Kent Treptow/The Olympian
Gloria Christerson cooks hamburgers and drumsticks during a gathering of friends at her Hicks Lake home.

Life on the lake

Newcomers quickly meet their neighbors

Orginally published August 15, 2001

"Do you want to make your special sauce?" Gloria Christerson asks her husband, Duane, as she sets up cheese and chips on a deck table, preparing a massive grill for hamburgers and chicken legs.

Waves lap the Hicks Lake shore as a speed boat takes two tube-riders for a wild spin on the sun-sparkling water.

Ducks and geese swim along the shoreline where a canoe cuts a peaceful path nearby.

Further out, two girls in a paddle boat giggle, their laughter echoing across the lake and up to the Christersons' 1,500-square-foot deck.

Almost a daily ritual, the Christersons' festive grilling and boating time with friends is just getting started.

Gloria and Duane's new neighbors, Shannon and Jim Parker, pop over after work, Shannon a vision of summertime in her blue-lens sunglasses, pink shirt, blond hair and brown skin.

"We've become a family all of a sudden," Shannon says. "We've lived here since May. We drink a lot together."

"We walk into each other's houses," Gloria adds, as her brother Mark Clark arrives with his wife Tammy, sons Josh, 7, and Taylor, 10, and a couple 12-packs of Corona beer.

"You meet everybody," Mark says of living on the lake four houses down from the Christersons. "You get to know all the neighbors."

This is their Lacey -- filled with late-day sunshine, deck chairs, jetskis, wakeboarding and fishing.

Theirs are a few of more than 190 homes that dot lakes inside Lacey's city limits -- with residents on Southwick, Long, Hicks, Chambers, Pattison and Lois lakes.

While not all Hicks Lake residents enjoy the sound of boating activities, Tammy Clark says Hicks is the best place around for playing.

"I couldn't live here without a boat," Tammy says as a light breeze blows through her hair. "We wanted to be here and be able to ski every night."

Duane and Gloria, who moved to the lake about four years ago, are in the middle of remodeling their cabin, but love the life all the same.

It beats Gig Harbor, Tacoma and Texas -- Duane's old haunts.

"Out of all the places I've lived, this place is the best," he says.

"We always dreamed of living on a lake."

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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