Response to E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake"

We’ve all been there before—the flexible realm of being where past and present fuse. This warping of time occurs significantly when revisiting places of memory as E.B. White does in “Once More to the Lake.” He vacillates between being himself (the present adult, father self), being his father, and being his son (or himself as a boy, reliving memories). He experiences the emotions of all three simultaneously. He feels as if nothing has changed since his childhood. The lake is “fade-proof” and the woods “unshatterable” (535). He fishes like he used to, eats where he used to, and notices the seemingly identical dragonflies. But of course things have changed. Forty years has brought him gray hair (perhaps), a son, paved roads, and loud motors. His lake memories become his daily rhythm once again.

As I read, I was reminded of an article I read last semester about pastoral literature and its tendency towards extreme nostalgia. While White avoids extreme nostalgia (partly by claiming that nothing has changed), his essay does hint at what the article essentially claimed—that every generation looks backwards, believing that earlier times, such as during childhood, were simpler, better, etc. Isn’t that why the phrase “the good ol’ days” is so widely used? White bemoans the loud motors he now hears vrooming around the lake, yet he admits that his “boy loved our rented outboard, and his great desire was to achieve single-handed mastery over it” (536). His son doesn’t seem to have a problem with the motors. Perhaps in forty years he will, acting just like his father, looking back with fondness on those perfect summer days spent at the lake.