Month: December 2018

It is difficult to know why any modern member of our esteemed species, particularly those ruminating the issues of age, would allow themselves to walk out on avery frozen lake, amid the constant push of a gentle breeze, to sit for many hours, back to the wind, in an attempt to catch an eight-ounce fish. While it may seem I have a derogatory tone in this inquisition, that cannot be the case because it was me that made the long walk, all bundled, all stiff, all tucked in my confining cocoon.

Even at twenty-two degrees, it was just matter of time before the cold crept in and begin the nagging push to force me away from this Zhivago-like adventure, this arctic trudge that would likely hold no sense of accomplishment at the end. I do not live in some gulag archipelago and could be home comfortably tight against the warm wood stove dreaming of other, maybe distant, outdoor conquest, or casually consuming a fresh, still-warm cookie, or smiling with amorous intent at my always-suspicious wife.

However,the cold held off and from one hole to another we moved wanting to find the magic, the school of keepers that would provide sustenance for our notably well-fed families. The wind, or was it a breeze, obviously non-threatening, bit as we faced into it, thinking the better school of bluegills were to the west in what we calculated was a deeper more productive hole. I shuffled as an older man, but little different than the others all bundled, bulging and confined in thick clothing  For me, maybe more as truggle since I had my legs shot away in the big war, when I took a mini-ball at Gettysburg—so it is rumored. The cold does work a man’s mind and as we sat there, it was not difficult to recall other years, maybe long ago before my time, when this lonely adventure was more crucial, more a task of desperation.

These thoughts still did not answer the question, the one mostly beginning with the word why, yes why. After finding no fish and embarrassingly venturing within inches the dreaded hypothermia, I returned shuffling, confused, almost stumbling to the warm vehicle with my head shaking in doubt thinking it is a younger man that needs to walk across the frozen landscape to embrace his beloved metaphorical Tonya or secure a few paltry, but delicious fishes. My more appropriately-equipped companion caught fish, a few meals and at no time struggled with the cold December breeze, the foreboding clouded skies, or the modest weather that was my demise.He is not even Norwegian and still smiled as if the world was complete– and he was the master of the pond, the triumphant angler—which I jealously suspect, at that moment, Jim was.

Still chilled, maybe despondent, I ask,  why do I choose to do this?

Here is a test of one more source of fun, a blog of our staff blabbing on about the publication. It was done through the McMillan public library in Wisconsin Rapids and is now on file for all to hear. We do readings and pine on endlessly about life in Wisconsin. 

Froggy went a courtin’

The bullfrog looked at me out of the corner of his wet eye. I was off to his right and four inches behind him. Initially, I hadn’t actually seen him but had simply been attracted to his deep penetrating croaks.

He was, by any measure, gorgeous with his side discs all shown off and dripping with early more dew. He was a piece of work to say the least. I love the spring and perusing the weedy shoreline looking for one special “bull”.

He turned quickly toward me in a swift singular motion showing off his, what appeared to be a grinning face. His thin but massive lips did not quiver but showed the emotional constitution of a mature frog, unrattled, confident and not subject to emotional outbursts. I like that about a strong frog. Great patience, maybe nerves of steel, a frog of commitment.

I moistened my eyes and was momentarily distracted by a dragon fly, a Green Darner,that had decided to make this his morning rest. In an uncharacteristic motion,I gently hopped forward bringing my now partially closed eye with in an inch of this denison of the swamp, the stalwart stallion of the sedges on lake’s edge.His eye followed me, and then he unexpectedly gulped, then bursting forth one of the most romantic sounds I had ever heard. It bellowed across the now-still pond reverberating and echoing a song of love. He slowly lifted his small but well-meaning front leg, as if to say, welcome.

 

 

There are legends out there in many places that writers, maybe not all writers, but let us say torn writers of passion, the ones fighting dragons, or demons—or those just struggling while trying to lay word to some distantly perceived, muddled thought that has in the long hours of their daily fight introduced them to the warming glow of whiskey. Faulkner was rumored to have lived in a world of bourbon-induced thoughts, all the while tripping through southern swamps seeking the wild black bear. Joyce, one would suspect, allowed the Irish nectar to dredge out his guilt and at the same time induce him to fondle a language into a world of confused beauty and barely comprehensible gibberish that only the pedantic, self-possessed could gleefully hope to consume.

For me, I think on those writers, wondering if I  were to take on, say, more than a wee dram, would I be able to travel among the Harrisons and Hemingways?  I’m not one to normally nonchalantly rattle my limited ability with alcohol-induced confusion but it seems fitting, at this late hour to seek a modest bit advice by having in front of me, a serving of Jamison, the Irish claim to a yeoman’s whiskey. Fresh from an afternoon of Erin fiddling, a handsome tumbler now sits quietly and pleasingly to my right, resting on an ancient table constructed not far from the home of Herman Melville.

Sitting unconsumed, it is a clear liquid, unassuming but for the distant tone of well-processed alcohol. It offers no hint as to its ability to make me write, or not write. As I learned one night in Dingle under the watchful eye of the bar keep, a bit of water has been added, and not the ice I tend to favor in my often-provincial hand. As I sip, the angel’s breath is drawn in and drops into my chest and in passing tenderly kissing the delicate nerves of a welcoming nose. In this elixir, there is only a faint hint of the bogs of Ireland. It is more an earthy tone of grain roasted, of a malt of youth we found in milky shakes.

Initially, I am not drifting up the west coast of Clare but do see myself as being younger, maybe not much younger because I still remember the experience with the mirror this morning, an indelible image I will not forget for some time, a time after most of the bottle has been consumed and my aging eyes are well-blurred. But that is not the point, the point is about my writing, about the history of whiskey appreciation and writing.

A few sips in and I am thinking more clearly, maybe realizing I will have to have just a wee bit more to make me into a James Joyce. In fleeting moment, I am recalling the my wife’s Wild Turkey pie we devoured only an hour ago. Yes, the all-feathery, elegant, locally harvested Wild Turkey.

My mind reeled as the words, “Wild Turkey” flew by! Good God, its Hunter Thompson in front of me—and his endless bottles of Wild Turkey that made him go gonzo. It is the Hunter Thompson whose chair I briefly occupied at the Woody Creek bar those many years ago in Colorado. It is coming to me now. Its working, The whiskey is working. I am channeling but I wanted more. I wanted Steinbeck, maybe Faulkner. Not Joyce for I have to be understood.

And so as the evening is swallowed by the fleeting music of resting sparrows, and the bucolic mumblings of so many distant fairies tucked endlessly in some deep and darkened hollow waiting for the comforting  singing spring,  the story ends—for this evening as the last Rose of Summer Fell, my fancy turns away and another dram is poured.