When Louis Raphael was in junior high school at Tacoma, Washington, in the early 1940s, his grandfather hired him to work during summer vacations as a boathouse boy at American Lake, a few miles south of Tacoma. The lake enchanted the boy with its beauty, history, and slowly unraveling mysteries. Through the first summers of World War II young Louis lived in a shack on a dock and rubbed shoulders with the colorful locals, soldiers and civilians who came to rent the boats that Louis helped maintain.

As many more summers drifted by and turned the boy into a very old man, American Lake has continued to evoke the wonder and quiet appreciation that is evident in these pages.