Casual
Carlson, Tucker
Casual ONE MAN'S TREASURE Summer houses are like time capsules. I remember this every June when we go to Maine, to the same place I've gone most of my life. My wife has been going with me every...
...Time seems to move especially fast in Maine, because our routine rarely changes when we're there...
...But not my kids—my parents' kids...
...I strap on a bright red children's swim mask (once part of a $9.99 "Junior Frogman" set from CVS) and swim around underwater...
...They came back to check on them six or seven times a day every day until we went home...
...When we come back, the bricks and rocks and hunks of rusted metal will still be here, just where the children left them...
...In the afternoon we go swimming...
...But we do...
...That's what they call it anyway...
...They split the loot into even piles and paw through it lovingly, like pieces of eight...
...The kids put their cherished objects inside...
...We spent our last day in Maine as we always do, cleaning and closing up...
...In the morning we build sand castles and throw sticks in the water for the dogs...
...Plus, they're excited...
...It was jarring...
...One year we found a tackle box that had tumbled unopened out of someone's canoe...
...By August this year, the treasure piles had grown too large for the back porch...
...TUCKER CARLSON...
...I cleaned off a shelf in the shed, displacing a decade's worth of mismatched plumbing supplies, hung a board across it with some old strap hinges, and called it a treasure chest...
...And sometimes I do...
...I decided to halt the archaeology expedition...
...One of the first things we found was an answering machine, the outdated kind with the cassette tape and fake wood veneer...
...The water is pretty chilly, so the kids usually climb out after a few minutes...
...At the bottom of the wood bin are newspapers announcing the crash of the Challenger...
...Suddenly I felt emotional...
...The reality is less impressive...
...But there turned out to be no escaping unexpected reminders of the passage of time...
...My wife has been going with me every summer since we were in the 10 th grade, so it always feels a bit like waking up back in high school when we arrive...
...This year my wife and I went determined to clean house...
...Must be the kids' bottle collection, I thought to myself...
...I came to the shed last...
...And, I realized a moment later, it was...
...Before throwing it away, I played it...
...These were bottles my brother and I had collected when we were little...
...They sit on the dock wrapped in towels shivering and watch me go "diving...
...I must look preposterously dorky...
...Just where we'd left them...
...But there's no one around to see it but the kids, and they're too young to be very judgmental about appearances...
...I was about to lock the door when I noticed the shelf with the board across it...
...And we finally did go home...
...Thanks to careless ice fishermen and generations of clumsy people getting in and out of boats, there are quite a few manmade objects on the bottom...
...Next year, I thought, this place will look exactly the same, because it never changes...
...In a dresser upstairs there are T-shirts I haven't worn since I took algebra...
...There's always the chance I'll bring up treasures...
...The stuff is usually gnarled and blackened and covered with moss, but that doesn't diminish its value...
...There were messages from people I hadn't called back since the Reagan administration...
...I throw it all piece by piece onto the dock while the kids yell happily...
...One afternoon I was wandering around the boathouse looking for something when I found a small pyramid of old Coke bottles arranged on a rafter beam...
...My own voice sounded about 19, which is how old I must have been when I recorded it...
...I wonder if they'll still consider it treasure...
...There are old letters in desks, match-books on the mantle from long-defunct restaurants, condiments in the kitchen I'm positive I recall from early childhood...
...This summer I pulled up an ancient-looking bottle with the word "Kay-lene-Ol" (whatever that is) embossed on the side...
...But most of the time what I bring up is just junk: bricks, oarlocks, lost moorings, broken fishing lures, weirdly shaped rocks, unidentifiable hunks of rusted metal, an outboard prop or two, and lots and lots of freshwater oysters...
Vol. 6 • October 2000 • No. 3
