My husband and I caught the last half of On Golden Pond when it was on TV recently. It's a problematic movie, very uneven in tone, switching as it does from deeply moving scenes that ring so true to some downright melodramatic, even unintentionally silly scenes. Even the title is all wrong. I know we're dealing with acting royalty here, but excuse me Mr. Fonda and Ms. Hepburn, that's no mere "pond" you're on, that's a full-fledged lake. And a huge mother of a lake at that!But there's one thing this movie gets absolutely right: the loons! And Norman and Ethel's reverential love for them--that's absolutely true to life too.
When they arrive at the beginning of the summer to open up their cottage, and their ears perk up and they get those blissed-out looks on their faces at the sound of the first loon call of the season, well...that isn't sappy melodrama, that's reality! In fact, it's exactly how my husband and I react whenever we hear them calling. Call us loony if you will, but we stop whatever else we're doing, and just listen intently. If the kids are talking, we hush them and demand that they listen too, until the last strains die down and we know this particular loon moment has passed.
And calling it a "loon moment" isn't hyperbole either. When you're fortunate enough to be staying at a lake that's got a resident loon family floating and diving around in its waters, you feel as if you've been blessed, that nature has given you a rare gift. You fully appreciate that you're being graced by their presence.
And this is not just because they're fairly rare birds, who live within a very limited range in North America. It's also because they're such special birds. They look, sound and act like no other birds around.
Once you've heard the lonely, hauntingly beautiful wail of a loon late in the night on a Northwoods lake, or its crazy tremolo warbling as it flies across the sky at sunset, you never forget it. If you've never been lucky enough to hear one, this is what it sounds like:
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/Common_Loon.html
Loons have held an almost mystical attraction for me since I heard my first mournful but beautiful loon call as a child, while whiling away some idyllic summer days at relatives' cottages on Minnesota lakes. This was the "old days" of the '60s to early '70s, before cottages became "summer homes."
So I'm not talking about those palatial, fancy log homes with their second-floor lofts, prow fronts and huge banks of windows. No, these were honest-to-goodness, rickety old spider-web shrouded cottages. The kind with screen doors that squeaked when you opened them, and banged shut with a nice, satisfying slap when kids ran eagerly out the door after breakfast or dinner to explore in the woods, or fish from an old wooden pier, or skip stones on the lakeshore (looking for the perfect, nice flat rock in the crystal clear, shallow water along the shore was half the fun), or go for a swim out to the diving raft that was often anchored offshore. (Sometimes we made it home from our wanderings in the woods for lunch too; other times not.)
Now those were some happy, magical times, some of my best childhood memories. And the compelling call of the loon was the perfect soundtrack to accompany them.
It wasn't until I'd heard them for years, felt their unseen presence on many a Northwoods vacation, that I had my first actual sighting of one (or at least, the first one I remember). Finally it was my turn to wake before dawn and join my dad for an all-morning walleye-hunting expedition on his boat. We kids had to take turns, because there were 7 of us. Way too many to fit safely on his little rented motor boat at one time. 
As we coasted along in the chill gray of dawn, a loon appeared ghostlike out of the thick mist that floated over the lake's surface. My dad pointed it out to me as we drifted silently by, not wanting to scare him.
To my untrained eye, it looked like a duck. But once you're familiar with those iridescent black/dark green heads, thick necks, long pointy beaks and red eyes that somehow don't look ugly or creepy (as you might think red eyes on anything would), and those black and white checkerboard feathers, you can never mistake a loon for anything else. They're magnificent birds!
And their calls...I can't quite express in words the primal hold they have on me. They're one of earth's oldest bird species, which might at least partially explain why their tremelos, hoots, and especially their signature wails, reach an ancient place deep within my heart and soul.
Heaven to me is two loons calling to each other on a full-moon summer night, their haunting cries echoing across a quiet lake aflame with silver ripples in the remote and wild Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Yes, I know Yoko Ono would have a field day with this one, but I'm talking loons in June under a full moon. But somehow I think Paul McCartney--who Ms. Ono famously scoffed at for such simplistic rhyme schemes and his sometimes saccharine expressions of emotion--might understand the overpowering emotions that can get stirred up by the haunting call of the loon.
