Dave Crehore

From the book jacket: When the summer rush is over, Door County seems deserted, but George and Helen and the rest of the year-round residents are still there. They take advantage of the last few warm days to work outdoors and enjoy a freedom that has been denied them since May; when they go into town they can park almost anywhere, even in Sister Bay.

My reactions
What a lovely, gentle story focusing on “familiar” characters. My husband and I have vacationed in Door County (and in Baileys Harbor) many times. We always go in the off-season – fall and spring, even in winter (once). I know these communities and these people, and Crehore gets them down perfectly.

I loved George and Helen. He’s a retired copy editor, she’s retired from teaching. He’s the go-to-guy any time someone needs a hand, always willing to help a neighbor. He keeps plenty busy puttering around the house, but he has plenty of time to go for a walk with his golden retriever Russell, or go fishing or birding or just sit around a fire telling tall tales and enjoying a few brews. As the seasons progress we meet other residents – Ellen and Bump Olsen (he’s the local septic tank pumper), Little John Hill (local game warden), Beth and Hans Berge (retired psychiatrist from Chicago) and their terrier Ollie, the mysterious Lloyd Barnes and his “hound of the basketballs,” a host of other local characters, and a few summer visitors.

The scenes were familiar …. household chores, Thanksgiving meal with friends, a visit from relatives, a road trip to Canada, enduring a winter storm’s power outage. All told with a gentle humor. I kept reading passages aloud to my husband, and we enjoyed a few good laughs.

One of my favorite chapters revolves around a visit from their grandson. While Helen goes to Chicago to help their daughter, who’s having a difficult pregnancy, Willie comes to spend six weeks with Grandpa. The two summer “bachelors” make the most of their time alone – surviving on a diet of weiners, mac and cheese, milk, eggs, Snickers bars, chocolate ice cream, pancakes, peanut butter and watermelon. On one of their last fishing outings, they encounter a man and his son in an expensive bass boat, and George saves the day when he gives them a tow back to the harbor and helps the man back up his boat trailer. When the man offers George money for his assistance George thinks that the man must believe George is in need. After all, the man is wearing a cashmere sweater, has an expensive boat and fancy car, while George has a ten-year-old truck, a twenty-year-old beaten up johnboat, with a thirty-year-old outboard motor that needs “fixing” every other time he starts it, and is dressed in tatty old clothes. But then he overhears his grandson talking to the man’s boy. And Will is bragging about how his “Grandpa can fix an outboard motor with a pipe clean and sail a sailboat and shift gears and tie flies … and … make a stone skip eleven times!” And he realizes how rich he really is.

My only regret is that this is a library book and I have to return it. I’d love to own it and read it over and over again.… (mehr)