No. 726 – Lakeside Park

Performer: Rush

Songwriters: Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Neal Peart

Original Release: Caress of Steel

Year: 1975

Definitive Version: All the World’s A Stage, 1976

Scott and I weren’t at THE Lakeside Park when we went to Toronto in 1992, but we might as well have been.

We spent one day in about the middle of our near weeklong jaunt at a park on Lake Ontario near downtown throwing the Aerobie, creating massive bubbles with a super bubble-maker and playing tennis at one of the public courts. Naturally, I had this song running through my head, but that’s not what I think of when I hear this song. Instead the memory that will last forever is of more recent vintage.

In 2009, Laurie and I were going to spend a long weekend at Torch Lake, and Laurie was looking forward to it, because it was going to be her first real summer trip up there. We had gone in 2007 in the fall, and in 2008, she wasn’t able to fully enjoy it—and being surrounded by 150 people she didn’t know didn’t help.

But this time we would stay at the house, and it was just going to be us (and Dad and Laura, and Matt and Casey, of course). Because of that, we got one of the bedrooms just off the front room, which is like a sunporch or Bermuda room but with heat, so it’s a four-season room.

The front bedrooms are very small—just enough room for a queen bed, a dresser, two small closets to hang clothes and that’s it. But they’re part of the original house, which was built around 1940. So, it was just like being in the dearly departed Big House: knotty pine walls and ceiling that just absorbed the scents of the lake and the woods.

The two bedrooms are connected by a bathroom that’s more like a hallway, although it has a fully functional shower, sink and toilet. Laurie was really hoping to have one of the front bedrooms, and she was glad to see that we did. Now, we always take the room on the right when we stay at Torch.

I can’t remember whether it was the first night we were there or the next, but it was early when Laurie and I, and Dad and Laura were hanging out post-dinner on the sun room when the power went out. I don’t recall that a storm had blown through, which would make sense, just that, well, things break down when you’re out in the woods in an old building.

How it happened was irrelevant. What was important is that the power didn’t come back on, like it had just flickered. It wasn’t late enough to go to bed yet—not even close—so we had to be resourceful to entertain ourselves. Laura and I had full charges on our computers, so we continued to work as before (although, of course, there was no more Internet). Laurie lit candles and did some reading to it, and Dad grabbed his guitar.

Laurie knew that Dad played, but I don’t think she’d ever heard him play before then. He played a bunch of songs, but one that he had been working on for a while and had down pretty well was this song. So there we were, sitting around by candlelight (or computer) glow while being serenaded by the stylings of Lee, Lifeson and Peart (among others).

When the wine, computer batteries, candles and tunes had been exhausted, we went to bed—only to be awakened around 3 when the power came back on. No one had checked lights, so everything came back on—including the overhead light in our bedroom.

“Oh, the power’s back on,” Laurie said as we were both shocked awake, and I could hear the TV blasting around the corner in the den. Oh boy. That meant I had to try and figure out how to turn off the system, which had like three remotes and a couple of switches.

But just when I was about to go out of the room, Dad came ambling by. “I got it; I got it,” he said.

Whew. Remote-control crisis averted.