There is one place that is my favorite place in the entire Universe - it’s Walloon Lake, Michigan, near Petoskey. This place creeps into your being and installs a constant desire to be there. And once you’ve returned you receive a fresh sense of peace, calm, and a renewed appreciation for the beauty of this earth. It’s a place where the Bald Eagle watches over his young, and soars slowly and majestically seeking food. It’s a place where one can float beside one of the generations of Swan; where you can watch a group of deer play tag at the shallow water’s edge; where you can watch momma duck and bird teach their young to nagivate in their new world.

For our group of seven, it began around 1982, when Malt invited a couple friends to help trailer his boat north, open the cabin, and perhaps take some leftover time to fish. It grew into a five-day spring trip and perhaps a fall weekend, flying a couple private aircraft. While we have grown and changed, the lake has stayed the same. Oh, the huge new homes around the lake have changed, but the life of the lake...is as tolerant of our busy, noisy intrusion as it has always been.

Before and After

It’s about the fish! Through the years, the population of the lake has changed- but there is always enough to go around for the traditional Saturday night fish-dinner.

So we continue to age... and our behavior mellows accordingly. But there’s always the call.

...once, then again

The story doesn’t end here. Actually, it doesn’t BEGIN here...because over the years we’ve known that Malt’s Father has his own group which called Walloon home. The parallels between our two generations are amazing: Group hats, group jackets, group pictures, incorporating as an organization, and day-dreaming about inventions using high-technology tools for the time! It all went on before!

And so it will go on - for more generations after we’ve passed.
But we can log in our hearts that we have known Walloon.