One of the Guys

Chapter 4

Chapter 4.0: The Vandals

 The harbor is split into three canals and a main canal.  A boardwalk goes around each canal and the entire harbor, making it so that the residents have lake access without actually being on the lake.  Because of the more quiet community setting, most of the residents are older; mostly retirees who only use the area for summer homes and places for their kids and grandkids to visit.  In fact, there are only about two families with kids on each harbor, and because of being younger, these families usually live on the harbor full-time, winter and summer.  As you probably guessed, this latter description describes my family and Cullen’s family.  Remember Gina Pratt (yes, I’m wrinkling my nose in disgust right now) from across the canal?  Her family is in the same situation as ours as well, although from what I hear, her family likes to prance around as though they’re as wealthy as Ogie’s family.

Our area is nice and gentle and communal, and everybody is nice.  The old people joke around and laugh almost all the time, and just for fun (and because we’re nice and like to stay on people’s good sides in case we do dip into some trouble), Cullen and I usually mow some of our more elderly neighbors’ lawns every now and then, just so they don’t have to.  The people know us, and the people like us.  My mom and Cullen’s mom play bridge with some of the older women and sometimes delve into tennis games, and Cullen’s dad and my dad are often out golfing with some of the older gentleman.  As far as I’m concerned, we’re very well-liked down our road.

I always thought the harbor was the perfect place to grow up.  I had a boy my age next door (yes, Cullen, for those of you who haven’t been following along) and many grandkids to hang out with in the summer.  And although the harbor isn’t exactly ideal for swimming (there is no beach leading into the water and our docks are short, which doesn’t give much room to play around on) we always made due. 

Down across from the main road was a campground, the biggest campground in all of Okoboji.  I’ve never been there, but from peeking through the trees, it looks like a nice enough place, full of playgrounds and miniature golf and everybody has gigantic campers and RVs and large boats. 

Sometimes, though, the campground people (as we referred to them as) would cut across some people’s yards and make their way to the boardwalk that was specifically marked “PRIVATE” and “NO TRESPASSING.”  It usually wasn’t really too big of a deal to have an imposter on the boardwalk except for the occasional shouts from the elderly residents as the campers’ dogs peed on their bushes.  For the most part, we all lived in peace.

But on Friday, the first of June, we had a little visit from three vandals.  They attacked at approximately twenty minutes after three o’clock in the morning, and they did wake me.  I heard running outside, but I assumed it was Gina’s neighbors—they were fond of late-night dips and parties, much to the rest of our annoyance—and went back to sleep.  The next morning, however, I woke up to discover that it had been three vandals.

The older couple next door to Ogie were the ones who spotted the vandals; one was standing on my dock, and two others were standing on Ogie’s dock.  (Ogie and Cullen were convinced he was going to scrape up Ogie’s new jet-ski—the two of them were convinced that Ogie’s jet-ski was destined for some sort of disaster.  Two days prior, Cullen and Ogie had somehow managed to flip the jet-ski in the middle of the lake.  I’m not entirely sure what the story behind that was, but Cullen came running unannounced into my kitchen dripping wet to tell me about it.)

The man yelled at them and they took off.  They were carrying a Coleman lantern.  (“Who uses a lantern versus a flashlight?” Cullen had said when I told him the story—my thoughts exactly, Cullen.)

There wasn’t too much damage, but a few plants had been dumped into the water and some lights.  Our ladder for swimming had been tossed into the water, and Cullen’s family had two chairs that had been tossed in.  The man next door to Ogie (the one who had caught the vandals in the act and yelled at them) had just bought a new plant that had been dumped.