Which reminds me of another story of those big lakes way up north. The natives took a newcomer out on the ice fishing. It was his first time. They drove right out to the middle of the lake in a pickup truck, all the gear in the back. As they drove across the ice, the newcomer noticed a bleach bottle tied to the end of a rope, 25 or 30 feet long, tied to the back of the truck. The bottle bounced on the ice as they drove.
“What’s that for?” he inquired of his companions.
“Oh,” they said, “that so if we go through the ice and drown, the bottle will float and they’ll know where to find us.”
My Dad - Would this guy lie to a minister?
Which reminds me of this true story of my dad and his buddies. I was a kid and we were ice fishing at School Pond in Danbury. I loved ice fishing! We’d make a little fire, cook hot dogs, wait for fish to bite and trigger the flags on the sets in the holes. Run like heck to try to hook the fish and haul them in.
As I recall, my dad and his buddies (I think one of them was Uncle Fred), liked to drink a bit as they fished. And their favorite was muscatel wine which they bought and drank by the gallon.
On this day, the local minister who lived on the pond, walked across the ice to be friendly-like. He didn’t know much about ice fishing and had a lot of questions, which the grownups answered in all seriousness, him being a minister and all.
He inquired about the gallon bottle half full of golden liquid. “Oh,” Dad said, “that’s, um, alcohol. We pour it in the holes to keep them from freezing over.”
That’s a story that got told over and over at our house through the years.
Comments