Classy Shore Owners Redefined

There was a time when your neighbor judged you by how neatly your lawn came down to the lake. That is still true, but the judging has been reversed. Before, you were thought to be classy if your lawn was mowed right down to the lake. You got extra points for rocks to make a riprap barrier and for dumping white sand. Now your neighbors go “tsk, tsk” if you mow down to the lake, dump rocks or bring in sand. The new idea of classy lakeshore owner is defined by how wild you have left your lakeshore. Neatness is a negative. Neatness shows that your don’t care about the lake.

The new, wild definition of classy is part of a creeping responsibility for everything. Before, you were only responsible for your own property. Now you’re responsible for the health of the whole lake, and by inference, for the whole world.

There isn’t any way to fight creeping responsibility. Increased personal responsibility is the spirit of our time. But there are days when I wish that the definition of what is classy would stay the same long enough so that what was classy for my parents would be the same for my children.

I’ve let my lakeshore go wild. I’ve a dock out, but you can hardly see the path down to the dock. My neighbors love me.

Written by Warren Shaffer, Trout Lake, Coleraine Minnesota (Itasca County) Reprinted from the Trout Lake Association newsletter.