Good-bye "old friend"

It's Wednesday, March 12th, 2014. It was over fifty years ago that I first set foot on the last section of boat dock that we said good-bye to today. This story is a little premature, as I am beginning to write articles about the history of Pontiac Boat Dock, but I had to tell this one now.

The last single-sided dock being hauled off for dismantling.

When my parents purchased the dock in 1964, there were five single-sided docks. They were usually placed along and parallel with the shore and were held off the shore with long pipes that slid through brackets on the shore side of the dock to the bottom of the lake and held close to shore with cables on each end. They were a real chore to move in and out as the lake fluctuated.

Pontiac Boat Dock as it looked in 1965

During the winter of 1966, we had a huge snow storm. With my brother in the Navy, it was up to me to help my dad shovel snow. We enlisted the help of Bob Schultz, who owned Home Comfort Resort. We shoveled snow until we could shovel no more. It seemed as though the snow had let up, so we decided to get some rest and planned to start again first thing in the morning. I was the first one up the next morning and could not believe my eyes when I looked down the hill from our mobile home that sat next to the restaurant.

 Mobile home in the park, where we lived for a while.

One of our docks had collapsed. I threw on my clothes and started down the hill. As I was running down the hill another dock collapsed. All I could think to do was get on the dock, cut boats loose and kick them out to try to keep them from being damaged if another roof collapsed. I was on one of the docks pushing boats out when it collapsed. I jumped off the dock into the water and swam/waded to shore. I couldn't save it.

Collapsed docks in 1966 snow storm (above and below).

We shoveled snow off the remaining docks before any more damage was done. My dad had his first experience with insurance companies. He found out we did not have coverage for loss due to weight of ice and snow. It almost put us out of business. The insurance company finally paid a portion of the loss, agreeing wind could have been a factor. We rebuilt all three docks. I vowed then that we would never lose another dock like that. We lost two of the five in a bad wind storm in the 1980's. I was out of town in the 1990's one time when another big snow storm hit. There were lots of volunteers this time, but they focused on the bigger docks and we lost the third of the five single-sided docks to snow again. We lost the fourth one last August during the big wind storm that also took out the 400 dock. And we lost the last one in December to a heavy snow and ice storm. We stripped the flattened roof off with hopes of saving some part of the old dock for high water walkways, but after much deliberation, I sadly gave the go ahead to dismantle what was left.

Walkway sections from the "Milt Hoefle" dock.

I have lots of fond memories of those old docks. One I probably shouldn't tell is when I was under the legal drinking age, a couple of my friends and I used to drink peach brandy (of all things). We needed a hiding place for our stash. We figured out that the round barrels that floated the docks left a pocket between the barrel and the floor joists. We had a particular walkway where we removed a deck board and hid the bottles of brandy underneath. I was kind of hoping to see an antique liquor bottle fall out of one of the dock sections as we hauled them off, but I guess they were already long gone.

We actually had names for the last two docks. The one we lost in August was known as the "Bill Allen Dock" or the "50 Dock." And the one that went down in December was called the "Milt Hoefle Dock." The Milt Hoefle dock is the one I was standing on when the roof collapsed (the first time) so many years ago. Those docks were like old friends, and I am going to miss them just as I miss my old friend Milt Hoefle. We saved some of the wood from the "Bill Allen" and "Milt Hoefle" docks and plan to build benches to commemorate the old docks. Stay tuned.

Written by Cap'n T. Morgan