Cass Lake

small lakes of Oakland County MICHIGAN Keego Harbor

CASS lake PhotographY, poems and designs

by

Richard Stocker

I am forever enriched by the strengths, beauties and flow of changes in these calm crystal glass waters of Cass Lake.

Cass Lake My Love.

CASS lake small lakes of Oakland County PhotographY, poems and designs All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the copyright holder and publisher.

ISBN Design & Layout: GISELA SANCHEZ T www.giselasanchez.com

small lakes of Oakland County

by

MICHIGAN Keego Harbor

Richard Stocker

CASS lake Richard Stocker My lake is a page of a book you need sunglasses to read fish all wear winter suits and the apples have all gone to seed

The

naked afternoon light

Stays naked all night

small lakes of Oakland County

Richard Stocker

small lakes of Oakland County

I believe

that in a curious way, our childhood surroundings shape our souls. It imprints our senses leaving a distinctive mark in mind and heart molding the way we look at life.

Years go by. We move to different places, meet new friends, make new loves, live in new cities, but always our childhood keeps a space of its own in our memories.

Richard Stocker grew up looking at the soft light reflections in the ripples of lake water. Listening to the silence of open space and the myriad of voices from the surrounding trees, his heart fused with the heart of the lake, setting the foundations over which the man and the artist would develop.

Time after time, he kept going back to the lake. He took photos, thousand of them. He drew, painted, wrote, compose songs, and relaxed by the waters.

He keeps coming back in a never-ending love story.

There have been many changes through the years... the homes... the boats... the buildings...the people... but the lake remains the same.

These images are memories of the way it was and the way it is today...

Shared by an artist who continues to document the life of Cass Lake.

Gisela Sรกnchez Tinoco Graphic Designer

Richard Stocker

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Waking up I hear the squirrels before I get out of bed then silently close the screen door My red row boat is munching on small waves and the catfish under the dock feel me coming

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Blue

line

drop off

my summer day

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My dear father did something unusual He gave me an expensive Rolleiflex medium format camera and a Omega D2 enlarger at a young age. I was making contact prints in a closet darkroom and now the negatives were large and the enlarger looked like a old steam engine with a huge glass condenser that lit up like the beam at the front of a train. I was on the way to becoming a professional photographer and I promised myself to one day focus my lens on my boy hood playground:

Cass Lake at Keego Harbor, Michigan.

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There

is a party at the lake

where every star dancing

is a candle on my birthday cake

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When you need

prayer

pass through my door I’ll be in heaven half mile off shore

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Then

there’s another alone

a most wonderful shock everyone is off to work but I stay on the dock

Wind, the prehistoric bird flies into the shimmering gold off the dock listening to the lake kiss the shore I haven’t said a word and it’s after six o clock alone like never before

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I was

time

itself

I actually saw

The dust on the floor somehow make it to the shelf With a little help from the faces in the window

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Come

all ye faithful

there is room in the boat and extra wings on the seat no wonder kids could stay out all day and forget they have to eat

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I see

where I want to go

and so I row

I get there and swim then I row back

“The slower the boat the bigger the lake�

Victor Egrem

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The

lace of Winter

hangs on the walls of my room

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I like to see the lake before go to the office I like to see the wind ruffle the surface

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Skipping

stones

off my reflection

each touch a kiss one skip‌ three skips five skips or more sending kisses off the rocky shore

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I wear

gray on gray days

and purple on purple haze walking to the end of the dock waving at the lake

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she

waves back

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One

purple drop on

The red face of the lake

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I once

got lost

in a storm

walking on ice knowing that when i got home Milky Way tea would be nice

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Outside

blue

getting colder inside blue

getting warmer

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Actually every boat is one of my dreams of being on the water

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Save heaven so you have a place to go after your sugar runs out

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ahhh

another day

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I have a

lake fever

a bad case of Mid-Lake-Crisis what is life worth if I can’t be by the shore

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All

the homes and people

around the lake in a circle we share the life of tricks and treats

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Slidering along the bottom

my fingers lifting sand

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Heaven

right here on earth

inside the soul is your place of birth praying here an there for peace and light

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I love you

Water the way you feel when you are cold the way you feel when I’m cold

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The

shore has a wisper

speaking of fame every tree that bends plays the game

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A

beautiful day in November when ducks are not around

that kind of a day lost memories are found

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Way

to nice

it is beautiful outside way to sweet to let this day go by Get out of bed take it on the fly what a wonderful day to get an outdoor high

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Cream filled

windows

of luscious afternoon light my tongue brush

dipping into a cool Summer night The summer hangs like a old shirt on a wrinkled white sky after work oak cufflinks scattered on the ground Sunbeams etching shadows into a frosted covered lawn morning arms reaching out to kiss the unshaven dawn Great Northern arrow-heads flying South above the pine honking songs of Autumn across the first page of Winter time

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Red white blue

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and green Richard Stocker

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All Summer

a lady leaf

watched birds in flight

when the Autumn ladies fall before the wind she was not ready to rest With red and yellow speckled tips she circled the clouds in the first snow she returned passing bare trees in the cold sun Like an airplane flying low before it lands she crossed the icy lake and landed in my hands

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I’m

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not still when I meditate down to one cell and I still vibrate

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Monday

morning class at Dodge Park

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On a train

North of Miami

I noticed a line of boats in a parking lot they looked like white ducks each with two black Yamaha tail feathers There was one large duck with a bright blue hood I think they smell the sea… they want the water but with a twelve foot barb wire fence all the ducks can do is line up like it’s feeding time actually every boat is one of my dreams of being on the water so this four eyed Michigan white bald head must be a duck Who’s dreams line up at feeding time

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About

the Author

Richard Stocker knows that Cass Lake at

but the lake is as it was.... same weed

Keego Harbor, Michigan, is the biggest

patches, bays, sandbars, drop-offs reflec-

most beautiful lake in the world. Feeling

tions and moods. At sixty four years old

the sun come up over the glass surface

Richard has decided to professionally

and sitting on the dock blinded by bril-

photograph memories and capture new

liant star dancing water was the good life

images.

for a small lake boy. Digging for worms, fishing over weed patches and off bridg-

“ Cass Lake has a magic for me and once

es... showing up with a stringer of perch,

a lake kid always a lake kid.�

bluegill and sunfish was a proud moment.

Rowing a heavy wood boat made the lake a sea of adventure. Rowing also made the day bigger since it took hours to get across the lake and slowly explore back to the dock. That was the Summer time and Winter was just as beautiful.

Old photographs of those days are rare

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RS grew up on the East side of the lake on

and his grandparents built the cottage

Cass Lake Front.

around 1935. His grandfather Israel So-

About

the Designer

kanoff started the United Dairies in 1916 “I remember walking to Keego with no

and his father Dr. Lawrence L Stocker is

shoes and no curbs way before the root

the oldest practicing Ophthalmologist

beer stand. Does any one recall the large

at age 94 in the country.

orange wooden fruit stand on the North West corner of Orchard Lake Road and

It was in 1946 that Richard first tasted

Cass Lake Road...??? ”

the warm lake and it is now, in 2010 that he is photographically document-

His parents danced at Strongs Pavilion

ing the seasonal life of the lake.

Gisela Sánchez Tinoco received her degree in Graphic design from the Newman Fundation Design Institute in Caracas, Venezuela before going to England to specialize in technichal graphics at The London College of Printing.

She has been working in design for more than 30 years from ilustration to books and magazines design, flash animation and advertising. She met Richard Stocker in Costa Rica in 2008 and since then, has been designing, and conceptualizing his books and other products of his creation.

She runs GST Art & Design Studio and manteins two web pages where her work can be seen: www.giselasanchez / www.atg.gs

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For more information about Richard Stocker and his work go to: www.richardstockersworld.com

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