It was a fairly warm day and as usual, filled with the Saturday fall preparations. My son went up on the roof to clean the chimney and meanwhile I had assembled the brush and extensions. It went smoothly and next it was time to empty out the accumulation of flaked creosote, take down the parlor stovepipe and clean it on the shop floor with my special ‘tricks’ of extracting the brush. Clean up the nasty black and combine it with the dirt falling off the tiller on the back of the trusty diesel. John Deere of course. I took apart everything, Built a fire and warmed up the parlor stove. Put stuff away, cleaned the gutters (might as well, the ladder was still there) I sat alone, ruminating on my first deer hunt, 40 years ago when I moved here. Local boys gave me a 30-30 and told me to stand up on the pine ridge behind a tree, in the dark. It was very cold in 1976 and the lake over the hill was frozen solid.
I heard a sound of the ice cracking that sounded like a whale booming. I was shocked and decided to come in and get warm. Today, my youngest son went out before sunset as I was building the fire and taking care of the chores. I heard the shot. Another one shortly after that was a coup D grace. A nice four point buck and as I write this, off to the local German meat shop. Julie went with (she missed a nice doe) and they will be back soon with the old ford pickup, a little blood on the bed with the rust and the tailgate that miraculously, still works.
It’s meat on the table and my son phoned and said don’t touch his 7.62, there is a round stuck in the chamber. I think I’ll have another glass of wine and ruminate on the day. A good day as usual.
I am not sure how it goes with the weekend folks (referred to a cottagers when we met some Superior islanders) They mean well and pay dearly to live over the hill on the lake. Sometimes they ask politely if they can hunt on our acreage. It’s hard to have a half acre to enjoy the north woods tranquility. They bring fireworks and we enjoy our firearms. Good city folks that want what we have too. There is neighbor to neighbor stuff between us and it is amazing what a home made jar of dill pickles will do to open up a relationship with them.
We love living here with all our garden pests and firewood foraging. The incredible roof raking and driveway snow blowing. ‘Powers out again’ Trundle the generator down to the power panel and do the loud clack of the transfer switch. Plug in the pickup and Sunday morning, the drive into the city church campus to join the prayer team. Learning the most important thing we are here for. Love the Lord God with all my heart, all my soul and with all my mind. From the womb to our face to face, known and loved by the creator of all these things.
Love my neighbor indeed, I am doing my best as I learn. Even though their kids drive their UTV’s loud and fast down our road. City folks, you gotta love em’ and they Love our Lord too. It’s pretty good, Jack Gator
There is no explanation that works for anyone. Who can explain life adequately to us?
The age old question that stares us down when we are realize we know nothing about life. Why? Is there any reason for the evil that has occurred to me or anyone for that matter. The senseless deaths, the wars of unbelievable savagery and mayhem. Our own thoughts of indecent behavior and revenge against the ones who have wounded us within our very core. Lust seems to fit the thoughts I have. For everything. Power, riches, prestige, fame and the fawning over me by myself. Astonishment that I am not at the least famous, elevated by the very talent I have been given since birth. Music and poetry that flows almost effortlessly.
Why am I seen as so good when I know every day I am not. I envy the man’s wealth that appears to be stealing everything I crave. Even relatives that have finagled my inheritance. The worst revenge is against someone long dead that deserves my curses and at the least, my disappointment and poverty or worse yet, the wounds that lie deep within my hypothalamus.
Fear and anger all mixed together from someone that abused or seemed to want to kill or maim my very being. Who indeed has planted that deadly garden within me?
The blossoms of deadly nightshade that always seem so beautiful and right and beckon me to indulge in a glance and embrace. They bloom once again, deep within me and seem so clear, and yet unknown when they disappear and leave behind wreckage from my speech and thought.
Lately, there have been moments and astonishing thoughts that delight and surprise me with the obvious correct behavior I do. Not my usual modus operandi. Why did I say or do that? The only explanation is a whisper of beauty that overwhelms within. A very quiet and almost still voice that obviously is not usual but is embraced as right and true within my very given core.
“It’s all good. You are weaving the tapestry of things we cannot see. It’s all good.” A.
I must bury myself in the one who died and rose again. I can’t get around myself without Him. It’s the way it is. The creator of all things that is the truth, even faced with evil and wonder.
“What is truth?” was asked of Him many times and yet we listen to the evil that sits close by and whispers to us from the beginning of time. Our freedom to choose life or death given by our creator allows this whisper to once again get in our way and try to seduce with lies.
“Did God really say?” You know who he is. Now listen to the quiet and right voice that is now holding his arms wide open and always loving you. Welcoming you when you turn your minds sight to see him. Put on the robe and the ring indeed for once again we have listened to truth. A sigh of beauty appearing.
I encourage and almost shout it to myself and everyone. Listen and hear the voice of Jesus who loves us.
Jack Gator A. Chris Tofilonphoto courtesy of Peterson Garden
Drinking my morning coffee and I sit in warmth and I see the wood, dry and split and stacked in the shed that I see as I gaze from the kitchen windows. It’s close by, that firewood. Wheel barrow close.
Cut and split by my son’s strength As he provides for the old home, living with his old folks that live there.
The aging and leaking radiator was replaced with a beauty as now the kitchen and rooms put forth heat accompanying the parlor stove glowing with the dry wood creating fires warmth.
I see the winter’s cold from the north wind. And now the shops are warm too, as he labored with skill to make the furnaces there bow to his strength and will.
He loves us and works on the homestead that our family grew in, Someday it will belong to our son. Now he cares for us and we will pass it on to him. The old farm with barn and fences and a chicken coop too. Solid shops full of tools.
The country ways, well and good, as it always has been through time, with neighbors close by Who know us and love us as they visit with the good excuses, “have you any eggs to buy?”
That old farm, where the family has lived as a half century passed by. It will be passed on to our son and some day we will pass on to the lover of our souls that knows us all
We worship our Lord together who indwells our hearts as we truly love one another. A song about the one full of grace and truth, someday he will come for you. “Oh the beauty of the Man.” (Tim Reimherr) Jack Gator
Our choice, always our choice. Hide from life and truth or go into the secret place and connect with the Truth and seek His presence and listen and speak of our fears.
As in the garden, they were hiding from their fear. Listening to the author of fear. We do this, I do this and must be aware that instead of hiding, I must go to the beautiful place in the garden and talk with Jesus about my trembling self.
Our lives now are filled with anxiety and exhaustion. The world is darkening and death is looming upon the holy land of Israel. It is ramping up our usual lives of the lack of funds and time to do everything we need to do. Everything, including the best things which lie before us that seem out of reach. Life in the garden can be exhausting. Weeding, planting, tending and worry about growth and the elements that seem to conspire against us. We fail to see the wisdom and guidance that shows us every step on that highway of Holiness. Staying steady and trusting all circumstance.
Our lives seem chaotic and opposed by the world. We worry and rush about and exhaust ourselves instead of going into the secret place and listening to the master gardener. We both have a go-to secret place on our land. A small and cozy prayer cabin, overlooking a very small lake near our western property line is Julie’s place. Mine is up on the south hill with rows of large pines. They are in long rows, with a level path down one row. At the beginning of that row is a bench made of green treat wood. My son, Soren, built it for me. I can complain and weep and listen there. Little hard to do when it is filled with snow and below zero though. There is a wood stove in the prayer cabin. A trudge through thick snow which gets blown to the ridge above it. After that, it’s snowshoes for Julie and tough sledding on boots for me. Worth it IF there is a fire already lit! I am lazy and don’t do it if I can sit by the fire in our parlor.
Julie and I decided to go to another secret place that we share on Thursday night. It is a small place of worship on Sundays. We set out a cell phone and put on a live session of intercession from a place we have been. It was a worship set of worship with the Word from iHOPKC and it was calming.
We began to pray for our nation, the war overseas in the Holy land of our Savior Jesus. More fear and voices that say many things. Fear among the lovers of the living God and those that do not. As it grew dark through the windows and our prayer began to ask for the true Life that exposes darkness.
There was a whisper, a presence of movement. We were alone in the room and were not alone. A rustle felt as someone walked by, a puff of air moving close by. We both felt it and our prayers went on for several hours. It was time to go home and speak about these things in the car.
There were more requests for prayer to combat weariness among our friends and leaders in the area. We know the answer to them all. Trust, and pray to the living God. It’s pretty good. Norm
“Have you seen the ad? Forty acres with a farm and a good well! Dug by Jacob’s Water Worx!, only 400 thousand and it’s fenced! Good water”
I have it on good account that the reality was owned by old Lot and his wife was running it. Business was brisk and sales were definitely up. People were streaming in because the listings were somewhat affordable and life was easier there too. Actually, life there was steaming hot and there were no laws against red light districts. Good restaurants and night life along with friendly neighborhoods that weren’t so judgmental.
It was the new age of Dionysian life we have all dreamed about. No more morals, no more books, no more preacher’s dirty looks!
Lot’s S & G reality came upon some real hard times and the city it was in did not fare well. It was destroyed utterly according to the Smithsonian by an exploding meteorite at two and a half miles above. It caused winds of up to 740 miles per hour and hot sulfur from the explosion destroyed what was left of the two cities. (Sodom and Gomorrah)
There were several branch offices in those two towns and they did not fare well either. No one lives there now. Recent archaeological digs have turned up some corroborating facts, somewhat, about the disaster. There are not any documents from those cities that have been discovered either. One old S & G reality sign was said to be jammed into the salt sea which is quite a ways away. The winds aloft perhaps put it there.
There was mentioned in the Smithsonian magazine a curious fact: A large deposit of salt has been discovered among the ruins of those 2 cities.
Lot’s wife was very concerned about the realty franchises when she and Lot ran for their lives. History from a very old book of the Bible (Chapter 1) tells of her fate. She paused, turned and looked upon the devastation and turned into a pillar of salt. Interesting ‘coincidence of the Smithsonian’s teams discovery of a large salt deposit. The very old book referred to this remnant of the wife as a ‘pillar of salt’ Nothing about the size of her demise.
The realty was continued by Lot’s two grandsons, Moab and Ammon. They settled in two different countries and are not available for comment. Rumor has it that the ‘good life’ of S & G went on for some time where the brothers settled. Family traditions.
Enjoy the analysis thanks to the Smithsonian for confirmation of an old story. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator
It began with an invite from Norm’s friend, the one he really met in a hospital. That’s in another column, ‘A battle for individual worth’ When that friend says something to Norm, it’s important and he listens.
This time was over a food truck Gyro. A casual remark about a gathering near their homes. About a mile or so away at the Trade Lake Swedish Mission church Up on a hill from the one time bustling community of Trade Lake.
A picnic/potluck was promised and Norm got mildly interested. “It’s next Saturday. Pick me up, I’ll be waiting at the door” Norm looked it up with a quick search of the paper archive (the one Norm used write for). The time was listed as well as the main speaker. He was a former pastor of his for 10 years and the mild interest turned into a firm draw. Since Norm and Julie had a pretty successful garden that year, It seemed good to pick and slice up some ripe tomatoes and offer those. Julie finished the offering with an oval Pfaltzgraff serving plate and perfect garnish’s of Basil leafs with fresh picked snow peas in the center. Norm was hoping this would be OK and it was an instant hit and ALL of it was eaten afterwards. It was well received as fall had begun in earnest and picnic dining was looking OK, nice late fall. Back to the service…
Norm picked his usual spot in the front pew and had a little chat with the two brothers that were doing the worship. Nice young men, and they listed the songs. Hymn’s. The beginning one, however, is one of Norm’s new favorites, ‘How great thou art’ done by a Gaelic band with bagpipes. It sounded promising. Two guitars.
The young men began, and when it got to the chorus, Norm rapidly began weeping and stood up. Maybe it was the other way around. Hands held high and really worshiping as the song rang out in that old wooden Mission church. The tears were unbidden and unexpected and he did not care if no one else was standing or not. He was in the front pew and it was easy to just let go and leap up.
The salt from the tears became a badge to him that a good thing was happening. Right there, right now. It felt so free. The last song was America and Norm, military fellow he was, stood with hand on his heart and thoughts of this incredible constitutional country where he could stand for the flag. Below the flag, fastened to the wall, was one of those classic paintings of Jesus with His eyes looking up. Right at the flag.
The two guitarists played more songs and Norm noticed one looked a lot like his youngest son and he was deep into the songs. He knows that look and that sound. It’s obvious, undeniable and perfect.
Looking down at his feet, firmly planted on the old puncheon floor he was transported to a C.S. Lewis vision of an old farmer worshiping at vespers. Ask Norm, he can detail it for you.
It was a simple old church building with a nice isinglass wood stove and photos lining a wall of neighbors long gone who’s names are still on the mailboxes. It was called a mission church because camp missions were funded by potatoes sold to the local starch factory. The factory is long gone but some of the funded local church camps are close by that grew out of those times.
There were four of them within the township. Two have been sold, one of which Norm met his wife at. Whispering Pines Camp. She was the director and introduced him to a mile and a half of pristine lake shore with an isthmus called picnic point. Tall pines and trails for young campers that came, spring to fall. The lake shore view brilliant with reds and yellows around the lake. The season was then closing down and near the end of tents and dining hall chatter for another season. The sale of this beauty was imminent and the buyer, a developer, built his mansion out on the point. They took down the cross, chained to two trees near the lake and that was somehow, the saddest loss.
At the mission church, (which will never be sold) it was the way worship should always be done. Done well with heart and spirit shifted into top gear and the accelerator floored. Still transfixed as I type this. Unanticipated ecstasy and revival of the best kind. It was beauty and poetry of the best kind. Norm picked up their clean oval dish and they went home. Another memory of clarity and beauty.
It was a ‘mandatory’ meeting. All hands on deck sort of thing. No head counts per Se’ but the feeling of head swivels noting that sort of thing. Facing forward we all pay attention to what is being said or demonstrated to us. This information is essential and a lot of us take notes in our journals. The desire is to understand it all with alacrity and conviction. This meeting should help.
The mandatory part is spelled out in a very old book. The folks that wrote that ‘how to’ manual knew things some of us have forgotten, even if we had read them a while back.
Memory is not the problem. The desire to remember is. Once a week we all meet together.
Quite a bit of the information is written by different authors and some of them use different sentence structures and can be unclear to some of us, including myself. Basic stuff as to which way do you want to live in the world. Always your choice to know which path you are to go to.
Revelations are quietly done. Creator to created. A lot of times just the two of you. There are no badges of seniority or symbols as such. Just knowing what comes next is exciting enough. The pay is the same plus very good retirement benefits. Learn everything but knowing your Creator is the outcome expected. Not knowing about Him but knowing Him as your closest friend. His heart is always open but incredibly enough, quite a few of us just want to read about Him thinking perhaps we know everything and have discovered a precious jewel in that knowledge. 1.
So, there are some of us who listen, but just ‘tune out’ and think about other things. The main speaker is serious and often humorous. It’s more common than we think. I can only imagine the research and inspired writing that coalesces into these talks. It seems so fluid and easy. It isn’t.
I am one of the blessed few that stay behind after the meeting is over to talk with anyone that wants to know more about the world and what it means to them. I am very glad to be called to be there because it usually leads into revelation about our world to both of us. There are a handful or less that attend to help right afterwards. For a room that once held hundreds, perhaps a dozen or so would like to be prayed over about their lives. Hunger for more than just knowledge is the key. Hunger for love reassured. Hunger for the food of love and the water of life.
The world’s part is worship and knowing it’s Creator with eager and open hearts. It is my extreme pleasure to tell them of this Creator and that He knows everything about them. He is eager to help and above all that, loves to hear our concerns about our lives. He is Jesus, King of the universe. Getting to know him and talk to Him is the greatest reward of our life. It’s the hardest and best thing we can ever do. {It gets easier!) and It’s pretty good, Jack Gator
A Powerful word, the most powerful word that exists. A foundation for eternity and a word that cannot be forced or coerced in any way. The Word was with God and the Word was God.
Many people, including myself, realize that that Word has four letters and they are summed up with the clear vision that it is intertwined with creation itself. Indeed the beginning of all things that are and were created. It seemed to me the hardest thing to really understand, these four letters, Word. Indeed, what was this, the first Thing God did? Alone, incomprehensible to me.
Today, those four letters became clearer and more beautiful. Creation indeed. The one thing, the only thing that is needed to complete it all. The one thing I needed to complete my life and give me purpose. For everyone’s purpose to exist and be filled with joy and understanding all things.
All interpretations of these four letters are that the Word was Jesus. How can this be? All of scripture is now referred to as the story of Jesus, the Word. The Bible is the Word and through it all things were created and nothing was created without it.
Only this morning, as I was trying to understand our world and the seeming collapse of it did it make sense. The Word is Love. Jesus indeed was the love, the one thing that cannot be without being given. The Father Himself gave us the most precious of all things, the freedom to choose love itself. Without the choice to love or not is the foundation of all things.
Love, It must be chosen not created by us. The only creation by God was love for He alone, as us all now, could not love without another. Love the Lord your God with all you are, all your strength, power might and spirit. All of it. God’s only begotten Son was love. The incredible Word. Jesus.
After all, the entirety of this Word requires another to love and be loved. What indeed is love?
Both lovers listening, and gazing upon one another with rapture. In the beginning, perfect love, eternal love and sharing everything that is. The wedding vow of eternity as we now become the bride of Christ with this love. He gave His life for us, can we do no less?
As a veteran, I look upon my fellow warriors with love and honor them for the courage they showed to defend this country that is founded on the freedom to love one another. In our country’s constitution, in the beginning is indeed, that all men are created equal. All of us. Able to choose good or evil. At conception and birth, all equal. We can indeed choose to love as we grow. It’s very hard (I know this as you do) but it is a choice. “Life or death, choose now” as Jesus spoke to me so long ago.
This morning as contemplating the beginning of all that started our country it became it bit clearer to me. Our beginning too of our countrys first pact with one another that all men are created equal. Capable of love and being loved. Then and now as differences of opinions, faith or not and appearances become nothing compared to our birth as free men created equal to be lovers of God. We choose to love as in the beginning we were given the freedom to love or not. It is only possbile when we understand the Word.
The hard part, the hardest part is choosing and the best part is having freedom to do so. This is the foundation of our country. Love it or not, we still have the freedom to choose love and eternal life. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator.
A hectic day with the usual errands and heavy work. A friends mother needed some work on her vehicle and it turned out rather complicated. Shredded wiring, trouble codes and the usual inaccessible places.
One more detail on that, a new dipstick which was only available about 25 miles away. The rest of the family was processing firewood with the usual plethora of chain saws, trailers, wedges, ice water and good gloves.
Dry and dead trees were wedged and fell with that mixture of snapping and rustling turning louder and with a rending tear of the notch, a thumping crash felt and heard. The chain saws began their work slicing and dicing the branches and measuring with the bars, a nice 16 inches long. Dry stuff on the hoof that gave off bowling pins mixing music together. Good for this winters burns in the parlor stove.
I went to town to get some fuel and had time to run after that dipstick down off the big highway that connects our two states. The part was correct and when I turned from my parking spot, I felt a bump and truck began to lean a bit and in 50 feet, the truck was parked with a destroyed front tire. No spare. Well, there was one under the frame that has been there since the late nineties. Flat and rusted in place. That was OK because there wasn’t any Jack or lug wrench. B prepared was turned into a B flat tire. It looked rather the worse for wear. All floppy and the treads were hardly there anyway. Probably ran over a nail or a beer cap I t thought. Sidewall failure.
It would have been a disaster on the road at speed. No accident happened in front of an auto parts store. I tried calling on my cell but the signal was terrible, always is up on the big St.Croix hill. I went outside to my leaning Ford Ranger and logged into the nearby grocery store that has good WiFi. It was about 3 o’clock. Second time the old truck had failed at a very slow speed.
The last time it failed, a tie rod end fell off in our parking lot. That is one of two parts that are connected to the steering mechanism. Providence, and once again, my life was saved by the Lord. “Coincidence” some folks say. A double negative was my response.” Yeah, right” He is always good. Obviously it wasn’t my time to leave the planet.
So I called home to the firewood team and there wasn’t much to be done. Then I called triple A and they said “due to a high level of requests there would be a delay in response time.” Sounded like I had just called the power company after a bad storm. It was OK but I regretted not bringing a book along.
People started stopping and rolling down windows asking if I needed help. One of them was a man I know pretty well that goes to the same Bible study every week. “Just waiting for the tow truck, thanks!” He asked if he could do something and I answered I could use lunch. He smiled and they drove off to the north. The grocery store was about 200 feet the other way. He might have thought I was making light of my situation. I wasn’t
A man in his middle thirties or so walked up to my open window and asked the same question. At that point I got out of the truck, shook his hand and thanked him for his concern. Quickly it seemed, we began really talking. Who are you, where do you live things. The conversation engendered by my curiosity, started towards dealing with disappointments. I noticed no wedding ring and he said he was divorced. I said something commiserating and then asked if he had children.
It began the revelation between two men, strangers that friendship was being offered. Delighted we pressed on with two boys for each of us and his had cowboy names. I asked if it was a well known country singer’s name and he affirmed it and I remarked that the singer was a man of God. He smiled and agreed. We were off way past the pulpit and the pews and started getting deep. He told me of his childhood church history and I replied that I had met many preachers of that denomination that illuminated grace and the love of Christ.
“An Episcopal Priest saved my life when I was freezing outside of his home, I was then living in my truck” I know he loved Jesus and I loved him. Not the usual of ‘not our denomination’ judgment. He lit up and told me he wasn’t much on church attendance. I then spoke truth to him that that does not have much to do with intimacy with the living Spirit of Jesus, really. I read C.S. Lewis and his mentor, George MacDonald a lot. They taught me those things.
We spoke of our lives. He works with machines that package candy bars, 100 a minute. He fixes them when they misbehave. I talked about my half century of owning an automotive repair shop and of being completely foolish in being unprepared completely for a simple flat tire on the old company truck. Things that people speak about when getting to know one another. It went on quickly enough and we began to delight in our ‘chance’ meeting.
I took a leap of faith and stated that our meeting was not chance but the whole reason I was there having a dead Ford Ranger and he was there to extend a hand to a stranger. It was our Lord putting us together to encourage him in his now renewed interest in these things. I almost felt like a pastor again . It was just what I needed as well. I had been feeling rather down that morning and my wife was trying to tell me I was very useful around the farm. After all, I speak like an idiot at times but that does not make me one.
I am often weak and don’t feel adequate enough to for my ego and past sole support of our place. Our strong son is now the strength we need and of course, that is why I bought the used chain saw from a second hand store the day before. It needed sharpening and carburetor adjustment. My son sharpened it well and I set the idle and off I went. I was working my son and all the family were loading and sawing too.
Soren, my son, dropped some huge dead trees. It was sweaty and noisy. It was good. I was reminded of my life and health and the beauty of our family life once again. (Now back to that flat tire.)
I got back in the our truck to wait, maybe write a note for the tow truck and looked up and he had arrived. Good timing, again. He was looking for me. He knew the area but there are hundreds of cars and trucks there.
The tow truck operator told me he would meet me at the grocery store parking lot while I bought lunch and we were off. I got extras in case he needed lunch too. He did not want any hot fried chicken, so I ate it all. A pleasant 30 mile flat bed drive home and it became easy work to push the truck onto the hoist and take off the tire. We obtained a spare and tools. Never had a flat since.
Now it became evident that this conversation with that young man down south was fulfilling work and it was very good. Another inconvenient pause in life to meet someone and have each of us encouraged. Most likely the whole reason for the perfectly safe place to have the flat
The B flat became Be sharp and I began to see. As a musician and punster it seems to fit this story perfectly.
History thoughts began with my morning drive to a Bible study. Starting to drive over our hill to the lake ‘cabins’ below the hill. Nice road, paved a number of decades ago. Before the pavement, the drive was quiet and the lake had about 500 feet or more between each cabin. First was the WWII surplus Quonset hut that had snapping turtle shells arranged on the garage. A garland of them. Nice folks with an artesian spring who’s outlet went under the road, down to the lake shore and kept a stock tank going all year filled with healthy fishing minnows.
The next cabin down the road was old and had a little outhouse next to it. There wasn’t anything for hundreds of feet until just before the bridge there was an old Ma and Pa ‘resort’ with four red cabins. Another few hundred feet down was an old farmhouse on a hill with butternut trees. Butternut hill. A ways down was another small cabin and that was about it.
The snapping turtle folks had a dock and the resort had one too. Things have changed a bit in the last half century or so. Another dozen homes and as many docks are there and along with it a lot of chained gates on the driveways. Another new road to the east and one going south to the public landing with about twenty more homes.
The two lakes, big and little Trade, connected with the bridge, were pretty decent fishing lakes and the water was clear. Today the smaller lake is surrounded with new houses, some of them with multiple chimneys and three new roads.
The flat bottom boats or the ‘newer’ aluminum V hulls with small motors have been replaced with pontoons and 500 horsepower Japanese engines on low gunnel bass boats. There are still some fish here and there and the water is all green and weedy. It seems that all those incredibly powerful motors churn up the bottom of the lake. Something about releasing phosphorus that hangs out at the bottom for a while.
There is also a fascinating invention called a Jet-Ski that holds one person, goes incredibly fast and all the loons and fish are a bit disturbed about it. Very loud they are. Sort of sounds like a 57 Chevy with a hot engine and straight exhaust pipes. Going around and around an old flat bottom fishing boat with gaiety and huge waves. The boat attempts to surf much like I did in California with storm surf.
At least there are no dangers of jelly fish although the boat could ‘pearl’ (that’s when the front end of your board goes under the wave a bit) I did that once and a jelly fish slid under my surprised jump and went off behind me. Their boat now could take on a bit of water and cause the the gunnels to get a bit closer to the surface.
The noise on the weekends gives the impression that a small highway is just over the hill and the evening fireworks are competing with thunder from huge pickups towing boats. A lot of the new folks are pretty friendly and know our outfit on the fringe of the lake. They buy eggs from us now and then. One of them remarked about our old style home with the blue fan wood sunrise trim above the gables and porch. A few upgrades over the last 30 years or so. One comment was intriguing. “It’s too bad it’s not closer to the road so you could see it!” One fifth of a mile is close enough for us.
Everyone knows these things. It’s the illusion of progress. The dodge em’ cars are fast and some are electric. Go fast, pass everyone and get ahead for some reason. An anachronism song from my past comes to mind as I drive our old Ford Ranger and I sing, “Forty miles an hour is a good speed to go” Besides that, if I go any faster, the now empty garbage can in the bed will fly out. Just a trip to the village recycling and home again to our flashy old home that inspires somehow. Nice place, some wish it were theirs to own and be seen.
As an old friend once said on his radio show: “That’s all the news from Lake Wobegon” It’s pretty good. Jack
Jack gators grace notes 