My Decision Making Process

Its been nine days since our contract was accepted for the as yet unnamed cabin on Lake Saint George. I’m told I have three more days to back out of the deal without consequence. The inspections take place on Tuesday morning, the day before the deadline. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. This is a big decision with long term ramifications for us both now and in the future. For therapeutic purposes I will flesh out the battles raging in my head on this gorgeous Sunday morning in Maine.

Ever since I wrote the last tuition payment check for my kids’ educations in 2011 I have been playing catch up on saving for retirement, trying to make up for the years that the higher education locust devoured. The fruits of that effort have been considerable. Now I find myself within striking distance of some sort of retirement, although what that will look like is yet to be determined. In the back of my mind over the past five years I had also been making plans for the purchase of a lake house. But, with each passing year the prospects of us ever finding a place that satisfied all of our criteria seemed impossible. Both Pam and I had for all intents and purposes given up. As is often the case in life, as soon as you stop manically longing for something, the thing shows up on your doorstep.

Enter the cabin on Lake Saint George. The list of positives is impressive:

Stunningly beautiful lake

Three bedrooms

Two full and spacious bathrooms

Brand new construction

Private location

A full acre of land

Only 38 minutes from Camden, 26 minutes from Belfast

The list of negatives contains only two items that I can think of:

More money than I ever planned to spend on a lake house

Doesn’t sit thirty feet from the water’s edge.

That’s it….basically a money thing. Because not only is the cabin more expensive than I had planned, it will require additional upgrades over the next few months and years. First thing will be the construction of a proper deck off the back. Then an expansion of the cabin’s minimalist dock. Then landscaping of a safe and beautiful pathway down to the water. Finally, we will finish off the basement which will include the addition of a half bath. All of these things will add to the cash outlay required to finish the place to our liking and specifications.

Which brings me back to what I said earlier. Why have I been squirreling away money like a…like a..well, a squirrel for the past 12 years? For my retirement. And, what is retirement? Its not just saving so you will have money to live on once you stop working. Its also saving for what kind of life you want to live once you get there. For us that life will always include Maine and providing a sanctuary for my family, a place for us to gather to relax and recharge, a place to make memories, together.

So when I consider it all, the unruly witches brew of positives and negatives, I come to this conclusion:

My life has always been intricately linked to risk. I chose a high risk occupation. I chose to pursue that occupation as my own boss. Even riskier. During my life I have learned that money is nothing more than a tool. Its never been a goal, only a means to an end. I could spend money on a whole host of things with lesser purpose than a lake house in Maine. I can afford this place, despite all of my concerns about the cost. If I buy it and five years later come to the conclusion that it was a mistake, it won’t be the first one I’ve ever made. Besides, five years from now a lake house with three beds, 2 and a half baths, a lovely deck, beautiful landscaping and a grand dock sitting on the cleanest lake in Maine could be sold at an obscene profit.

So, unless Tuesday’s inspections reveal that the cabin was built on the ancestral burial grounds of the Penobscot Indians, or worse the entire place was built with inferior materials from China…we are all in.

Naming the Place

Today marks the end of week five. A week from tomorrow we will be on our way home. The next seven days will fly by, filled with inspections, dreams and doubts. Everything we left in Short Pump is waiting for us, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our time here has been reliably restorative, as always.

In Maine I cast off  things. Although I am still connected to my business, I have detached myself from its daily grind. This detachment has worked wonders for my blood pressure and anxiety levels. Every day I check my messages—which is not entirely true. Actually, I have checked them every day since Kristin left for her own two weeks on a lake in Minnesota. When she was minding the store, I let her do the checking.

I have cast off reading the news. For me this has meant no daily internet trips to the Drudge Report, The Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post. Not being reminded every single morning, afternoon and night of the manifold failures of mankind has also been a boon to my emotional well being. During the hour that I normally consume the news I have been drifting slowly across the still waters of Quantabacook doing this…

Each day I catch at least one fish like this. The rest of the time I paddle along marveling at the beauty of the natural world until I start feeling the pain in my left hip that warns me to head back to the cabin.

Pam and I go on outings from time to time, into Belfast for lunch, Camden for breakfast and shopping, or to do some sightseeing. A couple of days ago I suggested we take Lucy into town, grab some sandwiches from The Deli and eat our lunch on the grounds beside the library overlooking the harbor. Unfortunately, everyone else within a hundred miles of Camden had the same idea. Nevertheless, it was worth it. This was our bench and our view…

In the evenings the television is quiet, with the rare exception of watching the livestream of our church service, one episode of a show Pam and I like and a couple of times when Pam stayed up late to watch an episode of The Bachelorette, after I was safely asleep. But most nights we have settled into a routine of sorts. Dinner happens later here than at home. Sometimes we don’t sit down until after 7:00. Then, Pam takes her paddle board out for her sunset cruise. When she gets back an hour or so later, we settle into the comforting agenda of Pam’s cross stitching project and my novel reading—eleven and counting. Since the cabin purchase went down Pam has dropped the cross stitching in favor of surfing the internet for decorating ideas and desperately trying to settle on a name for the place. Some of her suggestions have been hysterically funny—The Gay Loon Cabin—just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Last night she blurted out, “What about Birch Landing?” I thought it was beautiful. She got the idea because of the big tree that leans out over the lake near the dock which we think is a birch tree. The appropriateness of the name awaits arboreal confirmation! Besides, naming a lake house that we don’t even own yet and hasn’t even passed inspections seems a bit premature. Still, its never too early to hide these things in your heart. I wrote the following line in one of my novels a few years back:

“The privilege of naming a lake house falls to the person who cries at the closing.”

Its Pam’s job.

Lucy’s Advice

Our last guests left for home yesterday. Its just Pam, Lucy and me now. The warmer, stormy weather of early July has given way to nearly a week of traditional Maine summer weather, mid-70’s sunshine with virtually no humidity. This morning it was 53 when I awoke at 6:00. Tomorrow morning I’m told to expect 50. I’m not sure I will ever become accustomed to this scene in the early morning…

I never want to get to the place as a human being when this doesn’t thrill me. If I ever start to take beauty like this for granted it will be time for me to assume room temperature and make room for someone younger and less jaded. It no longer seems fashionable to say but I believe that all of us should be grateful to live in such a beautiful country.

Progress is being made with the lake house. Inspections have been scheduled for Monday morning at 9:30. On that same day we will meet with a contractor to discuss decks, docks and finishing the basement. Meanwhile Pam has a zillion decorating ideas doing battle inside her adorable head and now has Wayfair on speed dial.

So, here’s the plan. We will leave Loon Landing for the last time on Friday morning the 11th of August heading back home where I will return to my profession with greater clarity and focus—since I will be doing it a few years longer than previously thought. I will work for six weeks with vigorous purpose. Then, on Thursday the 21st of September, Pam and I will leave Richmond with both of our vehicles packed to the gills with every Maine-themed item Pam has accumulated over the past forty years. We will arrive at our brand new empty lake house on Friday the 22nd where we will commence a three week getting to know you staycation. The time will largely be spent acquiring enough basic furniture to make the place presentable for prospective renters for the 6 weeks next summer we have allocated for them. Pam will have three full weeks to place her stamp on the property. My time will be spent buying yard working tools and putting them to proper use on our large sloping slice of the Maine woods that meanders from our back door down to the lake. By the time the three weeks are over we will have blisters where we didn’t even know we had skin. I will be much poorer. Hopefully all of the physical labor will help us shed the extraneous weight that this six weeks have added. It occurs to me that there may not be a bed to sleep on when we arrive. What am I thinking? No doubt Pam will have made the purchase and arranged for its delivery the day we arrive!

Since we signed the papers I have had a couple moments when I’ve thought, “What in the Sam Hill are you doing, Dunnevant? Just when you were about to celebrate being debt free for the first time since you were 19 years old, you go and buy a lake house—at 66 years old!!” Usually, I share these doubts with Lucy. When I do she looks at me like I’ve got two heads and says…

“Stop being drama queen. You got this.”

Still Pinching Ourselves

Ever since our first four week stay here in 2016 we have dreamed of having our own place. Over the past seven years we have probably looked at over five thousand candidates on Redfin and Zillow. We have taken tours of a dozen places during our yearly treks to Maine. Nothing ever had the requisite magic that we were looking for, or if it did it was either way out of our price range, two hours away from Camden, or on a tiny uninspired lake. Pam and I had gotten to the place where we figured that we would just rent for the rest of our lives, not an altogether unhappy option. But there was still a longing for ownership, a place of our own that we could shape into the perfect escape, not just for us but for our family, the living and the ones not yet with us.

Over a year ago Pam saw a place on Redfin that she was interested in but I was not. It was too expensive and brand new and very much not my idea of what a Maine lake house was supposed to look like. Then the price was lowered, a couple of times and Pam was intrigued enough to send Tif a text last week, “Why is this place still on the market while the place we walked through yesterday already has an offer despite the fact that it’s a hundred years old and on a puddle of a lake?” This inquiry led to us making the 22 minute drive to Lake Saint George to check out in person what we had been examining on our computers for months. Five days later we have a contract in place pending inspections, closing date sometime in the middle of September. We could not be happier but it feels very much like a dream.

Our last two weeks here will be filled with a thousand details. There will be the inspections, obtaining quotes for dock improvements, landscaping and deck additions. Pam’s brain is filled with ideas about everything from soup to nuts. The kids are all thrilled and have already floated ideas of month long work from home stays next summer. I can already tell that this adventure will be non-stop work for the next several years, exactly the type of thing I have been searching for—a new challenge. 

I will post no photographs of the house now. There is much to be done. But I will post the money shot that clinched the deal. All Pam and I have ever cared about in our lake house quest has been…the lake. You can repair and improve cabins. You can’t repair or improve a lake. This one is breathtaking. Lake Saint George has every single thing we have always looked for in a lake, and seeing as how we spend 80% of our time either in it, on it, or staring at it, this view sealed the deal.

So, now we begin this new adventure with a combination of excitement and gratitude with a bit of fear sprinkled in. A huge debt is owed to Tif Ford for her patience, toughness and wisdom, and to Keith and Caroline May for the inspiration of their beguiling Loon Landing, without which we would never have even entertained the idea of a place of our own. When we pull onto Brierley Lane to leave in two weeks it will be with a lump in our throats at the thought that we will never stay at Loon Landing again.

But, we will be just down the road, a short drive away secure in the knowledge that we already have two incredible neighbors.

A Quandary

Yesterday morning Pam and I drove out to Lake St. George to see a cabin of interest. This has become a common occurrence over the past four or five years. We will find a cabin on Redfin that looks interesting, then make a visit only to be disappointed—real estate photography being the single most misleading form of communication in the modern world. Usually what disappoints us is the lake. No matter what might be wrong with the cabin, generally speaking cabins can be fixed. You can’t fix a lake. This place on Lake St.George was the exception. The lake was sensational, the view from the dock stunning. We were both mesmerized. As we scanned the horizon from the dock we saw not a single cabin. We did see several docks along the shore but no cabins, which gave the impression of privacy and solitude, never a bad thing. Although the lot leading down to the dock was still a mess and nowhere near finished, the potential for landscaping was everywhere, future magic bursting forth everywhere we looked. The following three pictures were taken from left to right as we stood on the end of the dock…

To make the shoreline even more magical, a few of Pam’s favorite leaning trees added to the ambiance…

But…and there is always a but. There’s a problem with the cabin that goes beyond basic bricks and mortar. We first saw this place on Redfin almost a year ago. The asking price was $750,000. A year later its $699,000, and the place still isn’t finished. This is that rarest of commodities in mid-coast Maine—new construction. But this place seems to be being built by some dude who is serving as his own architect and doing the work at night and on the weekends. Almost everything about the place is half done, a thousand projects nearly finished. In some places the workmanship seems superb, in other places puzzling. On our visit which was unannounced, every door to the place was unlocked and the inside strewn with tools and supplies of every kind. The floor plan is odd and disjointed, making you wonder, “where in the world would you actually live in this place?” Beautiful kitchen, lovely bedrooms, large and well designed bathrooms…but no living space that we could discern. But that lake….

So, at this point we are in a quandary. This cabin is a mere 37 minutes from Camden, 26 minutes from Belfast, on a lake with a fabulous reputation for beauty and cleanliness. The lake has that magical quality so lacking in most cabins. Its big enough for our needs, and although not the campy style of our imaginations, you turn Pam loose with a reasonable decorating budget and that would be remedied in a New York minute. In its present state of completion it is still overpriced, and the sketchiness of the builder is something that gives me pause, the length of time this place has been on the market is troublesome. So at this point our irreplaceable barracuda real estate queen, Tif Ford, is snooping around for the story on the builder and other background information on the cabin like a pissed off FBI agent. 

But, that lake!!

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning. The sky is clear. No fog blankets the lake so I can see the the pine needles settled in the gutters of the dance hall on the far side of the lake, .3 miles away. I can make out the roof line of the farm house on the hill beyond the north end, over four miles away. The first loon of the day has made his appearance fifty yards from the end of our dock. I took my coffee there an hour and a half ago just as the mist lifted. There isn’t a ripple anywhere to be seen, the surface of the lake as still as glass. Even Lucy is silent as she follows my cast, the plop of the spinner entering the water produces as echo and I almost feel like I should apologize to someone. I don’t catch anything and its just as well.

I wake up early here, even earlier than at home. For one thing, the sun comes up earlier and takes forever to set across the way in the evening. But it isn’t the daylight that wakes me so early, it’s something else, harder to define. On some level I don’t want to miss the morning, its beauty and the tranquility of the water. Later on the wind will stir it up, the clouds will pass over, the weather will come, the boats dragging screaming children will send wakes everywhere. The lake will look far different then than it does now.

The very first time I ever had breakfast at the table on the deck at Loon Landing I looked out at the lake and this was my view…

Nothing spectacular. There are much more photogenic vistas to be had from this property. But this one captivated me then as it still does today. It is as if I’m inside of a painting gazing out at the world, the lake bordered with lush trees and shrubs. The hanging chair in the foreground is one of Pam’s favorite spots to read a book on her Kindle.

After breakfast I have to decide what I will busy myself with today. I’m leaning towards taking the boat out and circumnavigating the 8 mile perimeter of the lake. I might bring my fishing gear along in case I get tempted. I’ll take some pictures. First, I’ll have to wait a couple hours for Pam to come back from her morning paddle. The conditions right now are perfect for her. She will be gone an extra long time.

Its Sunday. In about an hour my church will be gathering for worship. They will be live-streaming the service. We won’t be watching live, but later tonight we will gather around after dinner to watch with my sister and her husband who are staying in the guest house this week. We will look for our nephew Isaac in the praise band. We will listen to one of our pastors, probably David Dwight, deliver another message in the series on The Sermon on the Mount. The irony is not lost on me that our pastors chose a series on the most influential and transformative words ever spoken at the very time when I am in the most influential and transformational place on earth. I will be paying closer attention than I usually do. I find that my heart is more tender, more receptive to truth up here. There are fewer distractions, I suppose, but its more than that. Maybe it has something to do with being surrounded by so much beauty. Observe the magnificence of creation long enough and you start to feel everything artificial in your life draining out of your soul. 21st century life is filled with so much plastic, so many things that aren’t real. But you don’t even notice it until you come to a place where all the trash feels terribly out of place.

A couple days ago I was down at the dam fishing. I had been standing barefoot in the chilly water for an hour when I hooked into a magnificent little small mouth bass. He fought hard never once breaking the water. I lifted him out of the water and the sun shone off his dark scales. He was a perfect fish, perfectly made, expertly sculpted in the depths somewhere. We had a brief conversation. I apologized for any inconvenience my skills as a fisherman had caused him. Then I dropped him gently into the white rapids beneath my feet. 

I whispered a prayer of thanks that I get to be in this place, that I get to bear witness to the created world. I will continue to let it reshape my thoughts for three more weeks. It won’t be enough, but it will be a start.

Sorry For the Oversight

When you’re in Maine its easy to forget your responsibilities. Spend a few days fishing, eating lobster, and gawking at sunsets and before you know it, three weeks have gone by and you haven’t posted a single Dad Joke. While many of you have handled this oversight with patience and grace, there are others for whom my Dad Jokes are essential to their mental stability and overall well being (Sherri Matthews).

So, this morning I got up a little earlier, dug a little deeper and prepared the following longer than usual list for your edification and Sherri’s mental health…

NASA recently sent a number of Holsteins into orbit for experimental purposes. They called it the herd shot 'round the world.



Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One took off to Hollywood and became rich and famous. The other stayed in at home and never amounted to much. Naturally he became known as the lesser of two weevils.



Two vultures boarded a plane each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess immediately stopped them and said, "I'm sorry sir, only one carrion per person.

“Two Eskimos in a kayak were chilly, so they started a fire which sank the craft. This proves the old adage - you can't have your kayak and heat it too.



A group of friars opened a florist shop to help with their belfry payments. Everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, so their business flourished. A rival florist became upset that his business was suffering because people felt compelled to buy from the friars. He went to the friars and asked them to cut back on their hours, or close down, to help him save his business. The friars refused. The florist went to them again and begged them to close their shop; again, they refused. So, the rival florist hired the biggest, meanest thug in town - Hugh McTaggert - he went to the friars' shop, beat them up, destroyed their flowers and trashed their shop. He told the friars that if they didn't close down for good, he'd be back. Completely terrified, the friars closed up forever.

This proves that Hugh, and only Hugh can prevent florist friars.