Lake "Contrary" to Popular Belief
By: Katie Imlay
The starlings are back. I call them the "back-to-school" birds because they always show up around September. Last year, they nested in a strip of trees on my way to work. Every morning I'd pass by and say, "good morning, Birds!"
Some evenings, I’d convince my husband to pull over so we could watch them put themselves to bed. A few times I even hopped out of the truck and stood right in the middle of their magically-conducted chaos – thousands of birds squawking and swarming and somehow never crashing into one another. There's a real, tangible energy in it. It’s the same feeling I had in labor & delivery – like I’m standing right in the middle of a miracle. And it’s not just because my hormones are being hijacked by my age – my husband felt it, too. And I try not to brag, but so far the “getting pooped on” count is still me – 0, him – 2.
Hi, my name is Katie, and I live at (and love!) Lake Contrary … just the way it is.
The truth is, I’ve always been drawn to Lake Contrary. My Facebook memories are full of my Lexi — who we had to put to sleep a few years ago — romping through the water, and my (now grown) children poking dead fish with sticks. And before you ask, it was more science‑y than creepy, but if you’ve been in St. Joe a while, you know exactly what I’m talking about (and you probably thought it was just gross.)
When I think about it, the science of it all is exactly what never stopped me from looking at properties down here.
I know we’ve all heard it before, but let me try to explain it in actual words: Lake Contrary didn’t “go bad.” It didn’t get ruined. It didn’t die because of septic tanks or methheads or fish die‑offs. It’s an oxbow lake — a place the Missouri River carved out before moving on and leaving it to become something new.
An oxbow lake is what happens when a river changes its mind – when it decides the old path isn’t the right one anymore. As I sit on the other side of halfway between life and death, I feel connected with this place because I’ve been both the river and the lake. I’ve changed my mind, and I’ve had my course changed for me. And like the perfectly orchestrated chaos of the starlings, it all somehow settles into a pattern that makes perfect, beautiful sense – not right away, not cleanly, but eventually.
This whole thing is about dispelling the myths, right? Of all the things that people say about the lake, the most annoying comments are about the addicts. I am an addict. True, that my drug of choice has ranged from acceptable (think eating, shopping, even alcohol) to absolutely, 100% not acceptable (think meth, gambling … even alcohol.) For example, I haven’t touched meth in over 20 years, but I don’t know if I ever want to give up nicotine. I’ve been a homeless addict, and I’ve worked in Corporate America, hanging out with people making $500,000 a year.
I grew up traveling between Orange County, California, and St. Joseph, Missouri. I’ve met a whole lot of people, and I can promise you that the addicts making $500,000 a year just have better dental insurance.
I’ve lived a lot of places in this town – from Country Club Village, to 26th and Monterey, to just down the street from Benton. I’ve always said that the south end has a bigger sense of community than any other area, but this community puts them all to shame. It was months before anyone noticed we moved out of our north end home last summer. Homelessness and addiction lived right down the street there too, only it laid in sleeping bags instead of trailers. I guess it makes it easier to ignore as long as it can be “rolled up” and stored away when people are looking.
The bottom line here is PEOPLE ARE STRUGGLING. EVERYWHERE. How are we ever gonna get better if we don’t get real? I have heard my neighbors yelling and I have gone right over there to try to help. I hope they do the same for me. We don’t hang out by the bonfire every night together, but we don’t need to to look out for one another. My neighbor Dan and I see the world in two totally competing ways, but he knows I’m coming to his house if the tornado sirens go off, and I hope he knows he’s always welcome at the holidays.
Everyone, everywhere is just trying to make a life out here. The heron, the geese, the starlings, turtles, and tadpoles work together. Maybe we should too. Shame grows in silence.
I have four different types of dirt in my yard — gravel, sand, clay, and soil. Guess what grows great in every one of those? You guessed it: poison ivy. And guess who has the most dramatic immune response system ever?
Right again. Me.
That’s beside the point anyway. There was a lot of work to be done when we bought our place. The previous owner took immaculate care of her appliances and systems, but she also let in all the neighborhood cats, and the trailer was from the 90s. Think dark, dingy, and closed up for five years. Well, maybe not closed up — more like boarded up after squatters tried to live in it at some point. And the yard… let’s just say I really love my battery‑powered chainsaw.
After the initial cleanup, my plan was to create a barrier between my side and the outside — like the poison ivy could stay over there, but everything on this side was mine. I planted along the edges. It failed for so many reasons. The sun scorches back there, the water runs off into the lakebed. I kept getting into the demon ivy, but I was having luck with my veggie garden that was right smack dab in the middle of my yard.
And then I went on the St. Joseph Garden Pond Tour.
Guys, my husband saw a sign for $5 tickets at Roger’s Pharmacy, and we figured we could use a day date. We had no idea it would become our life.
After our “go-at-your-own-pace” tour, we played around with where we would have it and how we would do it. I flippantly said, “huh, that doesn’t seem that hard,” and because my husband always “knows a guy,” we had a gigantic muddy hole in our yard by Wednesday. Just in time for it to rain for 3 days.
A ton of effort and algae-covered tears later, we have an amazing garden pond teeming with life. Some life came from the bait or pet store, some chose to live here for me to enjoy. The deck, which perches over the pond on one side, and the wetland, sunset view on the other, was built out of wood from the dock that used to house boats, and the stuff that was once planted along the edges is where it should have been all along – right in the freaking middle.
I planted a flower garden from seed. I don’t know anything about flowers, so I went by their height listed on the back of the packet. I planted tallest in the middle – sunflower, hollyhock, mallow, dahlias, zinnias, johnny jump-ups, and more. This afternoon, I was on a walkabout (I do these multiple times a day to monitor for new growth/something I haven’t noticed yet – the kids would say “I’m doing too much”) and my flowers are buzzing with Monarch butterflies. AI says that these are the fall “super-generation” heading south to a forest in Mexico. Next Spring, I’ll tell their children and grandchildren how happy I am to meet them, and how happy I was to have known their “grown-ups,” even if for only an afternoon.
Hopefully, someone will carry on the story and talk about how much they enjoyed the time they spent with me in this little corner of Lake Contrary.
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