Crying “Grandpa!” a small herd of naked Evachevski children ran out to meet the old pickup truck that Dan Evachevski drove out to the West Turtle Lake Club that Sunday afternoon. Curious at the surprise visit, Carrie followed her children out to the pickup.

Dan was no dummy; he knew that Helga didn’t encourage sweets for the children, and he knew that they weren’t available at Commons, so he had a small candy bar for each of them. It may have been bribery, but it made each visit special for him, too.

Although Dan Evachevski had the relatively rare distinction nowadays of being one of the guests at Garth and Helga Matson’s wedding, and even though his son was one of the more enthusiastic and serious members of the club, Dan had never had much to do with it. Until Gil and Carrie retired from the Army, the factory worker had only been out to the place three or four times, each time more or less on business of some sort or another, and for the kid’s wedding, of course.

Now, he drove out for an evening perhaps twice or three times a summer, and mostly to enjoy his grandchildren. It was a little too early to tell about little Dan, but Garth, the older of the Evachevski boys, was beginning to look like he would know how to handle a football, just like his daddy. He’d be on the seventh-grade team this year, and Dan knew he’d be going to the games.

“What brings you out, Dan?” Carrie asked.

“Just came out to see the kids,” he said. “Plus, I got to talk to some people. Gil around?”

“Over at the volleyball tournament,” Carrie said. “Men’s forty to sixty league, and he’s a heavy hitter. They ought to be done pretty soon, though, unless you want to go over there.”

Carrie was pretty sure that Dan wouldn’t; she’d pretty well established over the years the limits of her father-in-law’s sociability. She was right: “Not really,” he said. “How about your dad? He around?”

“Over at the volleyball tournament, too. Somebody bombed out, and he got asked to fill in. It’s kind of sandbagging, but he says the sixty-plus league is too slow for him, anyway.”

Dan shrugged. “Could you maybe send one of the kids over there and tell them that I’d like to see one or the other of them?”

“If you want to watch the kids, I’ll go,” Carrie said, then added, “Problems?”

“Not really,” Dan said, “I just need to explain something to them, is all. Gives me a chance to play with the kids.”

Half an hour later, Daniel Evachevski was tossing a football around with some of his grandchildren on the lawn of the cottage, when Gil, Carrie, the Colonel, and Kirsten walked up.

The Colonel had a big grin on his face. “Skunked ’em, by God,” he said.

“You like a beer, dad?” Carrie asked. “Gil? Dan?”

“Sure, bring me one, it’ll taste good after that,” the Colonel said. The other two men agreed, so Carrie and Kirsten went to herd off the kids and leave the men in peace.

“Got something on your mind, Dan?” the Colonel asked.

“Thought I better tell you what happened this morning,” Dan replied, sipping on his beer, then telling the story of the sermon in the Baptist Church that morning, and the unofficial but decisive board meeting in Rick’s afterward. “We just thought we ought to tell you we’d taken care of the problem before you heard it through the rumor mill.”

“Well, thanks,” the Colonel said. “I appreciate that. I’ve learned to put up with little-minded wiseacres like that, but it’s good to know that they bother other people, too.”

“Didn’t tell you the rest of the story,” Dan said, tipping up his beer can for another drink. “The five of us went over there and told him to get packing, and I guess as soon as we left, he called Donna Clark, since I had a call from her bitching about it as soon as I got home. She wasn’t too happy.”

“One of the joys of old age,” the Colonel said, “is that I have learned to ignore whatever Donna says or thinks.”

“I don’t think she’s gonna change any of our minds,” Dan said. “But it takes five votes to hire a pastor, and I’m dead sure of at least three votes against him. If I had any question about it, Donna settled it.”

“She does have that capacity,” Gil said.

“Wasn’t no question on my part,” Dan agreed. “Colonel, me and Howard still remember what she done to you back in ’40, and young Gravengood hated the little queer.”

“You know,” Matson said as he swirled his beer around in his can, “back in about ’41, I dedicated my life to paying Wayne and Donna back, and I worked at it a lot over the years, but even before Wayne died, the fun kind of went out of it. I guess I finally learned from Helga that there are some things in life that just have to be put up with, like mosquitoes.”

Both Gil and Dan wondered at the truth of that statement. Dan had heard rumors that there were still several 55-gallon drums of long-outlawed DDT in storage at the club in case Malathion ever quit working, and Gil knew for sure that there were.

“Well, I’m glad you feel that way,” Dan said finally. “I guess a lot of people just don’t care about what she says, anymore. She’s kept beating the same drum too long, and folks are tired of it. So long as you mind your own business out here, I don’t think a lot of folks care, anymore.”

“That’s kind of how I’ve read the situation the last few years,” the Colonel agreed. “Things have changed a lot in thirty years. Used to be, we almost had to put up barbed wire, and I had to lean on people, just so we could mind our own business. Now, you’ve got nude public beaches around, although none around here, and only the nut balls seem to be upset about it.”

“Yeah, Colonel,” Dan said. “I guess we’re both getting a little old.”

“You’re getting pretty close to retiring, aren’t you?” the Colonel asked.

“Middle of November,” the elder Evachevski said. “Just in time for deer season. I’ll have been there straight since 1934, counting the time out with Battery “D”, of course.” He wasn’t too crazy about the idea of retiring, either; but it was company policy. He knew he’d have trouble getting used to the idea of not going to work every day. It made him wish he’d gotten married again, after Mary died, years ago. It was going to be all too easy to become a lonely old man.

“A long time,” the Colonel said. “I started with the bank in 1933, and you will recall that bankers weren’t too popular, then. You hunt around the county someplace?”

“Used to be a half a dozen of us who set up a camp every year on the state land over north of Warsaw,” Dan said. “Then a couple quit hunting, and a couple moved to Florida, and then Joe Paulsen died last spring, and that was kind of the end of it. Won’t be the same. Guess I’ll just drive out from home and go out in the woods. May not even take a rifle.”

“You want to, you can come out here,” the Colonel said. “I was in a camp until a few years ago, and that kind of busted up too, so half a dozen of us just started coming out here and staying at my place. Two or three old Battery “D” guys, too. You’d be welcome.”

“Well, thanks, Colonel,” Dan said. “I might just do that.”

“You get time on your hands, you ought to spend some of it out here next summer,” Gil said. “The kids would love to have you around.”

“I’ll tell you, you want to stay active,” the Colonel said. “I’ve always thought that some of Helga’s ideas are a little far out, but I agree when she says that a rocking chair can kill you quicker than almost anything.”

“I’m a little too old for this vegetarian stuff,” Dan protested, looking for an easy way out.

“Well, I’ve always put up with it because Helga believes in it,” the Colonel said, “but it doesn’t mean that everybody does. Carrie, there, kind of disappointed her mother when Gil introduced her to steaks, and she liked them.”

“Gonna grill some pork chops tonight,” Gil said. “Want to stick around?”

“I think maybe I will,” Dan said. “You got another beer?”

“Sure,” Gil said. “Garth, you want another one?”

“Better not,” the Colonel said, glancing at his watch, the only thing he wore, then getting up. “Got the sixty and over league match in half an hour. Dan, you come out here next summer, get back in practice in the sixty league, and then you and I will show these young studs how the game is played.”

“Colonel, you never know when to quit,” Dan said. “I’ll see you around. Maybe at Rick’s in the morning some time, and I think maybe deer hunting, too.”

As the Colonel strode up the path to the volleyball courts, Dan mused to his son, “You ever hear the saying, ‘When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade’?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t think anybody ever had to tell him that.”

“No,” Gil said to his father, “I guess not. Tell you what, I’ll go get the grill and light it.” He got up and stepped toward the back of the cottage, then turned and said, “Dad, I just want you to know I was serious about next summer. You’re welcome out here anytime you want.”

“Something to think about, son.”

Dan sat on the porch, sipping on his beer, while Gil built a fire in the grill. Gil was one of those types who like to use a lot of lighter fluid, and he had quite a blaze there for a minute before it settled down, but Dan just sat and watched, lost in his own thoughts.

Man’s gonna retire, he’s gonna have to do some new things, or he’s gonna rust, he thought. Maybe he ought to do it, find something new, a new way to live. Maybe he would spend some time out here, next summer.

He wouldn’t mind spending more time with the grandkids: young Dan was getting just about ready to learn how to handle a football.

Spearfish Lake Record-Herald, November 12, 1975

EVACHESKI RETIRES FROM CLARK PLYWOOD

by Mike McMahon
Record-Herald Staff

Daniel Evachevski, long-time Clark Plywood employee, retired from the company last Friday.

Evachevski, 65, was the senior Clark Plywood employee on his retirement, the last of a group hired in 1934 when Wayne Clark moved the plant to Spearfish Lake. He worked there continuously until now, except for six years in Battery “D”, 144th Field Artillery, during World War II.

A widower, and a member of the Board of the Spearfish Lake First Baptist Church, he says he has no particular plans for his retirement. “I’m going to go hunting with some old friends, drown a few worms, and spend more time with the grandkids.”

In time, Donna gave up politics, at least when she realized that it was not going to provide her much in the way of rocks to throw at her ex-husband. She quit going to council and school board meetings and making a pest of herself, at least partly because she slowly came to realize that she was making more enemies in her battle with Garth Matson than she was making friends.

Though Matson was never far from her mind, they had very little direct contact. One of the few times that they spoke directly to each other came in the fall of 1952, when he picked up the phone in his office in the Spearfish Lake State Savings Bank, to hear Donna’s words: “Do you know what your daughter just did?”

“What trouble has Carrie gotten herself into now?” Garth asked.

“I don’t mean your daughter, I mean your daughter. Barbara,” Donna said, with evident anger.

“I don’t know,” Garth said. “I guess I always thought of her as your daughter, the last few years anyway. What’s she done now?”

“She ran off and eloped with that little fairy she had up here last summer.”

Garth thought back. Since Barbara had turned down Gil Evachevski’s proposal, she had floundered around with a bunch of college guys he really didn’t think much of. Gil would have been good for her, but damn it, it hadn’t worked out.

“I didn’t think he had the balls,” Garth said. “I mean, I REALLY didn’t think he had the balls. I don’t know where she gets her taste in men.”

“She had to have gotten it from you,” she dripped acid.

“Donna, we can fight right now, if you want to,” Garth said in a firm voice, “or we can discuss this like adults.”

“What is there to discuss?”

“Like do you know if she’s pregnant?”

“Not as far as I know,” his ex-wife said. “I mean, she just called, and said about fifteen words, and added, ‘See you sometime, Mom.’”

“Well that’s more than I got,” Garth said. Is there anything we can do about it?”

“Not that I can think of,” Donna admitted. “I guess we’re stuck with him.”

Somehow, Garth didn’t expect that they would be stuck with the little leech for long. He had to grant that the kid was smooth and he had money, but Garth couldn’t get over the feeling that he liked boys better than he liked girls. He could not, for the life of him, figure out what Barbara saw in him especially what she saw in him that she didn’t see in Gil.

Well, that was obviously water over the dam, now. There didn’t seem to be anything much else to say, so they said their goodbyes. It was the last time Garth talked to Donna directly until Wayne Clark’s funeral, in 1958.

After he hung up the phone, Garth stared at it for a long time. He knew he’d made a major mistake with Barbara, but it had been a long time before. He knew he should have started the custody battle going back in 1942, and settled it right then, when Barbie was still nine, still young enough to be freed from her mother’s poison. He’d lost her between 1942 and 1946, but there hadn’t realistically been anything he could have done. Damn the war.

He sat there thinking that there had to be some way to make Donna pay for screwing up Barbie’s life. He began to turn over several schemes that he’d been brewing in the back of his mind; after all, it was a subject that he had been thinking about for ten years, and he’d had some good ideas. Several had panned out. If she could be pushed as far as she had when Brent Clark got married, then maybe it would be time to settle the custody issue over Frank once and for all.

He knew, of course, that Donna was her own worst enemy. That was why he had quietly supported her in her run for school board the last two years; he figured that if she got on the board, she’d make such an ass of herself that she’d have to be kicked off, but unfortunately, about 200 voters were smarter than he had given them credit for. He knew, too, that when Donna struck at him, she struck blindly, savaging anyone who appeared to support him, and he knew that all it did was earn her more enemies. On the few occasions that he’d actually set her up, he had made sure that she, and Wayne when possible, got it right between the eyes.

Then, Garth Matson had a surprising thought: “Why bother? This has got to hurt her as bad as it hurts me.”

He thought back to 1942, when Barbie had been nine. He’d never gotten a chance to know her well that summer; he’d been gone for nearly two years, and would be gone for another three. But at age nine she’d been a bright, feisty kid – the same kind of bright, feisty kid that Carrie was now, at age nine. Would he screw her up, too?

He thought not. Helga was a different sort of person altogether than Donna, a much better mother. Night and day.

But did that make him any better as a father?

Garth Matson cleaned up his desk and put the papers on it away. It was a nice fall day, and there wouldn’t be too many more like it. The kids would be getting home from school pretty soon. He could be there to greet them. Maybe Carrie could get on her bike and he could get his old Schwinn out of the barn, and they could go for a ride along the lake. She’d like that.

So would he.

Revenge against Donna could wait. It’d probably take care of itself, anyway.

The old Matson house on Point Avenue reeked of something vegetarian when he got home; Garth could smell lentils, and something else he wasn’t sure about. When he had first married Helga, he hadn’t been too sure about this vegetarian diet business, but it had worked out. Sometimes, he hadn’t been too sure what he was eating, but most of the time, it was pretty good.

“What brings you home so early?” Helga asked with a kiss.

“Too nice a day to stay inside,” Garth said with another kiss. “I decided to duck out early and play with the kids a bit. I don’t do that as much as I should.”

“I thought maybe you had come home for Frank’s football game,” Helga said.

“Oh, God, I’d forgotten all about that,” Garth replied. “I’m glad you reminded me.”

Just then Carrie bounced in the kitchen door, bringing Phil with her from kindergarten. With her long brown hair, Carrie was the image of her mother, but her fourth-grade exuberance reminded him so much of Barbie at about that age that it hurt. “How was school today?” he asked.

“We made ducks,” Carrie told him.

“Ducks?”

“We cut ducks out of construction paper and wrote our names on them and hung them on the wall.”

“Would you like to see some real ducks?” he asked. “I saw some flying over the lake earlier.”

“Could we, Daddy?” she bubbled.

“Tell you what,” he told her, “you have Mommy give you a snack while I go pump up the tires on my bike. Then we can take our bikes and ride along the lake and look for some ducks, and then we can ride over to the school and watch Frankie play football.”

“I don’t need a snack,” she said. “Come on, Daddy, let’s go!”

“No, you have a snack,” he said. “It’ll take me a few minutes to get ready.”

They rode down the sidewalk along the lake for a while. It was indeed a beautiful, warm fall day; the leaves were turning, and some were coming down. Winter would be arriving soon. They saw ducks, some just swimming around on the lake, others flying, taking off, and landing.

After a while they rode over to the school, just in time for the game to start. Carrie didn’t know much about football, and Garth took some time to explain to his daughter what was going on, and when Frank found a good hole, and made a long run down the field into the end zone, she stood up and cheered for him, her long, brown hair blowing in the wind.

Garth was cheering for his son, too, but his mind was somewhere else. He looked at his daughter and thought to himself, “God, I hope she can find herself someone like Gil, and keep him.”

As the team got set up for the point after touchdown he looked at Carrie again and the decision came to mind automatically: “The hell with revenge; after ten years, I’ve got all I need. Donna is going to have to live with what she’s done to Barbara, but I get the best revenge of all: I get to try again, and do it right this time.”

With one arm, he gave his daughter a big hug, as the sound of a foot on the ball set the game going again.

Spearfish Lake Record-Herald, October 4, 1952

SEVENTH GRADERS BLANK ALBANY RIVER 24-0

Led by the punch of running back Frank Matson, the Spearfish Lake seventh grade football team walked all over the Albany River Junior High team at Matson Field Wednesday night.

Matson’s long runs resulted in two touchdowns in the first half, and set the team up for a third, by end Harold Hekkinan in the third quarter, and by running back Medford (“Bud”) Ellsberg, late in the fourth quarter.

Coach Johansen said of the game, “The kids played good, solid football for as young as they are. In two and three years, when they’re in high school, there are several that are going to be big assets to Marlin football.”

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