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trucker on a desolate Interstate. That story was written much later, in 1975, and was published in the Atlan- tic Monthly.
The wiring my father installed had only two wires and was not exactly up to code -- the biggest deficiency being the lack of ground wire -- but I learned something about how to do electrical wiring by watching. There were no switches; all the lights were turned on and off by pull cords. There were a couple of outlets for lamps and one for the toaster. Some old electrical appliances were brought up; most important were an old Kelvinator refrigerator and an old electric stove. The refrigerator would lose refrigerant gas over the winter, but that was something my father, whose business was refrigeration repair, could fix easily. We didn’t buy lighting fixtures, we just used bare overhead bulbs attached to the ceiling and one or two old floor lamps from home. Father also converted a couple of the old oil lamps into electric lamps using kits designed for that purpose, which I think he got from the hardware store.
Years later, in late spring of 1990, lightning struck near our cottage, generating a voltage surge through our electri- cal system. The fuse box, which was located at the back of the cottage near the foot of the stairs, exploded, scattering burned debris over everything in the dining room. The miracle is that the cottage didn’t catch fire and burn down. That catastrophe may have been prevented by the fact that the cottage, being drafty and uninsulated, was as damp as the ground under it and the trees around it. The electrical connection to the cottage and the wiring all had to be completely redone, this time with three-wire electrical cable that included ground wires. Jack Law, a local electrician, put in a new electrical box, this one with circuit breakers, not fuses. At that time, I ran some of the new wiring with the help of John Clayton, who had purchased the cottage next door when Doc Davis died and who, like my father, was a do-it-yourselfer who could fix anything.
Some repairs were done by others. Old receipts show that Nye Construction made repairs to the boathouse in 1965, supported the cottage on cement blocks to replace the original wood support posts the following year, and made some repairs to the roof.
More Repairs
By the 1980’s, the cottage was 50 years old; its age was showing. In 1984 the roof over the front porch collapsed under the weight of snow. To replace it, we strung up was a tarpaulin between the cottage and the porch posts that remained standing after the roof collapse. Over time, the cedar support posts, and then the cement blocks under it, deteriorated and the cottage began to list. The roof over the cooking shed sagged further down, threatening to give way despite being supported by the wooden post in the middle of the room. Moreover, the brick “LaSalle Island” chimney was bowing the cottage floor downward. What
Volume 74 • Number 1 Washtenaw County Medical Society BULLETIN 21
Health & Fitness