Idlewild

In this age of cyber everything,
growing up with the basics seems more important than ever before.

BY GARY KOEHLER

Admittedly I had no clue at the time, but a portion of my youth was a charmed existence. No, our family did not have a lot of money. My father, who never owned a new car in his life, walked a mail route for 31 years, so there were few luxuries. He and my mother had four kids to raise. And that required all available cash. But there was always the cabin. The sign hanging in front of the screened-in porch told the story best: Idlewild.

The cabin's name, my Uncle Harold once told me, was borrowed, or stolen, from a paddle-wheeler that years ago plied the Illinois River on weekends. Idlewild, it was said, hosted bands, dancing and all sorts of carrying on in its heyday. The name, I guess, was an oxymoron, at least in terms of the riverboat.

Built in the spring of 1939 by my father, two uncles, my grandfather and a great uncle, now all deceased, the cabin today stands intact on the western shore of Lake Senachwine, a 2,200-acre backwater on the Illinois River. The stout front door and flooring came from a demolished public school, and some of the roof beams were reclaimed from the river shoreline. Resourcefulness was perhaps a necessity as much as a virtue in those days.

More than 60 years later, the

Idlewild, the Koehler family retreat, as it appeared in in the early 1940s (top) and the 1970s (center). The cabin was constructed in 1939 and was the catalyst for many fond memories.

cabin remains family owned, which has become a record, at least in these parts. That the cabin has never flooded, unlike most of its counterparts, has contributed to its longevity. The original structure was a 20x20 shell, built as a base camp from which its occupants could utilize the lake to fish and hunt. Mostly fish. Crappies, it has been told, ran big here, way back when. And the lake, not incidentally, also was at one time world-renowned for its extraordinary waterfowl hunting.

Many subtle improvements have been made to the cabin. My sisters have gussied up the place plenty

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Howard Koehler waterfowl hunting on Lake Senachwine in the mid-1950s.     Harold (I), Rolene, Elmer and Howard Koehler at Idlewild in the 1940s.

during the past 10 years, in fact. They installed mini-blinds, carpeted the floor of what is now the living room, and added a color television complete with accompanying VCR. There's even a microwave oven in the kitchen. But far beyond the current niceties, I most vividly remember 1964, when my father and uncle, board-by-board, added a kitchen and a bathroom. I got to turn on the water. The two-holer outhouse behind the cabin was transformed into a storage shed, and later leveled. Dark, creepy walks in the middle of the night, when resident gargantuan spiders seemed life-threatening, were no longer necessary.

This was where we spent many of our vacations, usually weeklong sojourns, squeezed in between Little League games and other important responsibilities. And this was where we spent many, many weekends, from April through October. This was also where my sisters and I caught our first fish, learned how to row a boat, plucked night-crawlers following heavy rains, seined for minnows and crawdads, shot BB guns, made slingshots, flew balsa airplanes, tossed horseshoes, skipped rocks and built innumerable forts. Can't speak for my siblings, but this was also the place where I met one of the first loves of my life, whose family had a trailer down by the lake. Her name was Valerie. She lived in Peoria. Weekends at the cabin were a joy up until age 16, when a driver's license and any other place to go seemed much more important.

Those were indeed simpler times. Days moved along at a turtle's pace. Contrary to contemporary society, that was not a bad thing. We played cards at night, usually blitz or rummy, listened to the Nashville-based Big Barn Dance bellowing from a rotund radio with seemingly a hundred control buttons, played checkers, thumbed through outdoor magazines, or sat on the porch and talked. Imagine that.

This was rustic Americana. No air conditioning. No phone. No TV. Just quiet. Except for the radio. My father found great pleasure in the radio, and took pride in the cabin. He was the self-appointed decorator. All of his stuff is gone now, but duck and fish mounts once prevailed. A deer hide was stretched across one wall, just below a 10-point whitetail rack. Moose horns were mounted on the roof. (I can't even begin to guess where he got them, or what he may have traded for them). Frames of arrowheads, old tools, and what now would be considered vintage advertising art—dogs and ducks—graced the walls. Always dogs and ducks. A few battered decoys. An ancient

Learning how to row a boat was part of the Idlewild ritual. Judy (l), Janice and Lynn Koehler are shown with "Red," the pet Irish Setter.

double barrel 12 gauge that once belonged to my great-grandfather hung above the doorway of the back sleeping room where all kids were sequestered. And there was always at least one dog, including those of questionable pedigree, reposed on the porch.

"If you want it just like home," my father used to tell visitors, who sometimes appeared skeptical of the cabin's folksy decor, "you might as well stay at home." My father wore his heart on a broad

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shoulder. He shared his outdoor sporting soul with the cabin. And with his family. That's what he enjoyed. That's what he knew. That's what he believed in. So that's what we learned.

Being the only boy in the family, perhaps I was exposed to more adventures than my sisters. Society was different then. Political correctness had not yet been invented, but one of my jobs was to hold open the cabin's front door for my mother and aunts and anyone else who happened by. And spitting was not allowed in mixed company. That pretty much covered it. But I was also the one who was instructed on how to operate the sublimely cantankerous outboard engines that always seemed to find a home here.

I sometimes got to stay up late and run trotlines. My father taught me how to clean fish at age 8. I shot my first squirrel, rabbit and bobwhite quail on top of

Howard Koehler enjoyed the time he spent fishing.

the hill behind the cabin. I also bailed leaky wooden boats for an old riverman, who rented them for three bucks a day to unsuspecting city folks. I was, on occasion, allowed to help a commercial fisherman pull his nets. I spent muggy, late summer afternoons helping a WWI veteran and his wife cover duck blinds, which he would rent out daily in the fall. I was tutored on how a duck call was supposed to sound. And more. Not all lessons may have been mastered, but none were forgotten.

The author, in the early 1950s.

One of my nephews, Bob, called the other night. A Notre Dame grad, he now lives in New Mexico. I'm embarrassed to say I had not talked with him in about two years. "You know," he said, "I went to a baseball game recently and the first thing I thought of was that old radio on the porch of the cabin. There was always a Cubs or White Sox game on that radio when I was growing up. I miss that. But mostly the cabin. I'm going to start looking for a place out here, in the mountains, where we can have that."

Call it making memories.

My nephew and his late brother, Doug, also caught their first fish while visiting Idlewild. Same for their cousins, the three McDonald boys. They all seined for minnows, learned how to row a boat, and experienced the joys a simple innertube could provide on a shallow and muddy backwater lake. Our three daughters did those things, too. A fifth generation has since been introduced to the cabin.

And I am quite sure we are better people for it. All of us who have experienced Idlewild. The thanks go to my father, for taking the time, for his patience. And for sharing his feelings about the importance of wild things and wild places. True, this was not the last frontier, but it was Idlewild. It became a part of us. A part of who we are. I would have it no other way.

Illinois native Gary Koehler contributes freelance work to a number of magazines from his home near Memphis, Tennessee. (Photos courtesy of the Koehler family.)

Like I said, I was lucky. We all were. Everyone does not have an Idlewild, however simple and unassuming it was, or is. And that's a shame. Because that time and those experiences shared extend far beyond any estimable price. And the joys last a lifetime.

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