Thirty Years at the Water’s Edge”
PROLOGUE
The late 1990s was maintenance. The job was successful but felt like a role I played. My days were long. Meetings and deadlines. Value was measured in financial results. Our hands never touched anything truly finished.
I needed change.
I bought the Tony Robbins tapes. “Personal Power.” I committed sixty days. The transformation was real. I set wild goals. One goal: a cottage on a small, quiet lake.
I needed a place to return to. A simpler experience where progress was visible. Where the day ended with something tangible. I would work hard. The fish would wait. The only boss was the structure itself. It demanded honesty and effort.
This place would introduce my daughter, Katie, to the values I learned from my father.
My father was an outdoorsman. A gifted woodworker. He taught me hunting and fishing. This was local culture. My grandparents, Polish immigrants, ran a small grocery. It was a communal place. I spent the 1950s outdoors. We caught turtles and frogs. We fished. I grew up on a river with a mill pond. The lakes and fields were close. It was a good place to grow up.
When I saw the cottage, it was tired. Rough. But it had charm. I saw not what it was, but what it could be.
This was not a retreat to escape. It was a retreat to return to ourselves. The vision was not a finished product. It was a workshop. A place to learn the quiet satisfaction of physical accomplishment. We traded complexity for substance. The cottage was flawed. It was perfect.
This is the story of thirty years at the lake: the experiences, the people, the growth, and the family connection. It was the second-best investment I made.
The following excerpt from Richard Proenneke’s “One Man’s Wilderness” was my inspiration for writing this journal because it resonated so deeply.
From “Rhymes of a Rolling Stone,” by Robert W. Service:
My nerves on the raw and I don’t give a damn for all the “hoorah” that I see. I’m pinned between subway and overhead train, Where automobiles sweep down: Oh, I want to go back to the timber again . . . I’m scared of the terrible town.
I watch the wan faces that flash in the street; All kinds and all classes I see. Yet never a one in the million I meet, Has the smile of a comrade to me. Just jaded and panting like dogs in a pack; Just tensed and intent on the goal:
I feel it is all wrong, but I can’t tell you why . . . The palace, the hovel next door; The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky, The crush and the rush and the roar.
PART I: THE GENESIS AND THE STRIP-DOWN (1993-1995)
JOURNAL ENTRY 0.5: THE SEARCH AND THE CRITERIA (1993–1995)
The search began in the mid-90s. Two years passed. It was targeted. We sought the quiet of my youth.
My wife, Barb, was a mortgage lender. She knew the area. She drove the roads. I gave her five rules:
- The lake must be for fishing. No loud motors. It must be quiet.
- The place must be secluded. Tucked away from the roads.
- The drive must be short. Two hours maximum from our home.
- The price must be low. No more than $75,000. The low price meant we would use labor, not cash.
- The cottages must have space. Not crowded. No trading suburban life for the same life on a lake.
We found a local realtor and looked at dozens of listings over three years. None passed the test. We did not break the rules. The rules defined the life. Waiting was the first discipline.
© 2026 Bob Dentzman. All Rights Reserved. I’m happy you’re here reading my story! Please note that all content on this blog is copyrighted. The stories shared on this blog are written from my personal perspective. While I have made every effort to ensure the integrity of these accounts, they are ultimately my own “emotional truth.” These excerpts are for personal reading only and may not be distributed or used elsewhere without my express permission to word press post Sent from my iPhone Bob Dentzman 616-886-8192
The Necessity of a Place- 30 years at the Water’s Edge 