AUGUST 11, 2025 – Yesterday our grandson turned two. The occasion was celebrated by a crowd of well-wishers around the long table on the porch of the Red Cabin. He is of the fifth generation of Nilssons to enjoy the beauty of Grindstone Lake in northwest Wisconsin.
Everyone showered him with smiles and attention as he blew out the “2” candle on ice cream cake and pieces were cut and distributed on paper plates. It was a joyous event for everyone in attendance, though perhaps slightly less so for the birthday boy himself, who, having woken up from his nap not so long before, had not quite yet recovered his usual cheerfulness.
As everyone doted on him while he opened his gifts, I wondered what the little guy would remember of the party. Maybe nothing or perhaps the fire engine with the siren and flashing lights or Goodnight Loon—the clever version of Goodnight Moon designed for kids of Loon Country. As the little prince held court from his toddler seat at the head of the table and I observed his antics from my perspective at the foot of the table, I tried to remember my first memories of being at the cabin. How far back did they reach, I wondered. Pretty far, I reckoned.
My very earliest cabin memory began with my dad packing my sisters and me and our luggage up before dawn on what had to be a Monday morning. I’m sure he’d wanted to stretch out his weekends at the cabin as long as possible, yet get back to his office by the time the bell rang at 9:00 Monday morning. I didn’t put all this together, of course, until many years later. Back in my earliest days, I was captive to whatever decisions were made for and around me.
In any event, my earliest memory of the cabin was synchronous with one of my earliest memories in general. As I reflect on it, I’d guess that I was close to our grandson’s current age. The main basis for this conclusion is a critical detail about the memory: my dad carried me for the entire duration of it. That is, after I was woken up—by Dad, my mother, if she was present, though I can’t be sure she was, or my grandmother—it was definitely Dad who carried me from inside the cabin, outside into the darkness and down the back steps, down the wooden walkway to the yard, then down the drive as it slopes behind the cabin and curves down and through the woods . . . and back. I have no memory that my little feet touched the ground at any point in the proceedings. This means my dad held me the entire time—five to ten minutes, I’m guessing—and that, in turn, makes me think I was under three years of age at the time.
What I remember most distinctly about this brief episode, however, was the whole point of this little expedition well before dawn. Dad was quite excited about the whole effort. I know, because there was lots of chatter between him and my grandparents and my older sisters—whose older and bigger feet had plenty of contact with the ground. When Dad reached the bottom of the hill, he turned and told everyone to “look up at the sky.” These words I remember distinctly. They were filled with awe and wonder, and he wanted us to share the extraordinary sight.
I also have a vivid memory of what I saw when I “looked up at the sky”: an exstarvaganza. That made-up word was not what entered my mind just then, any more than “billions and billions” or “a gazillion” did, because none of those words was yet in my young vocabulary. But I do remember ever so clearly what I saw and my reaction to it—a reaction that mimicked my dad’s. In the instant, I understood Dad’s excitement.
I have many other memories of my early years at the cabin and in life generally, but that earliest memory was the most vivid. Ever since, I’ve been mesmerized by the “exstarvaganzas” in the nighttime sky over Grindstone Lake.
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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
