A Beautiful Basket Friendship
Well, folks. This is the beginning of Lake Week for the Rosses, when Joni takes a breather from teaching baskets and spends some well earned vacation time with the family. Craig, Meredith and Little Aaron could not make it this year because of work and school commitments, but we have Lindsey and Aaron and the other 7 kids and a cousin. The weatherman promises us a beautiful week!
Lake Week began for us over 20-some-odd years ago when we started going to my Mom and Dad’s lake house on Lake Murray in SC, the last week of August every year. After mom sold the lake house, Denise Bendelewski offered to reserve their place at Kerr Lake (Buggs Island Lake) in Clarksville, VA for us. We have been coming here the first week of August every year since then. Both Lindsey and Craig say this is one of their favorite weeks of the year.
I feel like I am carrying on a family tradition every year when we spend a late summer week at the lake. My Dad’s family took the last two weeks of August each summer to drive up from Detroit to Golden Lake in Ontario, BC in Canada. I remember hearing tales of monster Northern Pike, Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass and the occasional Musky. When Dad was dating my Mom (Joyce Phillips at the time), she would accompany them. It sounded like paradise to me.
Then, in 1967, I finally got to go to my first Lake Week at Golden Lake. We spent mid-August in Detroit, then drove up for the first week of my grandparents family lake vacation. I remember to this day the clarity of the water while fishing with my Grandaddy Ross, and how the fish would appear from the weed bed, as if by magic, to take our lures. It WAS magic.
It is a joy every year to relive that adventure, and even more-so that I can teach my own grandkids to paddle a canoe, swim, and how to fish. The continuity from my grandfather to his great, great grandchildren does not escape me. As I write this on the deck, I can see the whole gang down at the dock, and I am quite blessed that they can continue our tradition. Thank you Denise and Dan for allowing this to happen.
With that in mind, I thought it fitting to tell you about a basket friendship that has been going on for almost 20 years. Joni has taught basket classes for over 26 years. In the 1999, Joni set up a booth at the Peach Festival in Wyoming, DE, at Fifer Orchards. At Joni’s basket booth, a lady named Denise Bendelewski walked up and asked Joni about taking classes. She took her first class soon after. Well, have you ever witnessed a friendship that just seemed to bloom instantly? That’s what we had here.
Denise started coming to Joni’s classes. When Joni needed help with kit preparation, Denise volunteered to cut and stuff kits in exchange for class tuition. When I came home from work, I would often see the two of them weaving happily together. Our son Craig worked with her son Jeffrey on soccer goalkeeping skills. Joni and Denise both worked hard as founding members of the Delaware Basket Association. Seemed like every time I turned around, I heard about this Denise person! When we moved to North Carolina, Dan built Denise a basket studio of her own, and she took over Delaware basket teaching duties.
Not long after, Joni and Denise began the Woodland Retreat workshops. In the beginning, there were two in DE and two in NC. They taught and vended at the same conventions. Denise purchased A Good Day to Dye and began dying and space-dying reed and cane. These two basket fans seemed to feed off of each other. One would have a new design idea, and the other would make it. They met at the lake house to weave together. They wrote a book together. They went on basket making trips together. They have spent endless hours on the phone, generally accompanied by lots of laughter and sometimes by tears.
Pretty soon, it was obvious that Denise and Joni were the very best of friends. These two still talk every few days. They will be going to McMinnville, TN next week to make baskets together. I am eternally grateful to Denise for being such a good friend to Joni, my own best friend.
And I am grateful that she and Dan make it possible for the Rosses to continue Lake Week.
Well, that’s all for now. Remember, It is truly a beautiful day, don’t let is slip away!
David
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