Lake Tahoe Memories

Lake Tahoe Memories (1)
This begins a collection (in no particular order) of some of my Lake Tahoe memories.

Trips to Obexer’s Marina in Homewood, where we would walk out on the long pier and look at the beautiful Garwood and Chris Craft speedboats that were tied up and waiting for someone to rent them and go for a ride. They were expensive, but once in awhile, if Dad had been lucky at the Northshore casinos, we would be treated to an hours worth of excitement. There is no sound quite like the deep burbling of the speedboats exhaust as it idled while we climbed aboard. Once we were all safely in our assigned seats, we would slowly drift away from the pier until Dad thought it was safe to accelerate. Then there was a deepening roar and we would all be pressed back into the seats as the bow of the boat lifted into the air and we flew across the once still waters.

We would usually head north so that we could pass by Henry J. Kaiser’s estate, pretending for a moment that we might just drop in on our “good friend”, Henry…you know, share a few laughs, and maybe have lunch with him?

And as we passed the point where the Kaiser pier jutted out, I would remember the story of the postman. Local legend said that the postman was rowing from that point, on his way to Homewood, when a sudden storm came up, swamping the boat and drowning him. And…it was said that when the water was exceptionally clear, you could look down and see the postman, still sitting at the oars, with the mail sack between his knees. (OK, I know…why would the postman deliver mail in a boat? Especially since the road went right by the Kaiser estate.)