Broughton Philip Delves - Charlie Whistlers omnium gatherum: campfire stories and Adirondack adventures

ForAUGIEandHUGO

Energy is eternal delight.

WILLIAM BLAKE

CONTENTS

Charles Wilberforce Whistler, b. 1840, Vol. I

Charles Wetherby Whistler, b. 1860, Vol. II

Charles Watson Whistler, b. 1891, Vol. III

Charles Wilfred Whistler, b. 1935, Vol. IV

Charles Warren Whistler, b. 1970, Vol. V

Charles Welsh Whistler, b. 2002, Vol. VI

HI,

My name is Charlie Whistler. And what you are holding in your hands is my Omnium Gatherum. Well, I say my, but really its ours, meaning my familys. And now that youre reading it, its yours too. So lets just call it an Omnium Gatherum.

Im writing to you sitting on the dock at our cabin on Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks, a land of lakes, mountains, and forests about five hours north of New York City. In the summer, its cool and green. In the winter it fills with snow. You could live several lifetimes and never see it all.

The cabin is right on the water. It was built more than a hundred years ago by my great-great-great-grandfather Charlie. The floors are splintery. The bedsheets are worn and thin. The plumbing often breaks down. But for generations of Whistlers, its been our favorite place in the world. We come and go from June to September, when its warm and the blackfly isnt about. We come at weekends when Moms and Dads work allows, and for a couple of weeks every August. But a few hardy Whistlers have seen out entire years up here, sitting through the long deep winters in flannel pajamas beside a well-fed stove.

Right now, the sun is setting. Weve eaten supper. Mom and Dad are reading and my kid sister Ella is taking her bath. We went canoeing out to the far side of the lake today and she started yelling because she saw a loon, her favorite bird.

Loons, aka hell divers, have this trick where theyll be drifting along beside you on the water, then suddenly theyll disappear and pop up a hundred yards away cackling this witchy cackle as if theyve put one over on you. Ella thinks this is the greatest. She doesnt care that on shore theyre the clumsiest-looking beasts you ever saw or that their cry sounds like theyre inviting you to a funeral. When I call her a loon, she takes it as a compliment. Shes contrary like that. This afternoon, she was pointing and screaming at one of these crafty loons and in her excitement, she capsized her boat. One minute you couldnt hear yourself think for all the noise she was making. Then silence. A gurgling sound. I paddled hard over to where she had gone under, searching for signs of her. Then like one of her favorite loons, she popped up a way away with a whole lot of splashing and more screaming. Charlie! Save me! She loves to be dramatic. It took us half an hour of yanking and twisting to drag her boat to the shore, empty it, and get her back in it.

Anyway, now that shes upstairs, I have a few minutes of peace and Ive been meaning to write this for a while. You see, it turns out I come from a family of writers. Not the kind who write books or movies. But letter writers, scribblers, doodlers, the kind who leave long notes on the refrigerator, because often theyd rather write than talk.

I found this out last year, after my Grandpa died. He was a great man. Kind and patient even with a yappy kid like me. Things Id do that would drive my parents crazy would just make him laugh. Break a plate? Laugh. Jump naked into the lake? Laugh. Sneak an extra pancake? Laugh. Deflate another kids bike tires? Laugh. Shampoo the dog and style his hair into a Mohawk? Laugh. But, as I said, he died and left this house to my Dad.

Before Grandpa died, he promised me I could have his old snowshoes. Id been pestering Dad for a while about finding them, and one day he put down his coffee and newspaper and took me up to the attic. It was a mess up there, racks of threadbare suits and shirts, bags full of shoes, and a few old trunks crammed to bursting. I thought it would only take a few minutes to find what I was looking for. But Dad and I ended up spending hours. There were old toys and stacks of curling photographs showing Whistlers past and present during their summers on the lake. Dad found an old chair and leafed through them slowly, each one prompting a memory or story.

And then under a stack of clothes, I found an old leather folder held together with elastic bands. On the cover were the words Omnium Gatherum.

Inside was a jumble of papers, some handwritten, some typed. There were letters and newspaper clippings and short scribbles. Many were illustrated with drawings and maps, or had photographs stapled to them. I sat down on the floor to read. Some of the pages were so old, their edges crumbled between my fingers.

The earliest letters came from the late 1870s. And many were addressed to or written by Charlie. Its not just my name. Its my Dads name, my grandfathers name, and his fathers name, going back many generations. Were all Charlie Whistler.

The letters were from members of our family, cousins, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, parents. They told the most amazing stories, of danger in distant lands, of risk-taking closer to home. There were stories about cowboys and adventurers and advice on everything from cooking to scaring off grizzly bears. There were pictures and paintings and poems.

When I showed them to Dad, he held them for a moment and then beckoned me downstairs. He went to a drawer in his study and pulled out another file, like the one Id found. Id been meaning to show these to you, he said. This was his own Omnium Gatherum, bulging with postcards hed received, drawings hed made as a kid, clippings from newspapers and magazines. Omnium Gatherum is fake Latin for a place where you collect all kinds of random things. Could be a kitchen drawer or a scrapbook like this. Your grandfather used to say that the more curious we are about one thing, whether its sports or nature or science, the more we take pleasure in everything. The stack of papers wobbled on his lap. Add all this up, it explains who we are. You should make one yourself, Charlie. Use the old ones to get started.

We went back up to the attic and filled a few boxes with the papers wed found up there. There were a few more Omnium Gatherums buried in all the mess, compiled by Whistlers past. I spread them all out on the living room floor in front of the cold fireplace, drawings in one stack, letters in another, maps in another, and so on. Ive had to try to limit the damage when Max our dog decides to come inside after a swim and shake himself dry, spraying water everywhere. Ive been going through the stacks slowly all summerwhenever Ellas not pretending to drownpicking out the items I like and adding a few of my own. I like to do it in the early morning before anyone else is up, when its still cool outside and the mist is still lying across the lake. No ones hassling me to pack my bag for school or pinging me with texts. Theres not even a TV up here, so Ella sleeps late. In those quiet hours, I can almost hear these generations of Whistlers talking to me. Its like theyre sitting in the cabin, their feet up on a stool, slapping the arm of their chair and howling with laughter one minute, leaning forward and talking in a spooky whisper the next. Its as if its important to them that I know this stuff, that I see the world the way they did. They want me to be just as curious and adventurous as they were, to live a big lifeor as my Dad says when hes feeling grumpy, not a life shrunk to the size of a screen. I dont feel any time separates me from all these Whistlers past. I know exactly who they are. They are part of me.