Life at Lake X in the '60s

Great news! Barron and Sherry Cooley sent me .tiff scans of the 2 pictures of Lake X that he recently posted on this site. Barron is a record setting drag boater from the 80's, and Sherry is the computer whiz in the family. Each file is 2.1 MB.....That means great definition! All of you Lake X old farts need to look very closely at these 2 pictures. If you are at all like me, those pictures should get the brain synapsis' firing again and pull old stories from your memories which you will immediately post on this site. After looking at these pics for awhile, I'm not sure exactly when they were taken. I'm starting to think they might have been taken shortly before I got there. The boat in the slip appears to have white motors on it. If Barron does not mind I would be happy to send the .tiff files to anyone. Since they are 2.1 MB, they are larger than what is permissible to post here. In the near future, I hope to associate specific places in these pics with some of the stories that I have previously written in this thread. Should be fun. We all owe Barron and Sherry a huge Thank You for sharing these treasures. - Steve Sirois

Steve,
Thank you very much for the compliments. I just had these pics from our old dealership files we saved. YOU worked at The Lake. You do what you like with these pics. I think those are all I have from the Lake, but do have a few more official Mercury photos. One of my favorites is My Dad and Mr K at the sacrificial bonfire at Mr K's house. On the Lake X pics I looked with a magnifying glass at the boats and decided the one running is a Powercat, and the one with white Mercs looks like it is too. I sent one to the Powercat guy on site and he thought so also. Wouldn't that put it probably '62 since that was the first year of the black 100 horse Merc?<O:p</O:p

Barron - I'm not sure about white/black motor dates, but I agree that running boat looks like Powercat. Butch Stokes and Sam Cullis will probably be able to help us ref dates. I already sent .tiff files to Sam at his request. Hopefully they went through to him. Gotta hang it up for tonight. - Steve

This is Mr Kiekhaefer and My Dad, Ed Cooley at (I think) Mr K's house at the cliff?? It was at the annual dealer meeting in the mid 60's. (seems like I remember those jackets as 1967) As I read in The Iron Fist (everyone should read!) Mr K would hang a Johnrude upside down on a great tripod and light the sacrificial fire as the tribe went wild...Those were the days...
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...DadandCarl.jpg

great thread!!

Great Stuff,,,,,,,,,,,,, Think '67 was the correct year for those jackets, However the infamous bonfire was at a dealer meeting at a place called L"Esterel,in the mountains north of Montreal,,,,,,,, While at the meeting some indian chief up there renamed Carl K. Big Chief Swift on Water,seeingthe old man with a indian headdress on trying to do a war dance was a real Hoot,,,,,,,,,,, While at that meeting Ken Baker was there with his over 100 MPH drag boat, Hearing the sound of that stacked drag engine re-verberating through those mountains was just a instant echo chamber,,,,,,,,, Real good times,,,,,, Their may have been another bonfire at the ledge later on, that i'am not familiar with but that deal in Canada was awesome, Great Photos

Jim - Are you in touch with Fred Kiekhaefer (Or should I say, "Fred, are you here?"). If so, perhaps he has pics of the Lake covering different time periods. - Steve

Last time I saw Fred was a couple years after Mr. K's funeral,, Havent been back to FdL in many years,,,,,,,,, However am going to a Packer game in September,will look him up,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Could kick myself for not being a photo bug, but at the time I just never thought it would end,,,, Boy was I wrong.

Speaking of Mr K's funeral, I always thought this print that the factory sent the dealers was a very nice, simple tribute. http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...74z/Image1.jpg

Hey Guys,
Thought I'd post this again in a larger format.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...n_edited-1.jpg

Another one in a larger format. Lake X early 60's.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x...n_edited-1.jpg

Way to go Barron and Sherry! We all appreciate the large format pics. -Steve

So Lake X was actually Lake Conlin? No wonder I never knew exactly where it was. Unlike several others on this forum I was never priveleged to be invited to "The Lake". I am still jealous.

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Originally Posted by 2us70

So Lake X was actually Lake Conlin? No wonder I never knew exactly where it was. Unlike several others on this forum I was never priveleged to be invited to "The Lake". I am still jealous.

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I visited lake X a couple of times in the early sixties, but I don't remember it at all. I went with George Griley to "borrow" some stuff to rig the boat we won the '64 Unlimited 6 hour Grand National Marathon. We later went back up to pickup the very first set of the new dual pinion speedmasters given out to non factory racers. I hardly remember it , except we had to be cleared in through a security gate.
Butch went there a lot more and actually raced and won his class at the 62 OPC 6 hour. He also set a kilo record at the same time.
I would have been there, but we set our alarms to leave Miami in the very early AM and the alarm failed to go off. This turned out to be the classic OPC race of all time!

Hi Charlie - This more fun than going from +7g to -3g in about 2 seconds....and I know... that you know what I mean...Keep the blue side up...at least once in awhile. :D -Steve