I must admit the thought of drilling a hole into a frozen lake and waiting to catch a bunch of little perch didn’t appeal to me until he started coming home with some nice sized Northern Pike. Unlike perch which I think aren’t worth cleaning, the pike are large enough to fillet and make a […]
Grandpa Davey
There are No Coincidences
On Black Friday, in a tremendously long line, we pondered how the Friday after Thanksgiving would be in New York City. We imagined trampling crowds of people fighting others for good deals. Not expecting ever to really find out, we dismissed the thought. Today, there is an article in the newspaper about a man who […]
Locke Machines
Clutching the tubular steel frame with my left hand, I prepared to break loose the component frozen to the corroded assembly. With calculated movements, my right hand first swung back the 48 oz. maul and then let loose with a full swing toward the recalcitrant part. What went wrong, I do not know. The full […]
Surrogates
With the recent presidential election and economic turmoil, I am reminded of a lesson learned over two centuries ago in Massachusetts. We all know the story of a group of disgruntled citizens dressing up as Native Americans and throwing boxes of tea into Boston Harbor. Free people want to choose where to spend their hard-earned […]
Choices
Recently, a young man considering the path he will take into adulthood questioned me concerning my occupational choices. Given the opportunity, would I repeat them? I replied that I have been most fortunate to work among good people and have engaged in many endeavors that I would have been happy to do without pay. This […]
No Sense at All
Here’s a story that some find quite humorous, not like ha ha, but funny because it’s not funny. Be prepared to travel through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your […]
Lost in the Grand Canyon
Reading Sweet Mom’s article on the missing hiker reminded me of my own frightful experience of being lost in the outdoors. I shall relate the story of these adventures and the precaution I now take to prevent future occurrences. November 23, 1979, was a cold and dreary day. We were camped in Kisatchie National Forest, […]
Ticket to Freedom
What do you want to do when you grow up? If you have an answer to this question, it will never change. The years will bring plenty of justifications and excuses, but the child within you knows the truth. My dream was to be a mountain man, alone in the wilderness. The plan was […]
Poverty Point
Sitting here pondering our lost past, I witness evidence of a dynamic planet that leaves little of the past intact. Surrounded by the mountains, I sit next to a lazy late summer river, gazing across wheat fields in the flat lower valley. I realize that this is but a temporary face shown during our experience […]
Queer Creatures
What queer creatures we are! Purely on hearsay do we accept, as factual, concepts that are utterly incomprehensible to the senses we experience this universe through. We accept that strangers have done the research and if something sounds good then it becomes part of our reality. Several years ago, while on sabbatical, I realized […]