Fishing Stories

Earlier this month I went to Ontario Canada fishing. Last February here in Columbus, my friend Denny and I  first met John the owner of a fly in fishing camp. We were in a bar, across from the convention center and the Easyrider Motorcycle show, and we was drinkin’. Go figure. John had a booth at the Vacation show in a different part of the convention center trying to drum up business for his camp and had come into the bar for a few beers and hot wings.

John told us about his fishing camp, gave us his website information and the price. They would give us a cabin, with all the amenities (pots, stove, fridge, toilet and shower, beds, linens, etc), a boat with motor and fish finder, and the float plane ride to get there all for $870 apiece for a week. We had to provide our own food. That sounded ridiculously cheap…I mean quite reasonable. Later I looked at the website, liked what I saw and decided to go. So did Denny. So we signed up.

The fishing was good, once we figured it out. We caught mostly walleye. We ate a lot of walleye, too. It was fantastic. Denny caught the most fish, but I caught the largest one. The scenery was gorgeous. The cabin was clean and entirely functional. John and his wife Shannon, the owners were wonderful. We spent an extra hundred dollars each and upgraded to the bigger, faster, newer, much more comfortable boat and thought it well worth the extra cost. Aside from both of us getting a stomach bug, which I am still feeling the effects of a couple of weeks later, we had a great time. I’ll go back again next summer.

It isn’t really the fishing week itself I want to share with you but two stories from our drive there. To get to the float plane in Hornepayne, Ontario is nearly 800 miles or 13 hours with limited stops from Columbus. Since we had to catch the plane at 7:30 on Sunday morning, we decided to drive up in two stages starting on Friday, so we could be in Hornepayne on Saturday. It’s a small town, about 1,000 people, and the only place to get a room for the night is Uncle’s Restaurant and Lodge. I made a reservation for us for a two person cabin there for Saturday night. We planned on stopping on Friday night on the US side at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (pronounced Sue Saint Marie) which is a little more than halfway there.  Having been been to Soo (as the locals call it) before, I knew it had a number of hotels and motels, so I didn’t bother to get a reservation.

To properly tell this story, you need to understand that with Denny and me and all the other boys from the bar most of the really good stories start with “We was drinkin’...” You will notice this rant did just that. The first little story I want to tell, however, starts with “We wanted to be drinkin’…” So our priority on Friday night in Sault Ste. Marie was to find a hotel that either had a bar or was within walking distance of one.

We drove down hotel strip and finally found the perfect spot, the Studebaker Restaurant and Lounge sandwiched between a Days Inn and some other similar type motel. Yippee! We stopped at the Days Inn, said “give us each a room”, and the nice clerk said “ain’t got any.” Neither did the place on the other side. None of the other motels and hotels in town had rooms either. Who knew they were having some sort of baseball tournament that weekend and all the hotels were sold out? Finally at the Best Western, which was charging $90 a night before tax for a room they didn't have, the clerk said maybe we should try the Indian Casino 4 miles or so outside of town. She said they might have rooms but were likely to be expensive. Now, it was 6 pm, we hadn't had our first cocktail/beer yet, and we did not want to backtrack 45 miles to Mackinaw or cross over into Canada. We decided to give the casino a shot.

Sure enough, the casino had rooms. Denny’s first question upon learning they had two rooms for us was not “how much” but “is there a bar on premises?” The answer was “Yes, of course, we have three bars.”  Okay, we’ll take two rooms and we don’t care how much they cost. The clerk signs us in then charges us each $60 per room for the night. Outstanding! That beat the Best Western by $30. And, for staying there this weekend, she said she was giving us each $10 in gambling credits loaded onto special debit cards. Cool.

We checked into our rooms, quickly cleaned up and hit the first of the three bars. A couple of drinks there, and we moved on to the second bar. It had video poker games built into the bar and Denny won about $30. I played $10, lost it and quit. After a couple more drinks, we moved to the third bar. Denny won another $30 at poker. I didn’t play. A couple more drinks in the third bar, and we went back to the first bar. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Finally at about midnight, I suggested we spend our $10 of free gambling credits and then go to bed, since we were both about to fall down anyway. We staggered around until we found the special slot machines for our free credits; how we found them only heaven knows. I could not for the life of me get my fuddled up brain to figure out how to get the credits off the card and into the slot machine, and ended up just sort of staring at the whole mess thinking I ought to go to bed if only I could remember where my room was. Finally a fellow comes along pushing a broom. I grabbed him and somehow explained I needed help, my English was not so good at this point. But he was a nice fellow and he helped me get the money into the machine and showed me how to bet and what buttons to push.

I pushed the button nine times and nine times I lost. I had one credit left and sort of flippantly slapped the button to set the tumbler rolling. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! I hit a jackpot! $126. I grabbed the janitor dude, gave him a hug and a $20 bill and staggered off to bed.

Denny and I left for Canada the next morning with vicious hangovers but silly smiles on our faces. We had both paid for our rooms, and in my case all of my drinking, with our winnings at a casino we hadn’t planned to visit but did because I hadn’t bothered to make an easy hotel reservation. That’s called falling into the fish cleaning station and coming up smelling like basil.

The second mini-story does begin with “We was drinkin’...” but that is only peripheral to the story.

We made it to Hornepayne and got checked into our two person cabin. We then proceeded to settle on the small porch and have some cocktails, in my case vodka and Denny had beer. We were into our 3^rd or 4^th round when a small SUV packed with five guys screeches to a halt in front of our cabin. 

A young bearded fellow sticks his head out the front passenger window and yells, “We’re the beer patrol. We’re on the lookout for beers. You seen any?”

Denny says, “Yep, got one right here.” Holding his bottle up for all to see.

“Lots of beers hereabouts this time of year,” the fellows says.

“Glad to hear it,” Denny responds.

The young man gestures to the back seat and hollers, “My pop just got a really big beer!”

“Mine is just regular size,” Denny replies, shaking his head sadly, clearly demonstrating that it's never good to have to admit size limitations.

“Well, we gotta go check for beers on the other side of town. Folks here are counting on the beer patrol,” and with that they roared off.

“Good luck!” Denny yells after them. 

He and I were laughing our asses off by that point. It was more than just funny how the young man’s accent made “bear” sound like “beer.” Because, it seemed to us that The Patrol was finding plenty of the latter that evening.

How Festival Can You Go?

I went to ComFest this past weekend in a park in the heart of gayville near downtown Columbus.  I’m told it is the last free festival in the Midwest. It was started by a bunch of hippies way back when to celebrate something or other. They would play music, smoke some righteous weed, sell candles and tie died T-shirts to each other and generally, you know, “fest.”

That’s still pretty much what it’s about today, only they’re the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd now and not nearly so festive. It’s all a little sad. Today’s “Occupiers” are no more coherent or sensible than the drugged out hippies of my youth. But the message is much less friendly. Instead of “make love not war” it is “we hate capitalism and America.”  Though I noticed they were nicking gullible shoppers $20-25 for a badly tie died t-shirt. You don’t even want to know what the patchouli scented candles cost.

While walking through the park, we were regaled by a speaker on the stage. He was mostly on a rant about voting and the vast right wing conspiracy. He made some really interesting observations about the Electoral College, to wit: 

•  It was created to disenfranchise all voters, but more especially those who agreed with him (Democrats, progressives and liberals) than it does to Republicans and Conservatives.

• It was created to have an effect on the outcome of an election only in swing states, and he was here to tell us that Ohio is a swing state.

• One of its main purposes, disenfranchisement and swings states aside, was to allow southern slave owners the ability to vote for their slaves and thus rig the election, which they are still doing today, the South being more conservative than the rest of the country.

Honest, he really said these things. It was not clear how exactly he came to believe that the Founding Fathers understood that 200+ years later Ohio would be in a position to affect the election, or indeed that there would be a state called Ohio. Nor did he explain how those racist southern conservatives, who just a generation ago were the staunchest of Democrats, were still stealing elections by voting their slaves. But in fairness, his first point wasn’t so far off.  The Founders motivation for creating the Electoral College really was because they feared stupid voters in large numbers. This fellow and his friends are surely lending credence to the Founders’ point.

He went off on electronic voting machines. What he seemed to be saying, or as best I could parse it, is that they are rigged. Apparently the machines are programmed to not count the votes of those who agree with the speaker. Of course, what I just said in two sentences, it took him several minutes and about a thousand words to relate.  On its surface what he had to say was, shall we say, far fetched, considering that Democrats win elections all the time.  On the other hand, he may have been onto a far reaching and subtle Conservative conspiratorial plot. What if these Democratic wins, like in 2006 and 2008, are nothing more than part of a plan to lull honest peace loving Democrats, progressives and liberals into a sort of drugged-like euphoria before swooping in with rigged voting machines and destroying them forever? Figuratively at the ballot box I mean. If only.

He did make one statement and exhortation to the crowd, who for the most part were agreeing with most of what he had to say, that I had to wholeheartedly agree with. In reference to the electronic voting machines, he told the crowd not to waste their time voting because it wouldn’t count anyway. Here’s to hoping they all do as he suggests.

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I was typing some notes the other day and I came across one of those typos that make you stop and think.

Is “reslut” a noun or verb? I don’t think it can be a preposition, though I suppose as a conjunction it entertains some possibilities. Does it mean it is false to say: once a slut always a slut? What is the cause of sluttish recidivism?  Is it possible for one person to reslut another, or is it entirely a self imposed condition? Are original sluts more expensive or valuable than resluts, like unblemished cars cost more than repaired ones? Does it take the same level or amount of behavior to become a reslut as it does a slut in the first place? Think of it like falling off the wagon: how many drinks does it take?

I certainly would enjoy hearing your thoughts about this whole reslut thing.

I Just Want to Thank...

I was talking to my friend Clark the other day. As we were finishing up, he did not fail to do that which he has done every time we have talked for the last two years. You see, Clark retired two years ago. He draws a pension or two, and Social Security retirement benefits. As always, he thanked me for continuing to work and pay my taxes, especially my FICA tax so that there would still be money in the Social Security system from which he could continue to draw his retirement benefit.

Now, you can say a great many things about Clark, but ungrateful is not one of them. Nor is not knowing on which side of the bed his golden goose is buttered or forgetting to grease its gears. (That is such a convoluted comparative metaphor I just couldn’t help myself; see if you can keep up with it.)

It is great fun and a yuck or two every time he says it.

But it got me thinking, and ranting, which is the whole point, right?

Who among all the recipients of entitlements, such as welfare, public union retirement benefits, food stamps, and cash for clunkers has bothered to thank you for paying taxes so that they could collect those benefits? I have never been in the checkout line at the grocery store and ever once heard, “I just want to thank you for paying the taxes that pay for the food stamps I’m using to buy food for my babies.”

If that has happened to anyone reading this, I want to hear about it. But, frankly, I don’t know of a single case.

Has the United Autoworkers Union or the AFL-CIO ever run an ad thanking us tax payers for bailing out Chrysler and GM and all the other related companies so they could keep their jobs and continue to earn a living? I haven’t heard one. They did give plenty of money to the Wisconsin recall elections by all accounts. Oh, and they continue to give generously to Democratic political campaigns. But, sadly, not a single published thank you to the rest of us who made all of that possible.

At least if you drop some coins in the Salvation Army bucket you get a mumbled “Thanks” or at least a nod from the guy ringing the bell. Even the homeless guys mumble thank you as they get a bowl of soup in the food line.

While we are on the subject of takers, did you ever see a politician run an ad after the election thanking all the people who voted for him? I haven’t. Many of them still have lots of money in the campaign fund, but do you think they will spend 1/1000^th of the amount on a thank you that they spent on pleading for your vote?

The next time you run into someone who is drawing unemployment, or food stamps, or welfare, or is even a government employee, subtly ask them if they are thankful for it. See if they say they are thankful and why. I suspect they won’t. And if they do, it will have nothing to do with us honest, hardworking tax payers. Cynical, I know. But, just you do it and let’s see.