Couch Buddy

The evening fire had become rather large, with yellow flames spouting into the air, and making the fire warmer than anticipated for those of us who sat on the wooden benches surrounding the fire pit. The large fire was not my doing, as with a strong wind, I thought it best to keep the fire smaller. With that, I built a log cabin fire arrangement. I went to check the fire I had started a half hour earlier to heat up the sauna and came back to find someone had added at least four logs in a pyramid shape to make it much taller flame. The fire leads us to how we came to meet my brother-in-laws new couch buddy, on that second Monday night in September.

Wood carving of Fisherman
outside of Panda Palace

As we sat at the fire, a spark landed on the lower part of my forearm. Even though the temperature was rather cool, I had the sleeve pulled up due to the heat of the fire. A large group of elderly men were in the shelter right next to the fire pit, and one of them put the wood on the fire to make it a pyramid. They really should have known better, as they were celebrating their service years ago as counselors at a Boy Scout Camp in the 1960's. Located on White Sand Lak, the scout camp used lodging for a former Civilian Conservation Corps from the Great Depression, and at the time was a high adventure canoe base for the Boy Scouts. 

The CCC camp was established in 1933 and ran to late 1941, when induction for WWII took the manpower that would have been at the camp. It was known as the Crystal Lake Camp. The White Sand Lake Boy Scout Camp became active in 1940. Why the overlap in the record, I do not know, perhaps it operated with both boy scouts and CCC that summer, before the war kicked in. In 1944 it became a High Adventure Wilderness Canoe Base. At some point it was replaced, as the current high adventure base is near Ely, MN and the boundary waters. My two sons and I were part of a Boy Scout group that did the Boundary Waters twenty years past. My feet were in much better shape then.  

Over the past five years, my wife and I have joined my sister and her husband in a trip to Boulder Junction for a week of biking. We usually have done this for seven nights starting midweek after Labor Day, due to my twice a month Thursday meetings. This year we arrived Wednesday and departed the following Wednesday. Big Bear Hideaway, where we stayed, has an outdoor fire pit, and over the past five years we have met some interesting people who stayed in one or more of the other cabins. This trip, two to three of the other cabins were used during our stay. Some of that large group stayed at the large Kodiak cabin, others at a cabin on White Sand owned by a brother of one of the participants, and perhaps a few at other places. Of the whole group, there was one woman, which perhaps was a daughter or a wife of a participant. 

Me and a wood carved Bear at Panda Palace

You would think a former Boy Scout camp counselor would have had enough sense to not make a larger fire on a windy evening, but perhaps he forgot that part of the equation with fire building. I do know the person who added the wood to the fire was not the couch buddy, as someone else from the group came over occasionally to check on the fire, and with his interest he was probably the one. He had also been present when I left to check the sauna, while couch buddy was not yet present.

Couch buddy was rather tall, and got involved in a conversation I was having with another former counselor. The latter told me he had been to Little Bohemia and saw the room where John Dillinger stayed. The room was all shot up. I then noted that Johnny Depp, when starring in the film Public Enemies, had stayed in the Kodiak, the cabin some of the group stayed in, when filming in northern WI. He did not seem overly impressed. His buddy then goes into a detailed explanation of his life as a camera salesman and lighting technician. In his work as a lighting technician he mentored a man who went on to do production design for a number of movies, including The Help. He is currently doing so for the remake of War of the Roses. He went on and on. I finally found a way to get out of the conversation and use the sauna. At that point he wheeled into my brother-in-law, Rick, who seemingly heard is whole life story. Rick even knew that his new acquaintance lived in North Carolina and his wife had to drive 45 minutes to pick him up at the air port in a couple days. 

Wood Carving of a wolf

When we got back to the cabin that night Rick started to talk about us leaving him hanging with the Carolinian. At that point, my sister annoyed him, when she referred to the guy as his Couch Buddy. I am not sure that Rick wanted to invite him in to watch Monday night football, where they could pound down some beers together, although perhaps couch buddy had already pounded down a few too many Schlitz (Yes, they had Schlitz beer). In the conclusion of that game, we found out Da Bears still find ways to lose, except for the last game last year when they beat the Packers.

Detail on a cabin at Big Bear Hideaway

The guy claimed to Rick he was the best tri-pod salesman in North Carolina. Rick said he knew why the guy was the best tripod salesman in NC, because people bought a tripod just to get out of the store and away from him. I wondered what it would have been like if my brother Greg had stayed. Greg and his wife volunteer at the Overture Center in Madison, and I figured he and Rick's couch buddy could have talked all night on lighting and sets for the varied productions he and his wife have seen at the Overture. Greg knows a great many people, and my wife figured he and Rick's couch buddy probably would have found someone they know within three degrees of separation. That may have meant Rick losing a couch buddy and Greg gaining one. That would be the same degree of separation to our family has to Al Capone. Our uncle, Joe Sweeney, dated Al Capone's niece and surely Al and the niece (Al's sister's daughter) had met and knew each other. Al Capone's mom lived only 550 feet away from where my mom grew up on Prairie Ave in Chicago. My mom said that Al's mom could be seen walking down the street to daily mass. She had much to pray for.

Table in Panda Palace

After evening turned to night, we are sitting in our cabin and see a person pacing back and forth in front of the windows that look over the gazebo and general gathering area. One corner of the cabin contains the office for Big Bear Hideaway, so we wondered if he was looking for the owner, who would be at home at that time of night. It was dark, and I at first wondered if it was Rick's couch buddy who was looking for him, then realized it was not someone I recognized. The guy got our attention and Rick went out to talk to him. It turns out he is at an AirBnB above the Aqualand Restaurant two doors down from Big Bear Hideaway where we stayed, toward the downtown of Boulder Junction. He and his wife had gone to sit at a table when the door locked behind them, and he did not have his cellphone which contained the passcode for the door lock. Rick and my sister helped him by contacting the owner of Big Bear, who contacted the guy who owns Aqualand, and eventually, after verification of name, address, mother's maiden name, first pet, and so on, the guy was able to get his code. He must have gotten in because Tuesday morning he was not seen still sitting at the table. 

Boulder Junction's streets are seemingly rolled up at seven pm, with almost all businesses closed but perhaps one bar. Being a restaurant, Aqualand was closed Monday, and add this to after Labor Day when it is common that other businesses, such as the ice cream shops, closeup for the fall-winter-spring seasons. A few remain open and I wonder how the apparel stores and other shops stay open with a penchant for shopping at Amazon. Boulder Junction is an unincorporated hamlet, with a population in 2023 of 221 persons. Yet, one would not know it by looking at their town hall/community center/library.  I have to say, low population, but high second home ownership, make for an interesting situation for ability to provide such services. The guy was probably looking for some sign of civilization and came upon the lights emanating from our windows. He was a former math teacher, principal and school superintendent in Michigan. It must have been a bad couple of days for the guy, the Lions lose and then he gets locked out of the tourist housing unit. Rick and I agreed that the worst part for the guy was yet to come, listening to his wife relive the incident. 

Wood carved lumberjack at Gazebo

The fire was dead by the time the Michigan guy showed up, put out by the former boy scout counselors. We had left the fire pit, to get away, in part from couch buddy, and the group of men who were now playing a game at the gazebo, which sits adjoining the fire pit. When I could see no activity at the gazebo I went outside to make sure the fire I had started in a log cabin shape, later changed by the former scout counselors to a pyramid, was fully out. As I type this, I need to ask Rick if couch buddy will be on his Christmas Card list for this year.          

Images date from 2021