Editor’s note: The author wrote part of this story in 2020.
ST. HELEN – There is nothing left but memories of the good times we had at Carter’s Camp Store & Rec Hall.
Condemned and about to be torn down, I watched as a crew showed up to carry her old bones away. Proof that you can’t go home again, no matter how much you want to.
Carter’s provided fun and amusement for all the local children staying at the few summer cabins that existed around the lake back then.
Our family shopped at Carters for years, and then my cousin, Gary Moore and I, worked there every summer selling bait and bailing boats. Afterwards, we would then wash up and go inside to work behind the soda counter, selling Koegel hotdogs and Cherry/Vanilla fizzs & cokes for a buck an hour!
After work, we dated girls all summer long at Artesia Beach. We went fishing and water skiing on Lake St. Helen for all our teenage years. Then we both enlisted in the United States Air Force, after the final “Summer of ’62.”
Those were the days my friends, of Sandy beach party bonfires, fast cars, hot chicks, cool cats and going to “The Music Box” in Houghton Lake, where we danced all night to the good old rock & roll records.
When I looked at the shell of the building of the old rec hall shell, I thought back to those long-ago summers when it was the heart and soul of Artesia Beach and St. Helen. It was very much like the movie “Dirty Dancing.”
The rec room had a Rockola juke box, pool & ping pong tables, and pinball machines. Since none of us had hardly a quarter back then, we rigged the pinball game by hitting it on the side with our fist or inserting a wire near the flippers, to hold the metal pinball against the scoring button.
There was also a rifle shooting gallery, which we were high score winners most of the time because we were expert shots from our extensive hunting experience.
The back doors of the rec hall opened to the shore of Lake St. Helen. Outside there was a big wooden swing on an oak tree, where summer romances bloomed. Then later, the boys would always throw one of the girls into the lake off the dock, as this was a local tradition.
The shore was lined with vintage wooden boats: Chris Crafts and Garwoods; that were owned by “old money” lake front owners, including: the Carters, Oglestones, Austins, & even Charleton Heston himself. Heston came back home to Roscommon County every summer to visit relatives like his cousin, Jack Carter.
He also loved to water ski on the lake. Heston had a hunting lodge in the woods on nearby Russell Lake and that has already been torn down, and the property designated as whitetail habitat by the DNR.
A new view of an old memory
As I walked through the dilapidated, abandoned building, the soda fountain and Coke machine were still there, as were the old oak showcases in the main part of the store. The stock of canned goods and camping items were still on the shelves. It was as if the former owner had just locked the front door one day and walked away.
I saved the Rec room for last.
When I entered the room, it looked much as it did 60 years earlier. Suddenly, I was taken back to a time when I was a teenager again. I remembered the time of the big Rockola juke box playing a record with my first love and girlfriends name as the title. It really was “the time of our lives,” and we all were better off for that moment, when things were a little more innocent.
Even today, when I close my eyes or hear a certain old song on the radio, I am taken back to the old rec hall with my first “summer love” girlfriend, (she knows who she is).
As reality crept back into my mind, I walked toward the window that faced Lake St. Helen. The lake was dark blue; a light wind was blowing. I could hear the faint echo of kid’s voices and laughter.
Then in the blink of an eye, that image is gone, and I’m back to real life and real age with gray hair.
They’re all gone now. The glossy wooden speed boats, the people, and the “store” as we all called it. It was an end to an era. My brother, Larry, and I, are the last men (barely) standing!
As I walked away, I knew this would be the last time. I would keep that picture and those memories etched in my mind forever. I smiled to myself, walked away … and didn’t look back.
