Hey Downs!

 Hey Downs!




     Greg took a genuine interest in the happenings around Metcalf road where Bear Cove offered wonderfullness in sweet bygone Summers.  Despite the rosy backward glances we ruminate on now he sometimes would complain to me in  e-mails about status quo at camp and his irritation with the sibling shenanigans that took place as families came and went from Squam. Especially, after retirement and the stays were longer and less eventful he would make comments to me that made me worry. He would say "I'm done with this place" or "it is time to sell the camp!" even though he knew that kind of talk upset me. In my life, I have found few places on the planet that were as relaxed and enjoyable as dear Bear Cove and the family Ziesing who were such marvelous hosts. I witnessed a couple of beefs but real life is not Ozzie and Harriet. The kids were always smiling and the tales told out on the dock were gems that now appear under this banner. Another example of the stuff my old buddy liked to muse over was what he wanted to do on Metcalf road but was kept from expressing by propriety and sortie-manners. He renamed camps ie "New-Cash-Is" and Keek-a-Nookie but also admired road folks who were not relations of Daphne Mowatt, the road warrior. One of those campers was in the nearby "cabin," one Al Downs, a successful Philadelphia lawyer who drank up the New Hampshire lifestyle and a few scotches
with a still sexy second wife. I can't remember exactly what the transgression was but Bea, the dagwood sandwich chumping beagle had wandered up the road and bothered Downs by barking or maybe crapping on his bucolic property. Typical of Greg's hilarious hyperbolic threats, he swore he would murder the dog and then deliver the carcass to Down's as tribute. Of course, I egged him on and even drew a couple of cartoons to encourage his ragefull threats. As we all know, Greg never killed an animal outside of a mosquito, house-fly or flea found on Clairie in his life. I don't think he even fished but I could be wrong. Still, he loved my drawings and got big laughs from his kids and me by shouting "hey Downs! I took care of something for you!"


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