Skipping Stones On Seneca Lake

Today I was down at the lake doing my every other, other week mowing of the Crown Vetch and Crab Grass. Things are a little rough down there due to the high water we've had over the past month basically. While I was mowing and puttering, my mind returned to last weekend and time with my beautiful little granddaughter. I spent time showing her the initial steps of skipping stones on the water of Seneca Lake. Yes, they were initial steps. She seemed more interested in the plopping noises her stones made rather then the fantastic skips produced by her grandpa. She would squeal with laughter when she saw the skips but the plopping noises were her contribution to an age old practice on these waters.

Stone skipping is probably pretty universal and most likely spans history before the Native Americans practiced the same feat on these waters and throughout this country. But for anyone who live on or near Seneca Lake, it's special. It's like home or a breadth of fresh air. Something you know and come to rely on. In addition, you don't have to be a property owner to partake. Renters and people visiting one of the many parks at water's edge have all the opportunity of a land owner.

When I was 5 or 6, my brother and I traveled from New Jersey with my father and a salesman friend of his who had ties to Seneca Lake. We stayed in his fisherman's cottage in Lodi almost directly across the lake from where I now live. Quite a coincidence. That beach in Lodi is where I first learned to skip stones on Seneca Lake and like many skills I have taken that one to other places around the world. Those of us who live here or visit often know though that Seneca is the holy grail of stone skipping. People from Keuka, Cayuga or any of the other Finger Lakes probably think and say the same about their lake as well as thousands of lakes across the country from coast to coast, but this (Seneca) is it.

Stone skipping is usually first passed down by a parent, an older friend or a grandparent. But the skill is never developed right away. As a child, you look in awe as that older person throws that flat piece of shale stone skimming across the water, twice, three times, four - or "Oh my God, it just skipped ten times. That has to be a world record." Most kids start with the plop and eventually the older person goes to do something important like starting the fire, fixing the toilet or getting gas. An older brother like mine is always helpful though. Eventually with practice and a strong sense of competition from your brother or sister, your stone skips. Wow! Even just two skips makes you jump for joy. And you stay, all morning, all afternoon, all evening and get better and better.

   A STONE SKIPPERS PARADISE ABOVE ON THE SHORES OF SENECA LAKE

Back to last weekend. Here I am trying to explain to a 2 1/2 year old how she has to find a medium sized flat and perfectly shaped shale stone. We eventually were able to communicate by picking a really good one and saying "find another good one" and she did. I skipped them and hers, even perfectly sized and shaped went plop. But there are more days and plenty more stones for skipping and plopping.

Now I think stones are skipped all over the world because there's something instinctive about it. It's teachable and it's competitive and just plain fun. So I like to think that grandpas, grandmas, and parents are teaching young children on the great loughs of Ireland as well as the lakes of the Ukraine, Israel, Iran, Nigeria, China, every country, to skip those stones. Making them skip ten or twenty times to glee and laughter and every once in a while a plop, plop and a determination to make the next one skip. And to think, it all started on Seneca Lake.