The Meador family at L' Da Ru in July 1990 (courtesy of Peggy Meador).

Another change was that my family had purchased a small skiing boat. This was our passage onto a lake that we had previously been cut off from. We traveled past the second island and into the southern portion of the lake, into areas we had scarcely seen before. The name Spider Lake started to make more sense. Surveyors did not find an alarming number of arachnids in the area; the name refers to the branches and curves of the relatively small body of water.

We also got to go tubing and waterskiing during the day and fishing in the evening. We hardly ever caught anything, since the lake's fish population wasn't abundant. But I once caught a 12-inch fish while trolling into the dock. After I stopped trying or caring, I achieved my goal. I proudly held the fish up on the dock as if my skill had somehow caused the fish to bite my lure.

With more kids my age around, we had even fewer moments of boredom. We still spent most of our time at the beach, but we also had a few street hockey games on the fenced-in tennis court throughout the week. A few families came from Grosse Pointe, and their hockey player sons organized the events. My brother and I had just started playing ice hockey as well, after many summers of endless street hockey matches, so we felt comfortable competing.

Another family from Bloomfield Hills became pretty close friends with mine, and there was a boy in the family a year older than me. They also had a younger boy who, according to my mom, had a learning disability. He didn't seem very disabled to me. He did repeat phrases over and over, and he sat by himself on the beach. But what I remember the most about him was his incredible skill with Ms. Pac Man. It was intimidating to watch him gather those yellow dots and turn the ghosts into mincemeat.

The groups from both Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills had ski boats as well, and they would take two or three tubes out at once, which seemed amazing at the time. In one of the GP families, there was a girl about my age. We never really talked, and she didn't seem all that nice either, but I remember having a thing for her. It was probably about the time when girls started to seem really threatening. One night she came out of her cabin after a shower, and her well-brushed hair looked striking in the lakeside twilight as the campfire crowd started to gather. I don't remember her name, and she probably never learned mine.

Being a little older, I also got some freedom from my parents. My brothers and I would play flashlight tag with the other kids once the darkness filled in. There was very little order to this game. We'd basically run around the yard next to the campfire, jumping out from behind the enormous trees to flash our opponents in the eyes. Soon we'd start being too loud for the hour, and the parents would take our flashlights away.

Getting older also meant seeing L' Da Ru in a different light. It was during this stretch that I remember walking down the beach sidewalk in the morning, when the pink light of dawn hung over the still-as-glass water and the boats hadn't yet started buzzing. Sometimes during the day, at the request of my mother, I would rest on the swinging chair in the shade just behind that sidewalk. Occasionally, my brothers and I would even lie on a blanket under the trees, close our eyes, and listen to the branches fluttering in the breeze.

***

My last trip to L' Da Ru was a short one during an autumn weekend in 1997, at the beginning of my high school years. Every autumn in Michigan creates a bittersweet sensation. The death and renewal of nature usually translates into growth and positive changes in my life. That weekend most of the cabins were empty, even though "color tours" are usually popular up north. All the leaves were changing, the air was crisp and cool, and the sky was more often cloudy than not. We still had a campfire one night, but with only one or two families to join us, it didn't feel the same.

Sometime around the turn of the millennium, L' Da Ru was sold, the cabins were torn down, and the Spider Lake Retreat was built. The new single building was intended to be a corporate gathering place and luxury lodge. I remember feeling a bit betrayed for not being consulted before this sale, as if anyone who ever spent time there automatically owned a share in the property. I was glad that they kept most of the tall trees intact, since construction projects usually clear a landscape and leave a barren wasteland.

Passing the property in a boat today, it looks like an entirely different place. In fact, there's hardly any indication that the L' Da Ru cabins ever stood there. As a child, the place seemed completely separate from the rest of the world. There was a radiance wholly unique to the resort. The new building looks coldly modern, covered in white paint and large stones instead of natural wood tones. The beach is almost always empty, with no happy cries of children playing in the water. There's no laughter around the campfire, and no ping-pong tournament cheers emanating from within the arcade.

Traverse City has changed as well, luckily not too much for the worse. Of course life has also changed me in the decade since my last visit to L' Da Ru. But I carry that place with me wherever I go, whenever I visit other states and tell people how wonderful Michigan can be. I accept that visiting Spider Lake won't feel quite as special as it used to, but I hope that one day I can create those kind of memories for my own family. I will never forget that shaded hill of cabins on the northern edge of the lake where I was lucky enough to spend my early summers in youthful bliss.

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