Posts Tagged ‘Wildwood Lodge Club’
Different Sleep
A change of perspective is always a valuable experience for me and this weekend up at the lake we have been residing in the old cabin #3 beside the main log house above the water. It is one of the original cabins of the former fishing lodge that Cyndie’s family saved when the Wildwood Association transitioned to families owning individual lots.
The Friswolds moved cabin 3 to a new foundation farther back from the lake to make room for the new log home they had built back in the early 1980s. When our kids were young, we spent most of our time up here in the old cabin, granting people in the big house respite from the clamor of infants waking early and the occasional outbursts of either glee or angst associated with that age.
Currently, there are no young ones of the next generation in the family and cabin 3 gets used less often, primarily as overflow accommodations when attendance numbers swell for a weekend.
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Cyndie and I are really enjoying the throwback to a time when our primary experience up at the lake was from the vantage point of the old, and much smaller cabin.
I have been sleeping deeper than in recent memory and with Asher left back in Beldenville with a sitter for this visit, we have no reasons to rise early. This morning the 8 o’clock hour had arrived before we got up. I had woken early and read the whole paper in bed on my computer and then faded into a morning nap that felt rather decadent.
The small rooms and close proximity to the ground (in the big house we usually sleep in the loft) make it feel like we are almost sleeping outdoors.
The view out the back window is one I relish for the trees and forest floor I’m most attracted to for a natural environment.
It’s as if I’m forest bathing all night long as I sleep.
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Pickle Play
With our Wildwood lake place community aging out of the toddler and young children phases of family life, the Independence Day festivities have adjusted. We have shifted from the fish pond, shoe kick, water balloon toss, and watermelon eating contests of old to one large double-elimination pickleball tournament for game day.
A good time was had by all.
Teams were formed by random selection, mixing the pool of ages in ranges from a few high schoolers, a lot of college-goers, a span of parents, and several of us over 60. Weather conditions were nearly perfect with the dual mocked-up courts offering a mix of sun and shade, spiced up with occasional bursts of (often useful) wind blasts.
My partner and I jumped out to an early 5-0 lead in our first game which helped carry us to victory, keeping us in the winners’ bracket for game two. That one was an excellent challenge but didn’t end in our favor.
The trophy pickle was beginning to feel out of our reach.
Bounced down to the losers’ bracket, we had a run of bad luck and watched the score of our third game just walk away from our control. Shots fell wide or into the net and neither of us could shift the momentum of our slide.
We got pickled. Is that a phrase used in this sport?
Regardless of our two inglorious losses, the whole afternoon was a blast. It is always a treat when our whole Wildwood community gathers for specific events.
This was the second-annual 4th-of-July pickleball tournament at the lake place and it gave me the feeling that we might happily settle into this becoming routine for the foreseeable future.
We may need to look into crafting a trophy out of something other than a real pickle if that ends up being the case.
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Aging Club
Wildwood Lodge Club started in 1966. The first generation is dwindling and of the six current families, only three are original. 
The club is in its 57th year but the buildings have been around since 1919. It was a fishing lodge when the eleven original Twin Cities families bought it and formed the club. The children of the first generation have taken over decision-making responsibilities, significantly increasing the number of minds that need to come to a consensus on management.
One of the biggest issues looming is the integrity of the main lodge building which has kitchen facilities and restaurant-style seating. The foundation is failing and the floor is rotting. The repair costs are unpredictable and hard to justify.
The ramifications tend to ripple all the way out to shaking the visions of what the future of the club might be like for the 3rd generation and beyond. With each generation, the added number of invested people complicates almost all decisions, particularly ones needing consensus for managing association business.
There are no easy answers and we can feel that. Gathering at the beach yesterday to remove the winter’s worth of leaf accumulation and arrange chairs, paddleboards, kayaks, a canoe, a small fishing boat, and several sailboats, talk informally wanders to the issues that aren’t easily resolved.
Thank goodness the precious people who are the extended family of Wildwood are the true core of what defines this club. There is no shortage of fun and laughter despite all the tough decisions looming. Dinner at each house is a delicious mix of wonderful stories and good food. Wandering next door for a visit is a guaranteed party. The north woods surrounding the lake is a vacation paradise.
Last night’s corn on the cob tasted like August. I don’t know where it was grown or how long ago it was picked, but someone did an amazing job of providing an end product that defied my sense of time and logistics.
My luck at our multiple card games has been nothing but bad, however, the fun quotient is as present as ever.
We don’t know what the future may bring, but just because the club is aging doesn’t mean it can’t last. There are plenty of possibilities and I am confident this group will eventually figure out a way to adapt and endure.
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Last Hurrah
Taking full advantage of immersing ourselves in the last Sunday of the summer season up at the lake, we hiked, swam, boated, feasted, visited, and began putting away water toys. Hosting members of Friswold’s adopted family, the Birgens, we had added reasons to wander the grounds and socialize with fellow “Wildwooders.” Wildwoodites? Member clans of the incredible Wildwood Lodge Club (WWLC).
The holiday weekend inspired an additional reason to gather members, so Cyndie and her mom invited everyone to our place for a 5 o’clock cocktail party with socializing around the fire. With flashback memories of the way it was done when Cyndie was a kid up here, that fire was then used to cook burgers for our dinner.
In another throwback to a bygone era, I got out my little travel guitar and “strumgled” [strummed and struggled] a few songs from the cobwebs of my fading memory. It was sufficient to punctuate the culmination of a fabulous day at the lake honoring the last events of summer.
Today, the Birgens will head out on the last leg of their journey, taking their youngest, Jonathon, to his first year of college. Cyndie, her mom, and I will linger one more night and head home tomorrow.
In the wee hours before dawn this morning, our gentle slumber was serenaded by the wistful echoing calls of an owl in the woods outside our window. It truly feels like we are experiencing summer’s last hurrah.
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Mostly Cloudy
Some days are so low-key that the excitement of solving the Wordle puzzle is one of the noteworthy highlights. Actually, amazing life events sometimes play out unexpectedly in the midst of an otherwise bucolic ambiance of a quiet cloudy day at the lake. There are only three of us occupying the big log house this weekend. With the cool temperature and cloudy sky doing a lot to set the tone, we didn’t have any lofty ambitions about pursuing laudable accomplishments.
Midmorning we received a precious invitation to join with other Wildwood families for a gathering of the Whitlock family next door. They were doing a memorial spreading of ashes for their patriarch, Bill, a founding member of the Wildwood Lodge Club. Afterward, families represented gathered on the Whitlock deck to catch up and share memories.
It was the kind of visit that could have gone on forever except they had a dinner plan. We three returned to our place for dinner and a mix of tv dramas in front of a fire.
Some sunshine would have definitely painted the day with a greater urge to be out but the surprise opportunity to commune with people we dearly love was a bonus that truly blessed an otherwise understated day.
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Spectacularly Pleasant
We were blessed with a fabulous summer-weather day for our Wildwood Lodge Club annual Fourth of July games. Things started a little slow, with a pickup wiffleball game occupying some of us, while the rest of the folks made their way to the lodge.
The flag was raised to a recorded version of our National Anthem.
Shoes were kicked.
Also, water balloons were tossed (thrown), wet sponges were passed, bodies were spun, and watermelon was handlessly gobbled. Yes, it gets messy.
Greased watermelons were then wrestled toward invisible goal lines.
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Finally, a feast was shared in the lodge.
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After dinner, I played a little guitar around the fire to cap off a spectacular day of events.
The most difficult part of this precious weekend is facing the return to reality that happens today. We drive home this afternoon in a line of holiday traffic to resume our normal weekday duties.
I suppose the plus side of that is, it tends to make days like these all the more special that we get to experience them.
This year will go down as a particularly precious Fourth of July weekend enjoying summer games up at Wildwood with all the families present.
I look forward to dwelling on it for as long as circumstances will allow.
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Real Joy
We are up at the lake for our US holiday weekend closest to Independence Day and large numbers of family are in attendance. That makes for special times. Even though the earth is shaking in California and stupid statements fly in Washington, D.C., our attention is localized in the here and now.
Last night the cousins and friends gathered around a table for a rousing game of “Catch Phrase” which blossomed into a classic manifestation of unbridled joy.
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It’s as much fun to watch as it is being a contestant.
Today, the seven families of our Wildwood Lodge Club will congregate at the lodge for a flag raising and National Anthem followed by a parade up and down the driveway. Then, the games commence. Fierce competitions of coordination and silliness between teams labeled “bats” and “mice” as we toss balloons, kick shoes, and gobble watermelon.
Next, there will be a massive community feast in the lodge and maybe a few fireworks after dark.
Laughter abounds throughout it all.
Extended family, and friends and neighbors who have always been close as family, sharing time and activities together in the glorious lakeside summer sunshine.
Even though there are harsh realities in the world, moments of our freedom and independence can be celebrated among smaller communities who know how to show love to others and be loved ourselves.
We are very lucky, and I absolutely cherish these times when we get to be at the lake with the people who know us best, experiencing real joy and sharing so much genuine love.
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Intentional Community
Wow. Similar endings in both World Cup games yesterday, in that, the final results were determined by penalty kicks. I only got to see parts of both games, due to a special meeting of the Wildwood Lodge Club association members in the morning, and then our trip home in the afternoon, but what I saw was highly entertaining.
There is some work needing to be done to maintain the soundness of the aging lodge building up at the lake, which will require significant financial commitment. At the same time, after over 50-years of existence, the association is facing the aging out of the first generation. Financial burdens are beginning to fall on the multiple sibling families that make up the second generation members.
We are facing some big decisions as an intentional community, about what the six expanding families’ long term wishes and dreams are for the future of this communal vacation paradise.
I walked portions of the property in the early morning on Saturday and captured the some of the quiet beauty.
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I’ve written about Wildwood before, but to summarize for newer readers, it is an association of now 6 families that share a central lodge building, play field, tennis court, gorgeous beach, and boats. When the old fishing resort was purchased by 11 families in the 1960s, it was a number of small, mostly primitive small shacks surrounding the main lodge.
Moms and kids would spend most of the summer there, with dads coming from the Twin Cities for the weekends. Families would rotate cabins throughout the summer and often dined communally around the main fire pit in the central “triangle” on their peninsula of Round Lake.
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In the 1980s, when the member numbers had dropped to seven families, the maturing clans elected to split the property into separate plots in order to allow for enhancements to the living accommodations, while also providing equity for the investment by individual families.
Meanwhile, all the traditions and celebratory community activities from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and for a decade or so, New Year’s Eve, played out with emphatic zest.
It was intentional community at its best. Kids and dogs, and all the good and bad that happens with outdoor space, a lake, and time, became the joys and concerns of all. With this precious group, there were always a lot more joys than there ever were concerns.
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Saturday, in celebration of the mid-week 4th-of-July holiday this year, we broke out the red “bats” shirts and the blue “mice” shirts to split the community into two arbitrary teams for a mostly typical array of challenges for dominance.
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There was a relay race, water-balloon toss, three-legged sack race, shoe kick, watermelon eating contest, and finally, a water scrum to move a greased watermelon across the opponent’s line.
The day of games was topped off by a grand feast in the lodge for dinner, all prepared, served, and serviced by a combined effort of member families, kids included (to varying degrees of success).
Now the community is needing to address what the next version of Wildwood Lodge Club might be?
There are many variables involved, and few, if any, right or wrong decisions to be made. That presents us with a significant challenge.
If Wildwood is to remain some version of its former self, it will involve a big commitment from all the members.
In my mind, big commitments are what it takes for “intentional communities” to survive and to thrive.
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Club Wildwood
Becoming a member of the Friswold family also made me an instant member of their vacation home association, Wildwood Lodge Club. It is an awesome amplification of everything precious about the Friswolds. It’s as if the things that make them a special family is taken to the 7th degree by six amazing other like-minded families that join together with a common zest for loving life and other people.
Located in the beautiful northern Wisconsin woods, spending time at Wildwood is inherently enthralling. There is always something to do, even if it is simply sitting quietly and soaking up what nature has to offer. But that doesn’t hold a candle to the energy and love shared among the people who truly make Wildwood what it is.
In a way, traveling the roughly 3-hour drive from home to be at WWLC was the first version of Friswold family trips. That is why I am featuring it near the beginning of this little series highlighting our travels with Cyndie’s family.
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There are often community games spontaneously forming –basketball, soccer, boot hockey, tennis, card games, night games– and shared meals are a common occurrence. For some years, there was a progressive dinner to each family’s “cabin” on New Year’s Eve.
There are often themes devised for Wildwood events, such as “paint your own t-shirt” for Independence day (seen above) or “make your own holiday hat” (below).
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Wildwood Lodge Club could be seen as my gateway into the next level of travel adventures I would continue to experience after becoming a member of the Friswold Family.
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Spectacular Weekend
I’m back at work today, but I expect my mind will be flooded all day long with thoughts of the spectacular weekend we just enjoyed. The weather was divine and complimented everything that was planned to honor the 50-year anniversary of Wildwood Lodge Club in Hayward, WI, on the Independence Day holiday weekend.
Sunday we held our traditional games such as water balloon toss, shoe kick, 3-legged race, and watermelon eating contest. A typical number of rules were circumnavigated in pursuit of victories, but that never lessens the laughter and frivolity enjoyed by all.
In the evening, after a catered dinner, one member from each family ever holding a membership participated in a game of Wildwood Jeopardy. When that was over, dancing to live music carried on into the wee hours of Monday morning.
Despite the late hours, I woke up early enough the next morning to sneak out on another beautiful bike ride with Cyndie’s brother, Ben.
Then it was back in the water for one last swim before it was time to pack and leave for home. Leaving the beach before the day is done is always one of the hardest things to do. It gets me begging for science-fiction to hurry up and become science-fact, in terms of a transporter ala-Star Trek to eliminate the travel time needed to get home.
Pushing myself to leave the lake during the best part of the day becomes a much more difficult thing to do when the weekend is as spectacular as this last one just was.
I feel like I deserve a medal for making it back to work today.
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Relative Something 