Pre-Point

 

In December of last year we made plans to go with some friends on a bike trip to Napa in September.  However, in March, a "save the date" package arrived at our house asking us to block off the September 15th weekend for the 60th birthday celebration of our friends Paul and David Shiverick.  The package included a coffee table book about an Adirondack resort on Saranac Lake called The Point. 

 

The book showed a dreamy Adirondack camp with beautifully decorated rooms, wooden speedboats, tennis, swimming, doting staff and 5 star cooking.  Ann took one look at the book and said, "We have to do this!"  This killed two birds with one stone—Ann’s fear of a drunken bicycle death in Napa was gone and replaced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stay at a spectacular resort.  And in Ann’s mind “once-in-a-lifetime” was the literal truth given her husband’s tendency to book vacations in more character-building venues such as northern Maine or Montana. 

 

In reality, our participation in the weekend was never in question.  The bike trip to Napa would have been great but we would never miss an opportunity to be part of such an important occasion with old friends like David and Paul.  Or to participate in perhaps the greatest glom in history.

 

The Shiverick twins were in my older brother Fred's class--Hawken School class of '71.  I knew them as upperclassmen at Hawken school and they may have been vaguely aware that I existed among the great unwashed in the lower grades, just as I was vaguely aware that their younger brother Reg lived out his miserable existence in the grade below mine.  However we got to know each other as we got older, first through my friendship with their next door neighbors, Brooks Jones and his older brother Tom, and later when we all found ourselves in New York in the early innings of our careers.

 

The period in life when you are beginning a career in a new city, starting a family, accumulating crap, etc. is formative and I think the friendships you make then are especially significant because you are in the process of forming your adult identity.  In any event, I have always felt close to the people I befriended at that point in my life, even those I don't see very much.  I was flattered that Paul and David had included us in this important celebration of a big milestone in their lives.

 

We later got the formal invitation which gave us the details on the weekend and reinforced Ann's commitment with yet another coffee table book.

 

The Point is a so called "Great Camp" that originally belonged to the Rockefeller family.  Adirondack Great Camps are apparently defined by certain common architectural features and generally were designed by one of three architects for wealthy robber barons around the turn of the last century. 

 

Interestingly, one of the Shivericks’ maternal aunts was married to William Rockefeller, prior owner of the Point.  Apparently this aunt got bored with husbands easily and traded in Bill for a new and improved model (reportedly she was married four times).  The Shivericks felt that even if Bill was extremely objectionable she could have taken one for the team so that everyone could enjoy The Point at his expense. 

 

The resort had 11 guest rooms, a main lodge, a boathouse, tennis courts, a croquet lawn, walking trails, a campfire area with a luxurious lean-to, and at least 4 full bars.  Paul had rented the entire place for the weekend.

 

The guests were:

 

•      Paul and Betsy Shiverick 

•      David Shiverick and Robin Jonas

•      Bob and Hope Lomas

•      Bo and Missy Shiverick

•      Reg and Lynn Shiverick

•      Mac and Jill Humphries

•      Michael and Julia Katz

•      Jeff and Katie Amling

•      John and Ann Mueller

•      Jane Shiverick (Paul’s daughter)

•      Sam Shiverick (Paul’s son)

•      Hope Shiverick (David’s daughter)

 

We decided to drive up to The Point.  The drive was about 8 hours but we like road trips and if we drove we could bring Daisy, Ann's cute little blonde mutt.  We figured that between driving to the airport, waiting for an hour, taking the plane, getting the rental car and driving the three hours from Albany, the timing was almost a push.  And there was the Daisy factor. 

 

We drove a little over half way the first night to Seneca Falls, which is in the Finger Lakes region between Rochester and Syracuse.  We had booked a room at a Holiday Inn that was pet friendly.  Bob and Hope (Shiverick) Lomas, who were also driving up, decided to book a room at the same hotel and join us for dinner. 

 

I had been duck hunting on Sandusky Bay the morning of our departure.  We had gotten our limit of teal at about 10 am, took the punt boat back to the dock where I got out of my waders and into jeans and hightailed it back to Gates Mills to get on the road.  I got home, threw the duck hunting gear in the barn, took a shower and threw the luggage into the car.  As I put the teal in the freezer Ann gave me that disappointed “I hope you’re proud of yourself” look.  We were off by one pm, I still smelling slightly of wet labrador.  We got to Seneca Falls at about 7pm and ran into Bob and Hope in the parking lot.  We agreed to crash for 45 minutes then meet at a restaurant in town at 8pm.

 

We left Daisy in the hotel when we went to dinner, which was technically illegal.  There was a sign at check in that said the animals were absolutely forbidden to be in guest rooms unattended.  Ann was educated by stern nuns—she was therefore nervous about rules and wondered what they would do to us if we were caught.  I explained to her that the penalty would probably be that we would be banned from the Holiday Inn the following night when we were scheduled to be at the Point.  She felt she could live with that.  Daisy is used to better hotels than the Holiday Inn, however, and she seemed skeptical of the foam rubber pillows she had nestled into as we left.

 

The restaurant was empty but the hostess assured us that this was very unusual.  She whispered breathlessly that Bruce Springsteen had eaten there earlier in the week.  For Ann, this gave the place instant "street cred".  We decided to eat at the bar which had a few patrons drinking beer and local wine.  We had a decent meal and Bob sampled some of the local vintages.  He found one that he really liked--I think it was a Pinot Noir.  To his amazement the price was only $20.  He ordered a bottle to drink and a couple to take home.  Bob likes good wine.  But what he really likes is good cheap wine.

 

Bob knows that I am a wine ignoramus and that my favorite wine adjective is “inexpensive”.  Bob, who shares my interest in value, is nonetheless a wine connoisseur.  I know this because he has a finely tuned instinct to hover around David when the good wine is poured.  David paid respect to Bob’s palate, saying that he really knew his stuff (based largely on the heavy breathing he felt over his shoulder every time a truly fine wine was opened).

 

Uncle Bob