Geist - Lake of the Ozarks: my surreal summers in a vanishing America

B efore there was tourism or leisure time; before souvenir ashtrays became camp and kitsch; before the five-legged deer qualified as an attraction; and before todays colossal theme parks could even be imagined; there was Beautiful Lake of the OzarksFamily Vacationland, where to this day the ashtrays remain devoid of irony.

Would going back to Lake of the Ozarks be a View-Master of fond memories or a series of electroshocks to the brain and stabs to the heart?

Arrowhead Lodge, where I worked for many summers during my high school and college years, was gone. Demolished in 2007. I hadnt been back to the lake since. Couldnt. Aunt Janet and Uncle Ed, my second set of parents, had owned the lodge and now they were gone too, along with the whole menagerie of wonderfully bizarre eccentrics drawn by their own peculiar circumstances to this remote, unlikely destination.

I didnt like to think about all of them and all of that, vaporized by the passage of time. It confused and angered me, time putting its jackboot on our necks as it stole our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, our favorite people and places, our health, our breath. What right does it have, death? When I meet it, Ill give it the finger. Best I can do.

I preferred remembering the lodge and the lake and the whole cast of characters just as they were. Or better. Or not at all. I wanted to drive up to the front door of the lodge and see a skinny, redheaded teenager sweeping the front walkway. Me. A half century later.

Arrowhead Lodge satand rather majestically, Id sayon a wooded hilltop overlooking a three-mile stretch of glistening blue water edged in the vivid greenery of oak, hickory, ash, and black gum treeswith nary a man-made blemish.

Twenty thousand workers came to build Bagnell Dam, a 148-foot-high, half-mile-wide cement block plugging the Osage River.

A number of workers died during construction, giving their lives to provide us with power to light the darkness and totally awesome water-skiing.

The lake basin, cleared of all trees, structures, and people, living and dead, filled at about one and a half feet per day before topping out in 1931, 129 miles long with 1,375 miles of shoreline, more than California.

Arrowhead was built shortly thereafter, in 1935, from local timber and sandstone, with a large stone fireplace, wide-plank wooden walls, and rough-hewn furniture fashioned from hickory limbs and branches. It burned in 1950, but was quickly rebuilt and furnished to closely match the original.

Like nothing else built at the lake, Arrowhead Lodge looked like it belonged there. With forty-one guest rooms, a spacious lobby, and a restaurant that seated about 125 people, it was one of the largest and most luxurious hotels at the lake (albeit smaller and less luxurious than some Aspen ski homes today).

Speeding east on I-70 to catch the last plane from St. Louis to LaGuardia, I recalled old billboards showing euphoric speedboaters, water-skiers, and anglers, all having the times of their lives at Beautiful Lake of the Ozarks. To share in the bliss all one had to do was Exit at Kingdom City, which Id done so often in my life, but not for a very long time.

Should I?

Cant. Gotta get back home. Stuff to do.

But if not now, when? Youre not getting any younger, pal.

Ive never been able to make decisions. Give me anything, but dont give me a choice. Using my gray, midsized rental car as a kind of rolling Ouija board, I took my hands off the wheel. The car drifted slightly to the right, and so, guided by the paranormal, the hand of God, or uneven tire pressure, I took the Kingdom City exit.

Kingdom City, Missouri, falls short of its majestic name, just a truck stop, really. There used to be a folksy restaurant around herethe Chuck Wagon, was it? Or words to that effectwhere you used to see truck drivers who appeared to be at once unquestionably male but, paradoxically, well into their third trimesters. They wore supportive, hubcap-sized silvery belt buckles, slung low, facing almost parallel to the ground.

Thered be farmers and hillbillies, too, missing a finger here, a few teeth there, but still managing to put away leaden platters of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and biscuitsthe whole of it smothered in gelatinous white gravy rapidly turning to stucco. Cholesterol? Trans fats? Nope, cant say Id ever heard of em.

There were ashtrays on every table, for those who chose to go via the respiratory route rather than cardiovascular. No warning labels on the cigarette packs yet, but smokers knew. We already referred to them as cancer sticks and coffin nails.