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| Thread: Of Moose and Men; The Gootch Goes to Canada |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted July 23, 2005 06:18 AM |
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(The man writes like Hemmingway, I tell ya)
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I have menopause and a handgun. Any questions?
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted February 20, 2006 01:06 AM |
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AHEM
(You promised!)
BTW, Were those sweats you mentioned your gray ones that say MARINES on the hip?
<SHUDDERS>
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I have menopause and a handgun. Any questions?
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The_Gootch
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
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posted February 28, 2006 07:30 PM |
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A promise is a promise. Day 3.
I awoke the next morning to the sound of Jeremiah stumbling around while getting dressed. As the cook it was his obligation to get up before everyone to get breakfast going. But in my grumpiness I was sure he could've been much quieter about it.
I stretched and yawned while laying back, contorting my spine in different positions. I felt unbelieveably refreshed and had no regrets about missing the previous evening's festivities. The temperature inside the cabin was brisk and my feet protested when I brought them from under the covers.
The morning air was damp. Grey clouds loomed and it was apparent that mother nature was going to dump some rain on us today. That was a bit disheartening as I hadn't brought any rain gear. Come to think of it, I didn't own any rain gear.
We dined outside on the picnic table. Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs with sausage, pancakes, toast, bacon, coffee and orange juice. This came to be a staple for the rest of our mornings. I must say that Jeremiah did a pretty good job of measuring appetites. There was a lot of food at the table and not much in the way of leftovers.
We discussed preparations for the day; where we would start fishing, who would be paired with whom etc. I asked how strong the possibility was it was going to rain and was told it was pretty much a given. Fortunately, Luke had a spare set of rain gear. It was an ugly turquoise and smelled of those old store bought halloween costumes. But it was going to keep me protected.
Gear started getting staged again. As I was moving around the camp dropping off tackle boxes and the like I casually overheard Jim, stogie already protruding from his mouth, telling his sons about the yellow and red birds we were going to be using.
"So you take the goddamn O-ring and you attache it here!" he said. "Ya gotta make sure it's secure otherwise it's going to be f*cked up!"
I had no clue what they were and asked about them. Evidently the yellow and red birds were plastic paddles that got attached to fishing lines. Using the current or drift of the boat they would force the line they were attached to to go out much further from the boat, thus preventing fishing lines from getting crossed.
I was paired with Luke again, much to my relief. Jeremiah I could only stomache so much and I figured that James was too young for me to be able to relate to.
We hit the water and sure enough it started raining. It wasn't torrential but it was enough to remind me how grateful I was to be wearing this godawful plastic. Luke , true to his nature, hit every wake he could find on our way out. He gave me tips on casting and talked about the philosophy of trolling.
With Luke operating the outboard motor, I was seated in the front. We each had a rod holder on either side of us. One of mine seemed to be a bit backwards. The retaining bracket in the rear seemed to be put on in such a way that the pole would just pop out if something jerked it. I didn't pay it too much attention though. We were drinking beer, chattering, and relaxing.
The fish didn't seem to be hungry this early morning. Luke spoke to the others over the walkie talkie about how they were faring and found that Jeremiah and Jim were doing pretty good. It was right about then that my line hit a snag. Sure enough, my pole popped out of its holder and into the water. Luckily, Luke was able to save it.
Unfortunately, he couldn't save it a second time. He was in the process of reeling in a fish when some other boat came tearing across the water and caught my line. My pole just flew out faster than I could grab to save it. Luke was fighting the fish and couldn't make a lunge either. I couldn't believe it. I was less than twenty four hours into Canada and I'd already lost my fishing pole.
Luke was furious with the other boat. He tried to track it down, all the while cursing and threatening to pull its plug. But without a clear picture of its actual detail, we decided it was best to not carry out revenge, lest we choose the wrong boat.
All this made for a good story that night. I got more than my fair share of ribbing while we dined on deep fried fish, tartar sauce, and potatoes. Jim had cranked up the volume on U.S. military tunes played by their respective marching bands. I wondered what our neighbors were thinking about us.
He started to ask me questions, this gravelly-voiced man with windworn hands.
"I heard you used to be in the military." he said. It was a typical leading question in my experience that oftentimes led to animated conversation.
I replied that I indeed had, bracing for whatever else was going to come out of his mouth. My assumption was that he was going to start railing about the so-called 'ragheads'.
Instead, the only thing he said was, "Thank you."
He went on to tell me about his friend Whitey. Whitey was more than a friend. He was Jim's mentor. Evidently they knew each other from decades before when Jim had worked as a volunteer fire fighter for his local township. Whitey was a regular and a veteran of the Korean War. Whitey had passed a few years before but he was very much alive inside of Jim, who insisted that we give him proper respect. What that entailed was each of us dumping about half of our beer onto the ground and let it soak into the earth.
He asked me a few more questions about military lore and which songs were played in the evening. I told him on our bases Colors. He invited me to look at his cds to see if I could spot them. It was going on 11 and starting to get dark out. I couldn't find it. He asked about Taps and I replied that it was played while in was in boot camp to signify lights out.
So in lieu of Colors he played Taps instead. The weather had passed and once again the water was still. As the music started playing I clumsily became stiff and took my hat off. The mournful sound of the bugle wafted over the water, only to be met in response by Canadian Loons. If you've never heard the sounds they make, they're truly unique. The voices of my ancestors resounding through this bugler and that of the loons met and danced with each other over that Lake Kashabowie, rising up in a majestic crescendo that lightened my mood profoundly.
It was simply one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard.
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pandora
Honorable
Legendary Hero
The Chosen One
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posted March 01, 2006 10:13 PM |
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Gootch, you rule 
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"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted March 02, 2006 03:21 AM |
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The_Gootch,
I don't know if it matters what I think but . . . you are a skilled writer. If you don't already have a novel on the shelf then I think it's something you should pursue. You have much to be proud of.
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted March 04, 2006 09:17 PM |
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Ahhh, the loons. Well done, sweet.
Keep going... keep going....
(BTW -- doesn't look like we're going skiing anytime soon....)
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I have menopause and a handgun. Any questions?
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted March 18, 2006 11:02 PM |
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You know this thread is one of the few things I have to keep me coming back here looking for installments. You have a new girlfriend or something? Dunno if you've noticed, but by the time you finish this story will have reached its first birthday.
Dammit, man, keep writing.
...Or call me back, and tell me the rest.
Something...
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I have menopause and a handgun. Any questions?
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The_Gootch
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
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posted March 20, 2006 10:14 PM |
bonus applied. |
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Day 4
The next morning I awoke with one of the worst hangovers in my recent memory. All the telltale symptoms were there and my headache was excruciating. What baffled me was that I hadn't even had that much to drink the night before. Jim hypothesized that it was because of the clean air but I knew better. It was simply crappy Canadian beer working it's magic.
James volunteered to give me some hangover cure he'd brought with him. I found that my contempt of people under the age of 20 was nearly limitless in that I could not believe him. Nonetheless, I needed some kind of relief and was willing to even let a witch doctor put a hole in my head and let it bleed some.
He passed me a package of some powder from some small nutritional supplement company. It turned out that Luke, James, and Jim were pretty strong believers in their products and sold them in much the same way girl scouts sell cookies. This package wasn't marketed as a hangover cure but instead as an energy supplement. The concoction when mixed with water was pretty foul tasting but amazingly it worked. Not only did it work but wow! did I feel like a million bucks. My headache completely disappeared and I was revved up to take on the entire world without the goofy feeling I got from Ephedra. I made my silent apologies to James and continued getting ready for the day.
Jim's boat had gone down the day before. It seemed to have fuel issues and a mechanic was supposed to be coming today to look at it. In the meantime, our boat was about to get overcrowded as Jeremiah came aboard.
Almost immediately we had an issue with lines. One of the yellow birds wasn't working properly and had to be reeled in. While Jeremiah went to work on it I practiced my casting. Man was I pathetic. My range varied anywhere between 6 inches to 15 yards, more often than not closer to 6 inches.
Jeremiah was having precious little luck making adjustments on the yellow bird. He bade Luke to pass him his survival knife so he could use it as a screwdriver. Echoes of use the proper tool for the job started resounding in my ears. Predictably Jeremiah slipped with the knife and put a devastating gash into his index finger.
"Ow! F*cking dad! Goddammit never f*cking sharpened the knife!" he screamed while shaking his hand.
I figured that now wasn't the time to point out to him that his dad was nowhere close to him. I also figured that pointing out to him that blaming his father for what'd he'd just done showed a marked lack of personal responsibility and was indicative of some serious personal issues.
We spent the next few hours getting a nurse to make a camp call and take a look at Jeremiah's finger. We were some fifty miles away from the nearest hospital and none of us very well wanted to make the trip if we didn't need to. Luckily the nurse was able to put on some special bandages that were specifically designed to hold cut skin together. She gave Jeremiah some gauze, bandages, and instructions on how to care for the bandages.
By that time the mechanic had shown up and replaced Jim's fuel hose. With the third boat up and running again we resumed the previous days' pairings.
Unlike the previous day today was gorgeous. The sky was perfectly cloudless and sunny. The air was crisp and dry with little breeze. And again the water had calmed down to the point of an eerie stillness.
Conversation was sparing between Luke and myself. There was precious little sound out there on the fringe of that Lake Kashabowie save the gentle humming of a trolling outboard motor and that of water hitting the shore. It was here, unfortunately, that my mind began to drift as well.
I remembered you Chris. I remembered events as they occurred; short films in my mind's eye of unresolved situations and conflicts. I saw again every tear I caused to run down your mascara streaked face. I remembered everytime your lips quivered. I remembered puffy, reddened eyes that served as stark contrasts to how they once used to shine so brightly.
I remembered how you hovered on the brink of insanity. I remembered the news that no child deserved to hear. I remembered being woken up at two in the morning by that police officer who delivered the news. You were already broken Chris, and this put you over the edge.
I remembered your senseless cruelty and jealousy. I remembered every hollow threat to divorce me when you were losing an argument. I remembered everytime you threatened to cheat on me if you didn't get your way. I remembered I remembered the shock and sting of your blows and your disapproving words.
I remembered retreating and hating you. It became too easy to do. I remembered getting lost in my own addictions. Having discovered games that had no end, there was no end to my enjoyment of such games. Heroes and Diablo2 I could play on and on while you languished in bed, incapable of taking care of yourself. With you so crazed I could mask my wrongdoings. With you so crazed I could always accept less blame for our disintegration. With you so crazed I could always be seen with a certain degree of pity and sympathy by friends, peers, and family.
I remembered when you were hospitalized Chris. I remembered the car wreck that shattered your pelvis and left you in the ICU for some thirty five days. I remembered being given time off by my command. I remembered using part of that time to sneak to into the local coffee shop just to play Heroes. Yes I did it. Even though it had been a year since I'd played I never forgot about it. I could always taste the thrill of it.
On and on I wracked my brains reliving the chaos of the previous years of my marriage.
Trolling didn't produce very many fish so we switched tactics and started to cast from shore at the bottom of a dam. Jim and James had come to the same conclusion and joined us soon after.
Whereas the fishing was dry before it was now plentiful. Walleye after Walleye jumped onto our lures. We called Jeff and Jeremiah on the radio to come on down so we could up our quota. So many were caught that soon we had to start being more discriminatory about the ones we kept.
And still I couldn't break from reliving these events. It must've shown because James even commented on it, asking why I looked so sad. I denied everything, not wishing to open up to a veritable stranger the sins of my past.
Dinner of course consisted of fish, this time baked. I ate in relative silence, not feeling like contributing to the stories of the day. We heard about Jeremiah's injury, the huge Walleye that James caught that was ALMOST a Lake record, how prolific the fish at the dam were and so on.
As I lay my head down to sleep I thought back to when I was on the boat and staring at my reflection. I could see myself perfectly there with a stupefyingly glum look on my face. I could see in that reflection in the water the sunburn I'd suffered the day before while fishing in the rain. And I remarked to myself how much I loathed that reflection in the water.
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violent_flower
Promising
Supreme Hero
Almost there.
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posted March 22, 2006 05:32 PM |
bonus applied. |
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My sole intent last night was to sit at my computer and write my research paper that is due today for psychology class. I sat down and soon discovered that had not heard the rest of your paper yet. I was only blessed with a short but reflecting piece of “Moose and Men”. So I made a strong cup of Zen tea and begun a journey onto Heroes Community, a place in which I have never been. The first part of the story sounded familiar having heard it told softly in my ear. There was a warmth and rhythm to it that made me want to go into a meditative state but yet I was so intrigued by what would take place next that I stayed awake. If any of you have read the story and think that he is talented to the magnitude that I do; imagine being held in a very sensitive manor while it is told to you with this voice that you could just melt everything.
Here it was a full-grown man going on some fishing adventure that would either scar him for life or change it as he once knew it. I have not ventured far enough into the days of the trip to say which one will for sure take it’s victory.
I held your face in my hands last night while I concluded the fourth day of the journey. I wondered if the time frame between the third and fourth day, as far as when you wrote it, was of any concern for the quick change in tone. Often if one is put in the middle of the woods with a cast such as this, he will have reflection of his life that he may attempt to erase.
Even though in the first couple of days I felt a since of fatigue from you, the fourth day holds so much more. While holding your face in my hands I could see you looking into still water and almost bypassing your reflection as if you didn’t recognize who or what that was glaring back at you with this emptiness. I laid my head on yours and just tried to be there with you as the words “loathed my reflection” came out onto the screen. This is not pity just understanding. I became ill with the thought that you could loathe anything about yourself.
I know that you feel you must take responsibly for all that has brought negativity into your life or the lives around you. I know that you probably don’t meditate about your so-called “wrongdoings”, on a daily basis. However, everyone sinks into the gloom of what they have done, but you, the Marine; I can’t even contemplate that. I have pictures of you standing up eager in the brisk mournings and ready to please. Allowing nothing to come between you and your tasks at hand. Performing for those that think nothing of you, at least not what I would qualify as worthy. This beautiful physical being that can overcome anything that is put before him at any given time. What has put him in this state of mind? Maybe a woman that once had an undeniable beauty that he fell for. After reading through a sad eye I realized how the impact of an unstable and insane relationship could bring even the most capable down.
I ponder day five with great anticipation. I have the thought that I will be reading through glassy eyes when I embark upon the next chapter. My sleep was most “fitful” last night as I lay down; my mind would not leave the page in which I had turn off so many hours prior.
I can’t wait to see you, happy writings. I can’t wait to take this journey with you and just observe you as you find a more clear reflection of yourself.
“ (Author's note: If some Canuck dares interrupt this story to tell me the difference between firs and pines I'm going to stab them in the eyeball with a Maple Leaf).” I will not tell the difference between the two greens as I like to see and I wish not for my eyes to be pierced with a Maple Leaf. Thanks for that author’s note because I don’t think it could have been written any more direct. I noticed that no one tried to fly any definitions your way. I thought that I would pass out form laughter.
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted March 23, 2006 03:15 AM |
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Hmm . . .
Quote:
I begun a journey onto Heroes Community, a place in which I have never been.
I wonder . . .
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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
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The_Gootch
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
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posted March 23, 2006 01:30 PM |
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Quote:
I wonder . . .
Don't even think about it.
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violent_flower
Promising
Supreme Hero
Almost there.
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posted March 23, 2006 02:08 PM |
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What are we thinking about?
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted March 23, 2006 03:31 PM |
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The_Gootch
Are you telling me you never thought about wearing pantyhose in your sleep? Somehow I don't believe that!
LoL! . . . methinks
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Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
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violent_flower
Promising
Supreme Hero
Almost there.
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posted March 24, 2006 01:13 AM |
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Quote:
Are you telling me you never thought about wearing pantyhose in your sleep? Somehow I don't believe that!
I think that he may perfer not to. Something makes me think that you may. Tell me you don't have a sick pantyhose fetish...........
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted March 25, 2006 09:27 PM |
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Quote:
I can’t wait to see you, happy writings. I can’t wait to take this journey with you and just observe you as you find a more clear reflection of yourself.
Now wait just a goddammed minute here. Who is this woman horning in on my action, and where does she get off writing my post for me?
And that wasn't even the worst of it...Quote:
I held your face in my hands last night.....
...GRRRRRRRRR....
Oh, and Consis --
Quote:
Quote:
I begun a journey onto Heroes Community, a place in which I have never been.
I wonder . . .
If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, no, it wasn't me. Although at moments reading the post, I myself began (not begun) to wonder at some points. However, note the use of commas (or lack thereof), green tea and the psychology paper elements (not to mention the past-tense of "begin." No offense, violent flower.)
Gootch: what's up with this thing with women who haven't even met you in person wanting so desperately to touch your face?
violent flower: I for one am here to tell you, that compulsion is greatly manified when in the physical presence of the man. My sympathies, especially if you're ever stricken by the mixed blessing of actually looking into the man's eyes. Their weepy-blue, piercing sadness stands in complete contradiction to every other well-hardened aspect of him. Here to tell ya, he's utterly merciless in the nicest of ways. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. In the eyes of no other man have I ever seen it to be truer.
Sweet: knowing enough of this story in RL as I do, I am concerned, given the last time you fell this silent for this long. Sure would like to know what's going on over there. And if you want me to refrain from getting so personal in a public forum you'd better let me know.
BTW, clearly there's not much to add to violent flower's post. Both of your posts leave me fairly speechless, but I'm sure you've got a good idea of the general effect. Let's just say that, as you can surely imagine, I'm holding back -- way back. But thanks for at least keeping the installments coming so we (I) know you're still alive.
Now I am assuming that you will launch straightaway into the fifth installment without responding to any of us, since (I also assume) you are refraining from contributions to the break in flow here. Sorry if we're doing that. But take it as a compliment that it is extremely difficult to refrain from commenting on it. Just make another soon to minimize further interruptions.
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted March 25, 2006 09:43 PM |
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... Uh Oh....Quote:
If any of you have read the story and think that he is talented to the magnitude that I do; imagine being held in a very sensitive manor while it is told to you with this voice that you could just melt everything.
Wait a minute. Is she saying what I think she's saying?
{GULP} Oops.
Maybe that's why you've fallen so silent...
Does this mean we aren't confidants anymore? -- No more help with the hot flashes, eh?
Sorry I didn't read more carefully the first time...
Guess I'll seeya around.
{Slinks off toward The Tavern, heart-broken and fairly thoroughly depressed}
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The_Gootch
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
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posted March 29, 2006 09:02 PM |
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Day 5
Today was going to be a change from the previous two. Today was going to be a day of exploration. Today was going to be a day of brotherly bonding.
Jeremiah, Luke, and James decided they wanted to check out some distant lake they'd heard that had great fishing. Jim wanted to find the lake that Whitey had introduced him to so many decades ago. It had been ten years since he'd been there but that didn't faze him.
The three brothers piled up into the SUV and took off. Jim, Jeff, and I grabbed our own gear and left in the Shaggin' Wagon. That we didn't take a boat puzzled me.
"I'm a bit confused. How're we going to you know, navigate the water when we get to wherever we're going." I said.
"We're gonna borrow some boats." replied Jim. "They've been left behind for years by this hunting lodge that Whitey used to be a member of. So we're gonna grab a few boatplugs and our outboards and see if any of'em are still any good."
"Borrow? You mean steal?" I asked rather incredulously. I guess I wasn't up to speed on boat etiquette.
"It's only stealing if you get caught or don't return'em." said Jim. "Since neither's gonna happen, we're just borrowing'em."
I had a short vision of being locked in a Canadian jail and interrogated by mounties. I looked over at Jeff and took by his silence that he didn't seem to mind. Heck, if these two didn't think of it as a big deal, why should I?
We drove a few miles down the highway, trying to repeat Tony's directions to ourselves. We missed our exit point and continued driving until we hit a bridge. Mind you, bridge's are no big deal. But this one had a sign posted right next to it stating the bridge was due for demolition in about a week's time. We ignored it and carried on.
The road we were on seemed to be a lumber path. It was unpaved and rutted from vehicles much larger than ours. The scenery we happened upon was fairly bleak. Entire forests had been ravaged here. There were stumps all around us, puddles of water, and woodchips; nothing but woodchips to be seen.
We drove in circles for some twenty minutes. Nothing seemed familiar to Jim and the roads were getting treacherous. On more than one occasion Jeff and I got out of the van to try to keep it from bottoming out over a pothole and possibly breaking an axle. I couldn't believe I was offroading in a freaking family van.
Standing on this ground, I started noticing more things about the landscape. It was quiet here, eerily quiet. Without trees for the birds to perch on, there was precious little chirping. There were piles of dung everywhere. Jim explained to me the difference between moose and bear [scat], saying the black piles were bear and the brown pebbles were moose. Some seemed too fresh and recent for my taste and I started getting nervous.
Our frustration got the best of us and we moved to get out of there. In doing so, we passed a paved road that we'd ignored previously because it didn't fit with Tony's directions. Sure enough we took it and drove right smack dab into the dropoff point.
"Goddamn Canadians!" Jim bellowed. "f***ers use the goddamn metric system! Why the f*** didn't he just give it to us in kilometers! What the f*** do they know about miles!"
We agreed and proceeded to discuss that the only problem with Canada was its inhabitants. Remove them and you have a pretty good country.
And so we stood there at the edge of a stream. The water was some 4-6 feet deep and was moving at a pretty good clip. There was no bridge to speak of over it. There were only a few rather thin logs lashed together. To move across it we were going to have to put a foot on each log. Great.
I quickly found out that taking both outboards at once did wonders for my traction and sense of balance. Sure my shoulders screamed in protest, seeing as how I'd not done anything to maintain my conditioning over the previous six months. But I felt comfortable and secure in my grip on those logs.
Jeff put on his chest waders and insisted on getting some kind of walking stick to help support him across. I had not seem someone look so doddering and weak in a long time. He was hunched over and moved at an extremely slow pace. Nor did he help stage gear to the other side. Unbeknownst to me, Jim was quietly judging him.
Poles, lures, food, motors, everything was moved across in a deliberate fashion. Jim asked me to go on ahead and hook to my left to see if the boats were locked up. Some of them were yes, but not all of them. This simplified our job of picking and choosing.
Jeff and I were going to share a boat and Jim was going to solo in his. Since he'd been here before he volunteered to take point. This setup changed quickly after he struck his first rock. It was one of those sudden, violent reactions between boat and obstacle. The bow was lifted up several feet in the air and came crashing back down. When he dislodged the boat he motioned us to get beside him.
"Go ahead and take point you two. Logan, you're gonna need to keep a close eye on the water. You're going to be our eyes for this."
What came next for me was a crash course in obstacle avoidance. I could use my arms to motion which direction to go. I could use the oar supplied to me to help us steer clear of all the nasties just floating beneath the surface of the water. Periodically Jeff would sound off the depth of the water, getting apprehensive everytime his depthfinder registered six feet or below.
The air was crisp and fresh. There was a gentle breeze and the sun blessed us with its warmth. The water too was still. I reached down to touch it while we were in motion, closed my eyes, and just felt myself getting lost in all of my senses.
We turned into a tributary that went nowhere. The channel was almost completely choked off and a felled tree blocked our way. We took the hint and turned around.
Eventually the stream opened up into the lake. Water is water and trees are trees but this place felt even more serene than Lake Kashabowie. Immediately we started trolling.
Nothing was biting here for me. Jeff was getting mixed results. He caught one fish around a dropoff and decided to try and milk it for what it was worth. Jim hadn't caught much of anything the entire trip but that didn't seem to faze him. Even with his sunglasses on, I could see the look of contentment on his face everytime we passed him by. And it was only then I started to really understand the romanticism regarding fishing.
Mosquitos were eating me alive. I remembered Jim's advice regarding them and lit up a cigar. Sure enough, they stopped harrassing me.
And so for the next several hours we relaxed on those waters. There was precious little conversation between Jeff and I save helpful tips from him here and there. Eventually we decided we'd had enough and started heading back.
The trip back was uneventful save the effeminate baying of a moose in the distance. I wouldn't have recognized it if Jim hadn't pointed it out to me. Jeff and I still had to get out every now and then to shed weight for the van while it was navigating particularly large holes.
So we arrived back at camp. The boys hadn't come back yet. And we waited. And waited. We'd no idea what was going on and decided to go ahead and start dinner.
And still they didn't come back. In fact, they didn't get into camp until well after midnight. Jim didn't even get a chance to start yelling before they started blurting out what happened.
"Oh my god! I thought we were going to die out there!"
"You should've seen the fish! They were practically jumping into the boat!"
"It was Luke's fault! He was the navigator and got us lost!"
"Dude, I started crying when I thought we were going to have to sleep out in the boat!"
"There was this crazy drunk guy who shot his boats through the rapids man! Freaking awesome!"
"Seriously, I thought we were going to have to flip the boat and sleep under it tonight!"
On and on for the next ten minutes did they regale us with their tale, never once giving each other a chance to speak. When their collective adrenalin rush started wearing away, we started getting a clearer story of what happened.
Jeremiah took it upon himself to tell the tale.
"We followed Tony's directions and found this tiny road leading to a staging point. You could tell that noone ever went this way because of all the branches from the trees scratching the hell out of the rental." He said.
"So we got to this lake and tried to find a stream that led to a dam. But we were going upstream and there were some rapids. James had to drag the boat through the rapids and meet us on the other side."
"And when I was dragging the boat through this, some dude just came screaming down the rapids, whooping it up!" James interjected.
"So we found the dam and had to carry the boat and the gear up this path. I'd say it was a little more than a hundred yards or so." Jeremiah continued. "We dropped in , navigated a stream, and came upon this huuuuuge lake. And as soon as we started casting our lines the fish were biting."
"What kind of fish?" asked Jim with no small degree of envy.
"Lake Trout. White Fish. The biggest snakes(Northern Pike) we've seen so far."
"What happened though?" asked Jim, showing his concern for his boys.
"When it came time for us to start heading back, Luke had no idea where we were. He looked at the map and couldn't figure out anything. And it went like this literally for hours. We drove around trying to find the stream. Well, it started getting dark and I just grabbed the map from him and started remembering my orienteering from boy scouts." said Jeremiah. "It took me awhile but you know, I had my compass out and was checking out the contours of the land and comparing it to the map. I told Luke to go this way and *bam* we found the stream. Had it gotten any darker we would've been completely screwed."
"We so gotta go back dad! It was awesome!" said Luke. "But not tomorrow. We're wiped."
"How 'bout Thursday then?" said their old man.
"Cool."
"Sweet."
"Let's do it."
"We'll bring some flashlights too." They all chirped in chorus.
"So yeah. Thursday we'll do that and tomorrow we'll just hang around Kashabowie." said Jim.
"Let's get drunk!" said James.
It sounded like a great idea but one beer later we were all in the sack, recharging our batteries in preparation for what tomorrow was going to bring.
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted March 31, 2006 07:55 PM |
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Quote:
...a crash course in obstacle avoidance...
... Interesting choice of terms, extremely clever use of redundancy. It creates quite an image though.
Can't wait to hear what happens next.
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I have menopause and a handgun. Any questions?
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted April 18, 2006 03:37 PM |
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You should take up narrative journalism, Gootchie, it would make the field worth reading again.
Keep it coming.
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Drive by posting.
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violent_flower
Promising
Supreme Hero
Almost there.
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posted April 18, 2006 10:27 PM |
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Quote:
You should take up narrative journalism, Gootchie, it would make the field worth reading again.
Keep it coming.
I think that you are correct, the fact that it would make the field worth reading. I would love to read about him and his idealisms. Even though we speak on the phone there is something to be said for the way that he writes. I have had the pleasure to read some fantasy material of his. I have to say that fantasy does not intrigue my mind as fully as reality does. I can’t live in the fantasy world, as when reality hits I feel that I would be unarmed. I undoubtedly enjoy reading his writings and look forward to the next page….
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