake to fish, so we had a constant supply of seafood passing in and out of our hands.
There wasn’t really anything on the right side of us, if you were walking out of the screen door of the camp to head down the ramp. On the left, there was yard and then a ditch, and further on, a levee protecting us from the water flowing in and out of the ship channel. A passing ship would push the water up on land and then the receding water would be a death trap to anything in its way as it was sucked back into the channel.
One day, I was walking with my grandfather and older cousin toward the levee beyond the ditch. I don’t know why we were heading there. It could have been one of many reasons, including exploring and having fun. But that day, as we walked across the small bridge over the ditch, I saw a disturbance in the water. I had no idea what it was, but for some strange reason, I called, “Otter!” Sure enough, it was a young otter!
My cousin ran back to the camp and got a net (or something to catch the otter… what it was is vague and unimportant in my mind). He and my grandfather somehow managed to catch the young otter… and it was young… an adolescent, really. What happened next is a blank in my mind. I don’t know what we did with it immediately after catching it or how we got to tame it, but tame it we did.
Within a short period of time, my grandfather built a cage for the otter the was both above and below water. We named her Ottie Mae. Ottie Mae spent some time in her cage, but also a lot of time in the camp on the porch with us. The porch wasn’t your typical porch. It spanned practically three entire sides of the camp, holding sofas and tables with benches on one side, two swing sets by the corner, and refrigerators and freezers on the other side. When I say a sofas and tables, I don’t mean there was a sofa and then a table. No, the sofa was against the wall to the bedrooms and the tables were by the screen that formed the end of porch and there was an aisle between the sofas and the tables. Come to think of it, the porch had to be quite wide because everything was adult sized.
But back to Ottie Mae… Otters are exceptionally soft. Their fur is extremely smooth and silky. They do produce oils and have a musky smell, so you can imagine what we smelled like when we played with her. Her body was fascinating. When she layed flat, she would literally flatten out. Just as an otter’s head is flat, so her body would become. And her teeth were sharp. We would feed her fish, whole. She would take the fish and crunch them completely up, fish heads and all. I remember thinking even as a child that she could have really torn us to pieces, if she had ever wanted to. But she was more gentle with us children than a puppy is with their puppy teeth. I’m sure there were times when she scratched us and broke the skin, but I don’t remember them.
My fondest memory of Ottie Mae involved our golden retriever, Rusty. Maybe I’ll tell Rusty’s story one day, but he was a great dog! He and Ottie Mae would play over and over again. It went like this… Ottie Mae would bite down on Rusty’s super fluffy, furry tail. He would then start running back and forth through the porch! When he would take a corner, Ottie Mae would flatten out and drift around the corner like a car in a Hollywood high speed chase scene! It was hilarious! They both loved it. And Ottie Mae was so playful. Play and sleep… play and sleep.
I felt so privileged, even then, to be able to have those experiences.
We did get other otters. My dad and uncle and me and my cousins were exploring a new road that was being built nearby. While we were walking on the new, still dirt, road, my uncle put his foot down and it sank into what turned out to be an otter’s nest. There were 3 baby otters in that nest, very young, and unable to fend for themselves. We took them home and nursed them like kittens. They got the names Peanut, Popcorn, and Cracker Jack because my grandfather loved Cracker Jack’s (the popcorn candy with peanuts).
Eventually, Peanut, Popcorn, and Cracker Jack got new homes. And even Ottie Mae got a new home. I wish I could say that it ended well, but as I understand, that was not the case.
I know how special my childhood was. My life may be very different now, but I was formed by those years and they have made me who I am. I will ever be grateful to my family for those experiences. And I shall try to capture those memories here…