STUCK

                                                                  


    The other day, my older brother called.  I was relaxing on the couch when my wife yelled at me to answer the phone.  I rarely answer, because most of the time it’s not for me, and even if it is, I’m rarely in the mood to talk.  Stretching, I rolled off the couch and picked up the phone.
    “Hello.”
    “Hey man, it‘s Jarrett.  What‘s happening?!”
    “Oh, just sitting around not being stuck.” 
      Occasionally he would call for various reasons, but the tone of his voice was a mixture of excitement and curiosity, which made me wonder if he was calling in an attempt to convince me to go someplace with him and get stuck.  We’d spent all of our youth and most of adulthood stuck.  He’d always had good intentions in the beginning, but somehow we would always wind up pushing and digging, trying to dislodge our vehicle from whatever predicament had befallen it.   The two of us had been stuck in mud, snow,  ponds and streams, and  in about any other place imaginable.  Sometimes we’d get unstuck, and he would simply get us restuck a short distance from the spot where we had originally been stuck.  The word ‘stuck’ cannot be overstated when it comes to riding someplace with my brother.  Stuck, stuck, stuck.  Sometimes he liked to go back to a spot where we‘d been stuck before, and of course, we would wind up stuck again.  According to the many CSI programs I’ve watched, it has been concluded that he perpetrator always returns to the scene of his misdeeds.  Once, after an especially harrowing episode of being stuck, I wondered if he was TRYING to get stuck.  He had decided to take a shortcut out of the snowy mountains we were riding through by crossing a raging creek.  Almost immediately, his truck was lifted by the water and began a whirling, bouncing trip downstream.  Luckily, we came to rest on a silt bar, and he simply looked at me and said, “Whew we!  My butt just sucked up a yard of seat cushion!  How ‘bout yours?”  I didn’t give an immediate reply due to my muscles, bones and eyeballs being in a frozen, locked state, and my feet were immobilized by the cold water that had seeped through the door.  The seat cushion was the least of my worries.  Another time, I had to call my boss and advise him that he’d be a man short  that day.
    “Where are you?” the old crotchety boss growled.
     I regretfully told him the truth, “Oh, I’m stuck in the middle of a pond,”  I groaned.  Of course he didn’t believe me, but then again, he’d never been anywhere with my brother.
     Now, back to the phone call.  Jarrett  got straight to the point.  “Well, I’ve got a little inside tip that they’re stocking trout in the Maury tomorrow morning.  I thought maybe you’d be interested in riding over there with me to try our luck,” he continued.  The Maury River is a few miles away, and we’d fished there for years.  Immediately, a sense of nervousness swept over my body.   As far as he and fishing were concerned, there was no luck.  He was a fish whisperer, an expert angler, and he certainly didn’t need any luck.  I, on the other hand rarely caught anything.  Winding up stuck was my primary concern though.
    “Can you promise me that we won’t get stuck?” I asked, knowing that he’d make the promise, but most likely wouldn’t keep his word.  I based my thoughts on his many broken promises of guaranteeing he wouldn’t try to traverse some remote mountainside in his truck.  I also wondered if he was inviting me just to have the whole river to himself after I’d scared the other fishermen away.  Not only was I psychologically scarred from all the heart pounding, white knuckle rides I’d taken with him before, I also had the amazing ability to repel fish and fishermen up and down the river.
    “Oh, we’re not getting stuck this time.  Besides, when have I ever made a promise I didn’t keep?” he answered. Evidently, he must have thought that I'd suddenly been stricken with amnesia.  “Heck, you might even catch one.  Come on, let’s give it a shot,” he continued, trying to give me hope at both  fishing and not getting stuck.  Nothing’s worse that leaving the riverbank empty handed and then spending the rest of the evening trying to dig out of a mud pit that our vehicle had become buried in.
    “Maybe I’ll just meet you there.  Besides, I scare the fish away,” I said, in one last attempt to reason with him.
    “Nah, I’ll pick you up at eight sharp.  Tell the wife that you‘ll be home by noon.”
    “Oh, alright!” I whined, as my eyes began twitching.
    Immediately I began to prepare.  I would need enough food and water for at least an overnight stay, and I would certainly take a flare gun, and maybe my old military survival kit.  Blankets and possibly a tent would be something to consider carrying along too.  As I was gathering all my gear in the garage, my wife entered and stood looking at me in amazement.
    “What on Earth are you going to do with all that stuff?” she asked, staring at the pile of equipment lying in the floor.
    “I’m going fishing with Jarrett in the morning.”
    “Ohhhhhh good gracious!  I’ll run to the store and get more supplies, do you have a first aid kit?  Plenty of batteries?  A flashlight?  How about water?  You’ll need plenty of water!  Is there cell phone service where you’re going?  Make sure you take a shovel, and be sure to spend plenty of time with the kids tonight, and tell them that you love them!”  she screeched, while dancing around and flailing her hands and arms.  My  last adventure with my brother was still fresh in her mind.  We’d set off on a brief trip to pick morels and didn’t show up at home until the next morning.  My wife was livid and relieved at the same time.
    “Where on Earth have you been!?” she growled with her hands on her hips.
    “We got stuck.”
    My brother showed up the next morning at 8:45 not so sharp.  I began loading all of my gear onto the back of his truck while he stared at me in disbelief, unable to comprehend  that I was taking so much stuff for a morning fishing trip.  “What’s with all the stuff?” he inquired, leaning on the bed of his old truck.  “Are you planning on spending the night or something?”
    “Oh, you never know what can happen,” I replied, while trying to hoist my dome tent over the tailgate. 
    “You’ve got enough food to feed an army.  Didn’t you eat breakfast?  Is that a flare gun!?”
    “Yeah, I ate breakfast, but you never know,” I said, finishing up my load by swinging a cooler full of provisions onto the truck, and ignoring the question about the flare gun.  I noticed that the only fishing gear he’d brought along was his rod and reel.  I didn’t even see a lure on his line, just a plain bare hook.  Maybe he’d lost his touch, I thought, as I hopped into the passenger’s side.
    We arrived at our fishing spot along the winding river after riding for just over an hour.  The weather was simply gorgeous, and the water in the rocky river was flowing nicely, and very few people were standing along the banks fishing.  Maybe he did have the inside scoop on the stocking schedule, I thought.
    I found a suitable place to begin repelling fish, and he ambled on down the riverside until he was out of sight.  As usual, I fished and fished, without even a bite.  I would be more aptly called a caster and reeler  than a fisherman, since my outings consisted of casting and reeling and had absolutely nothing to do with fish.  I tried everything in my tackle box and then some, until I simply gave up.  My streak was alive and well, but not all was lost.  The afternoon sun was especially comforting, and the sound of the bubbling water made me feel at ease.  At least I could take in the beautiful day, while lounging comfortably on a smooth rock.
    Within a few minutes, a shadow blocked the sunlight that was warming my face.  I had almost gone to sleep.  “Have any luck?”  Jarrett said, standing over me.
    “Nope.  Not even a nibble,” I answered with my eyes still closed.  “How about you?”
    “I caught my limit, but I only kept the big ones.  I threw the rest back.”
    “You know, I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t bring your tackle box or much else for that matter.  What kind of bait did  you catch them with?” I said, raising up and looking at his stringer full of  rainbow trout.
    “Cigarette butts  mostly.  This big one here, I got him on a little berry I found in those weeds over there, and this one, I landed him with a tab from a pop can,”  he said proudly,  pointing at the last fish dangling at his side.  Cigarette butts! Berries! Pop can tabs!, I thought.  I’d gone through every lure I owned  and he comes along and catches his limit on an assortment of litter he’d found along the river bank!   The fishing gods continued to loathe me for some reason.
    “Nice job, lets go,” I mumbled, in a huff.  We put the trout in my cooler, and set off for home.
    We made small talk on the way home, and I couldn’t help but think that maybe I had gone just a bit overboard with all the provisions I’d brought along, when we suddenly screeched to a stop  beside a flagman in the middle of the road.  Apparently the highway department decided to resurface the road sometime after we’d traveled that way earlier in the day.
    I looked over at my brother, who had begun to  impatiently tap his finger on the steering wheel.  “I ain’t going to sit here all day!”  he said, as I stared straight ahead.  “There’s another way, you know.”
    “Oh hell no! No way, no how!” I barked.  “We’re going to sit here until he waves us through,” I said, as Jarrett had already  begun to back the truck up and turn around.
    “There’s an old logging road back here a little ways we can cut through.  It’s in pretty good shape.  I was just on it during deer season.”
    He drove a short distance on the paved road when he slowed and drove off into the forest.  The old truck clanked and hopped along the rugged trail, while I anxiously stared at the sky, praying and confessing my sins.  Suddenly, the ‘road’ turned into a winding, meandering pig path that disappeared up a steep mountainside.  “What deer season were you referring to?” I asked, as my head bounced off the cab of the truck, and I began ducking tree branches that were slapping me in the face through my open window.  He didn’t answer.  I assumed that he was concentrating on keeping us from being launched over the mountainside like an Evel Kneivel impersonator.  Suddenly the truck reached the summit and began the slow crawl down the other side.  We were moving faster, and I could see that his confidence had returned, since now the cliff was on my side.  The bottom of the mountain was in sight and I breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly, the truck dipped to the right and slid sideways in the trail.  The tires began to spin, to no avail.  We were stuck.
    “We’re stuck, and she ain’t going any further.  I’m hung up on something,” Jarrett said as he exited the truck to survey the situation.  I slid out his side and stood, looking at the calamity that had unfolded in mere seconds.  The weight of the vehicle had caused the soft embankment to cave in, burying the front axle.  “I’ve got an idea,” he said.  Unfortunately, I had  been in on many of his ideas.  Several times I’d called out to Jesus to save me from his ideas, and thankfully, up until then he had heard my prayers.
    “What is it then?”  I asked, unsure of what was about to transpire.
    “I noticed that you brought a rope.  If I tie the rope to that tree over there, and then tie the other end to the front bumper, and then lock in the four wheel drive, I think I can get it out.  The rope will keep the truck from going over the side. You’ll need to push though.”
    I opened the cooler and began to peruse the provisions my wife had packed for just such an occasion, and turned toward Jarrett and said,  “We can try that, but let’s eat first.  I’d rather to die with a full stomach.  I‘ve got beanie weenies and Vienna sausages, and here‘s some chips.  Coke or Pepsi?”
    We sat on the edge of  the dusty embankment and ate, all the while staring at the lopsided truck in front of us.  I couldn’t believe that log trucks had scaled such a sorry excuse for a road.  Those guys are just plain nuts, I thought, as I gulped down the last of my Pepsi.
    “Alright, lets try this!” my brother exclaimed as he unraveled the rope and began tying it to the tree and the bumper.  “Now, I’m going to get in and give her all she’s got, and you push like never before,” he continued.  I stared down the embankment and was slightly relieved that we could possibly survive a trip down if we were lucky.  We were near the bottom, so there was indeed a chance at living to regret my decision to go fishing with him.  He gunned he engine, and the tires began to spin the dry, powdery soil into the air.  I pushed on the tailgate with all my might, and suddenly the truck began to move side to side and slide precariously toward the wrong side of he road.  Suddenly, the rope snapped and whistled past my head like a bullwhip as the truck began sliding even faster down the embankment.  “Jump into the back!” he barked, as the truck continued its ominous skid over the edge.  Jump in the back? I thought.  I would have preferred to watch from high above, but like a good brother does, I went for it.  I was able to get one foot onto the bumper when the truck took the final plunge.  I tried desperately to hoist myself into the bed of the truck.  At long last, I dove over the tailgate and into the bed of the truck.  We must have looked like a drunken bobsled team for sure, except we were trying to stop rather that go faster.  The old machine jumped and lurched, mowing over saplings and bushes along the way.  I held on and screamed a prayer, hoping Jesus would hear me one last time.  My dome tent flew over the edge of the cab like a cannon ball, and my hat came off, spiraling into the brush.  The contents of my cooler rolled wildly from side to side, as the trout were launched into the air.   I felt like a ball bouncing around inside of a lotto machine, and  I hung on for dear life.
    “Hang on, we’re almost at the bottom!” Jarrett yelled.  Finally, we rolled to a stop, amid a jungle of weeds, trees and brush.  A cloud of dust enveloped us, as I quietly laid in the bed of the truck.  My heart was racing and I thanked the Lord for saving me again.  My eyeballs were locked in a wide open position and I couldn’t blink.  The slimy fish were scattered among the few contents that hadn’t been violently hurled into the brush.  My mouth was stuck in a full open position, but I was unable to make a sound.  My throat was sore for some reason, and my hands were still gripping the bed rails. I attempted to release  my death grip, but my brain and muscles didn‘t seem to be communicating.  The trout were flopping wildly among the other contents in the bed of the truck, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.  One minute they were enjoying a leisurely swim in a beautiful stream, and the next minute, they’re on a death spiral down a mountainside with a screaming, squealing madman.   The creaky door of the truck swung open and in an instant my brother was standing over me, surely trying to determine if I’d been hurt.  “Did we lose any of the trout!?  My truck looks fine, so that’s a plus.  Get up and let’s get out of here.  It’s smooth sailing from here on out,”  he bellowed, while staring proudly at the steep embankment.  I pried my hand from its death  grip on the bed rail and wobbled, rubber kneed, into the cab of the truck, still unable to speak.  I didn’t bother latching my seat belt.  I decided that if any other near death experiences were to come my way, I would certainly need a quick egress. 
    We made it the rest of the way to my house without further incident.  Finally, Jarrett turned his old truck into my driveway and stopped.  We sat quietly for a few seconds, when he turned and looked at me.  “I heard they’re stocking Elkhorn next week.  You up?”
    “Only if you promise not to get stuck.”

THE TALKER

                                                               THE TALKER


    To say that our son Ryan, and our daughter, Sidney, are different, would be akin to saying that an ostrich and a bald eagle are different.  They are both human beings and birds respectively, but that’s where the similarities end.   Ryan is to Sidney as a mime is to an auctioneer.   Ironically enough, we have referred to Sidney as Duckie for most of her life,  partly because as a baby, she resembled a tiny, yellow duck in one of her books, and partly because of the constant quack, quack, quacking.
    Both kids are respectable, kind and nice.  Both do well in school.  Each of them participate in sports and have enjoyed some success at their chosen activities.   Ryan is quiet, while Duckie is well, not so quiet.  The boy is a strong believer in giving only the facts and necessary details, while Sidney is a strong believer of giving a myriad facts, details, snippets, replays, etc., which can drag on for hours.  Once, while only five years old, she had commented that maybe a job in the ministry would suit her.  Under normal circumstances, I would be delighted in said career path.  In her case, not so much.  Beef roasts would be set ablaze in ovens every Sunday for miles around.  Long winded sermons have sent many a woman speeding home from church to rescue her slab of meat from a certain charred fate at the hands of a chirping, chiming windbag of the cloth.  If our kids were to become famous authors, I could see Ryan enjoying huge success in the field of short stories, while Duckie, on the other hand, would certainly become a great novelist, accomplished in writing literature to rival War and Peace in length,  or perhaps the Bible.  Once, after asking her how her day at school was, she proceeded to tell me, in detail,  everything that happened from when her feet hit the floor in the morning, until she charged through the door that evening.  I had to excuse myself to shave during her story, and when I returned, she continued as if I’d never left.  By the time she had finished, I could have easily shaved again.  There are times though, when her information comes in handy.  There is nothing mysterious about her.
    Last summer, we decided to vacation in the northern part of Florida, which driving from our location in Virginia is quite an undertaking.  Fourteen hours in the car with two restless, fighting children is in many ways a nearly insurmountable task.  But, somehow we managed.
    After the trusty SUV was loaded to the point that we‘d taken everything except the lawnmower, we set off in search of sun, fun, peace and … well you know.  Sidney, who sat in the back seat directly behind my wife, immediately piped up.  “Daddy?  How long is it going to take to get there?  Is it going to be super hot?  How fast are you going to drive?  I hope I don’t have to poop, I hate rest stop bathrooms!  Why are we going to Florida anyway?  Does it rain much where we’re going?  I told my teacher before school let out that we were going on vacation, and did you know that there‘s another girl in my class that‘s going to Florida also…”  she rambled, and then I pulled out of our driveway.
    My wife and I have become very cautious when the need for one of us to speak arises.  We have to wait for the child to take a breath, and jump in like a presidential candidate interrupting his opponent during a heated debate.  “Did you remember to grab the camera from the kitchen table before we left,” my wife asked, while Sidney was catching her breath.
    “Mom you’re just rude!  I was speaking and you  interrupted me!” she said, with glaring eyes.
    “Did we forget Ryan?” I asked, while taking advantage of an opening to get a word in edgewise.
    “No, he’s back there under the beach chairs and towels,” my wife answered, turning around just to make sure that we hadn’t forgotten the phantom child of ours.  To be  honest, he isn’t extremely quiet, but he’s learned, much as I have, to sit quietly and nod, occasionally opening his mouth to speak.  Just because we open our mouths, doesn’t always mean that the opportunity to exercise our voice boxes will come to fruition.
    “Hey dad, when we get there, can we…” Ryan attempted to say,  from deep within the pile of ‘necessities’ we’d crammed into every available crack a crevice in the vehicle.  He’d squandered his chance.  It could be hours and miles before he got another shot at it.  The Duck had cut him off, mid thought.
    “I’m so sick of everyone interrupting me!” Sidney said, once again, as the three of us began to prepare our ears for miles and miles of stories, commentary, and jibber jabber from our ten-year-old walking, breathing, talking machine.  “Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there’s a girl in my class who’s also going to Florida, except she’s going to …”
    During times like those, I simply let my mind wander to a quieter, gentler place.  I began to imagine myself sitting in a lounge chair with a cold drink, watching the waves crash onto the beach.  There were scantily clad women passing by, offering me the occasional smile.  Families, happy to have left the hustle and bustle of daily life behind, skipped past me looking for shells and other treasures.  There were Dolphins leaping from the water, happily swimming along without a care in the world.
    “Helloooo!  Anybody home?”  my wife said, nudging me, as I snapped back to reality.
    “What!?”  I said, feeling let down that I suddenly had been plucked from my utopian existence and thrown back into the driver’s seat of a rolling tenement.
    “Sidney’s been asking you a question for miles, and you just ignored her!” my sarcastic wife said, with a toothy grin. 
    “What is it honey?” I asked, watching the beach scene I had been imagining dissipate like the money in my wallet soon would.
    “I’m hungry.  Did you know that I’m sort of a vegetarian now?  I even gave up chicken nuggets!  I feel sorry for the animals, but I think some of the farmers are nice to them though…”  Sidney said, as I exited the interstate and drove toward a restaurant that surely had some sort of vegetable bar.  Aside from all of the talking, she also meant every word she said.  If she’d suddenly became a vegetarian, then she WAS a vegetarian.  McDonald’s simply would not do.  She would pull this vegetarian stuff on us occasionally,  mostly after viewing a commercial featuring pitiful looking animals in need of rescue.
    We finished our meal and once again began the last leg of our journey south.  Kristi, had drifted off to sleep in the seat beside me, Ryan was content in his secret compartment in the rear of the car and to my surprise, the Duck was quietly listening to music through her headphones.  Once again, I found myself drifting back to the comfort of sitting low in a lounge chair, cold drink in hand, watching and listening to the waves crash as they rolled ashore.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the scantily clad women were still strolling past, and the dolphins had returned.  I sank even lower in my seat, while a smile crept across my face, almost hypnotizing me as a gentle breeze tickled my nose.  My feet were buried in the sand and…
    “Daddy, are we there yet!?  I’m sick of riding in this car, and Ryan’s kicking the seat.  Tell him to stop!  We should have left him home!  I need to poop, but  DON’T stop at a rest stop.  It’s dirty and sometimes there’s no toilet paper, besides, now I’m thirsty and my water bottle is empty, so find a gas station!  How fast are you going?  Is mom asleep?”  came a blast of questions, comments and suggestions from the curly haired Oprah Winfrey in the making.  There’s no way the bikini clad women or the dolphins would still be waiting when I returned to my daydream, I thought.  Hopefully, my lounge chair would still be there, as it was very comfortable.
    “Ryan quit kicking the seat!”  I said, half heartedly.  I steered the car off the interstate and into the parking lot of a fairly respectable looking gas station, which upon a pre-poop inspection met Duckies requirements.  Ryan remained buried in the rear of the car.
    Again, we continued toward our destination and finally arrived with much fanfare, and stiff muscles from the extremely long ride.
    We spent a week at a fine resort, and ate like we’d never be fed again.  After a couple of brief disagreements with my wife, I thought that sure enough I wouldn’t ever be fed again, by her anyway.  Living in close quarters for a week can do that to a couple sometimes.  We fished, but didn’t catch much due to the fact that  I am a living, breathing fish repellant.  I’ve never worried about sharks much while swimming in the ocean, due to my uncanny ability to send all aquatic life speeding to distant waters.  Ryan mastered the art of skim boarding, and Duckie talked and talked.  All, and I do mean all, of the people staying at the resort knew her by name at weeks end. 
    On the last day of our vacation, Duckie asked me to walk with her to the pool for a quick swim before dinner.  We entered the elevator, and were met by an elderly lady lugging a suitcase, who was clearly from somewhere abroad based on her thick accent and obvious lack of command at speaking English.  “Well hello, Sidney, how are you?  Are you and your father going for a swim?”  the old lady said, with a bright smile, trying to get the words right.
    “Yes ma’am we are.  Have a nice trip home! It was nice meeting you!” my little loving talker said as we exited the elevator on the ground floor.
    “Who was that!?” I asked incredulously, and amazed that she was on a first name basis with the stranger.
    “Oh that’s Enga.  She’s from Germany, and she’s here visiting her son.  He’s a lawyer in Jacksonville, I think,”  she answered.  Duckie is a fine swimmer, and we felt comfortable letting her make the short trip to the pool alone, and the security was good, so that made our decision even easier. Apparently, she'd made a few new friends at the pool.
    We entered the pool area and I felt as though Elvis had just arrived for a dip.  Everyone, including kids, kid’s mothers, grandmothers, the lifeguard, the guy trimming the bushes, and the maintenance man all turned with wide smiles and greeted my little daughter.  I didn’t know anyone, except for the guy trimming the bushes, and that was only due to our discussion earlier concerning college football.  The Virginia Tech hat I’d worn had prompted him to strike up a conversation with me, but I still didn't know his name.
    “Good luck in cheerleading this year Sidney!  We’ve got to go in a few hours, but we’ll e-mail and keep in touch,” a little girl said to Duckie as she surfaced from a rather nice dive into the pool.  Most of the people were leaving that day, but we’d decided to stay for one more night, since we weren’t ready to face reality so soon.
    Finally, the next morning, we loaded the car again and began our long trek north to Virginia.
    Duckie fastened her seatbelt and squirmed slightly in an attempt to make herself as comfortable as possible for the ride.  I could see her in the mirror as I readied myself  for what was sure to come.  “Dad, can we fly next year?  I hate this ride and besides, I like those little bathrooms on the plane.”  The kid had checked out every bathroom we’d encountered in all of our travels over the years for some reason.  “Are we going to stop overnight somewhere?  I’m not ready to go home yet.  I liked this place!  It was nice!  I hope I remembered to pack my snorkel and diving mask.  Did you pack it mom?  I’m hot, can you turn the air on please?  But not too much, I don’t want to freeze.  Don’t forget that I don’t like rest stop bathrooms, just in case I have to go.  Oh, I’m not a vegetarian anymore.  Mom, if a person eats seafood, are the still a vegetarian?  Well, maybe I’m still a vegetarian…”  And then I put the car in gear and exited resort’s parking lot.

                                        OUTDOOR TRAINING


    Last spring I was afforded the opportunity to teach my son a few lessons concerning trout fishing, hiking, and survival skills, which I believe every young person should have a basic knowledge of.  One evening while sitting at our kitchen table perusing a yellowing copy of a map, I invited my son over to take a gander.  “Do you see this lake?  That’s where we’re going in the morning, and I can assure you that humans haven’t laid eyes on it for years.  Native Americans, most likely, are the last to have seen this place.  There’s not even a road into it, but there is a way for us to get there,” I said excitedly, while tapping my finger on the map.  Ryan gave me a brief look of disbelief, and then rolled his eyes.  The eye rolling, which was getting more and more frequent, was beginning to get on my nerves.
     The map showed a state road which passed in the vicinity of the lake, and a little dotted line, meandering  from the road to the general area of the our new, secret fishing spot.  “It’s going to be a rough ride in, but it will be worth it to fish in a place that hasn’t been visited by human beings in years,” I said, while Ryan rolled his eyes once again.
    Early the next morning, we loaded all of our fishing gear into the bed of my old pickup truck and began our journey to the nearly uncharted waters, which according to the map,  was situated in a valley below towering mountains.  We arrived at the spot on the gravel road where I surmised that the dotted line would likely start, leading us to our destination.  “By my estimation, this should be the exact location that this dotted line begins,” I said, staring down at the map.  I steered my old truck off the road and through a cluster of thick brush and trees.  “Yep, you can see that no-one’s been this way for many years,” I continued as our heads bobbed up and down, “If ever.”
    “Maybe we should drive on the gravel road a little bit further and just look.  Maybe there’s a better way in, besides, those other vehicles are going that way,” Ryan replied as the truck began it’s decent down a steep ravine.  I didn’t even entertain the thought of giving a reply to such a juvenile suggestion.
    I am all for preserving the sanctity of natural beauty, but a few bridges would have come in handy in our attempt at traversing a couple of deep creek beds.  Once, we stared straight into the ground on the way down, and stared straight into the sky on the way out of one of the crevices I had managed to drive through.  The farther we went, the more convinced I was that humans had not set foot or tire for that matter, in that area for many years.  We continued on, mowing over saplings and laurel bushes along the way.  Finally, after a harrowing half hour ride, with my son praying to Jesus for salvation a few times, we crashed through a jungle of raspberry bushes and skidded to a stop at the edge of a crystal clear lake, which was teeming with life.  Sunbathers, lounging around on towels and group of cyclists stared at us in wonderment.  Mothers raced to round up their children while yelling something about a lunatic on the loose.  It only takes one person to screw things up for everybody, I thought.  I looked in all directions for the lunatic, but didn’t see one, so I assumed that maybe he had fled the area.  The smell of charcoal wafted through the air, as several families grilled under a pavilion made of logs.  Two men, who were attempting to load a canoe onto a trailer, stared at us and laughed.  I guessed  they’d never seen a truck with vines, leaves, and branches sticking out in every direction before.  Apparently, at some point, the Forest Service had constructed a road, which led to an expansive parking lot.  “You would think the cartographer would think to add the road to his map!”  I said, trying to impress my son with my large vocabulary, while thinking of how disgusted  I was with the government for drawing such a useless map. 
    We opened the doors and stood next to the truck, admiring  the beauty of the place, when I decided to sample one of the raspberries hanging from my door handle.  I leaned against the hood  while chewing the tasty morsel as the men loading the canoe continued to laugh hysterically.  What’s wrong with these people? I thought.  Haven’t they ever seen a man eat a raspberry?  “Native Americans, huh dad?  Did you know that this map was printed in 1956?”  Ryan said, standing beside the truck and studying the map.  The kid had way to many hang-ups with insignificant details.  “I’ll go ahead and grab my pole and creel, I’m ready to do some fishing!”  he said, reaching over the side of the bed and through a laurel bramble that was sticking out of the wheel well.  “Dad, I can’t get my pole out!  The line’s all tangled around the mirrors and the muffler is still hot!” the boy exclaimed as he flailed his scorched hand.  I had torn the mirrors off my truck earlier while trying to maneuver between two pine trees.  A stump, hidden by a honeysuckle thicket had laid waste to my muffler, causing my truck to sound like a dragster ready for the green light.  Each time we lost a part, I would have Ryan jump out and toss the lost article on the back of the truck.  I did handle the muffler with a pair of gloves though.
    “You go ahead and remove the foliage from under the truck, and I’ll get the poles,” I said, as Ryan knelt to the ground, tugging and pulling at the branches lodged beneath  my truck from our drive through the thicket.
    For some reason, Ryan had recently taken to fishing independently of me.  “I’m going on down a little further, you stay here,” the boy said, while never breaking stride.
    “Fine, just make sure to steer clear of any eddies or dangerous currents!” I yelled.  Dangerous currents were bad enough, but eddies were far worse.  They couldn’t be trusted.  Once, an eddie had most brazenly told me that the plug in my little pontoon boat wasn‘t necessary.  Later, after an untimely submergence and subsequent icy swim, my heart went out to those who had perished on the Titanic, so avoiding eddies had become paramount after that little episode.
    I found a nice little spot along the lakeside and perused my tackle box, trying to decide which lure would be best for trout.  I settled on a rooster tail, which I had been told, trout could not resist.  After attaching the little, fuzzy lure to my line, I leaned back and gave the rig a mighty heave.  Instantly, I felt as though my shoulders had been pulled from their sockets, and a disk in my back had been severely mangled.
    The Sycamore tree is a very bothersome plant to be sure.  They seem to have the uncanny ability to grow in the most inconvenient places on Earth.  The first being my fishing spot.  I turned and stared at my lure, winding it’s way around a branch like whistle string on a basketball coach‘s finger.  I had two choices.  Number one was to simply tug at the lure, hoping the twig would snap and I could retrieve my lure, or two, I could tug and have the line snap and lose the lure.  I tugged and the line snapped, making the lure one with the tree for all eternity.
    Trout are a very arrogant species of fish, at least the ones I saw circling my bait, occasionally nudging it, but never biting.  There’s little doubt that fish do indeed have a very sophisticated aquatic language  which they utilize when I’m in the area.  “Hey guys, look who it is!  Let’s mess with him a little bit and just swim up and sit, staring at his bait.  He’ll get mad and throw the rest of it in the water and before long, it‘s open buffet!”  the lead trout says, while the others laugh.
    After a few hours of more lost lures, meltdowns concerning an unplanned swim (grass is also a very bothersome plant and can be very slippery when wet),  and surgically removing a hook from my thumb with pliers, I noticed  Ryan heading in my direction, with a wide smile upon his face.  “Well, how’d you do?” I asked, as he stood, looking into the tree above my head.
    “Is that your lure hanging there?” he asked, ignoring my question.
    “Naw, I guess the guy here before me didn’t know much about casting,” I answered, laughing slightly.
    “I caught a bunch, but only kept four.  I didn’t keep any under fifteen inches though,” he said, opening his creel, allowing me to peek in at the over sized rainbow trout.  After my outdoor training session concluded, I decided that the next lesson would be associated with his bragging.  Obviously, the trout in his area of the lake were very cordial and nice, unlike the scaley, arrogant slim balls that swam near my area, mocking me.  “Why are your pants and shoes wet?” he continued.
    His pointed observations were beginning to give me the sense that he was making fun of me. “Oh, for some reason, I began to feel feverish from the waist down and decided to try to cool myself a little,” I replied, to even more eye rolling.  Yeah, I was definitely going to have him examined by a doctor, I thought.  Something was clearly wrong with his eyes.  They’d spent most of the day rolling around in his head like marbles.
    “Let’s get out of here. I’m tired and besides, we need to clean these fish,” he said, as I began gathering my fishing gear.
    We began walking toward the truck, with my boots sloshing all the way, when I noticed a small trail leading up and over a ridge beside the lake.  “Say, I wonder where that trail goes?  Let’s hide our poles and take a little stroll up that ridge.”   We stood silently, staring at the ridge, which appeared to be nearly vertical.
    “Nah, let just go. Besides, I need to clean the fish before they go bad,” Ryan said.
    “Oh, come on.  You need some experience at hiking anyway,” I replied, hoping to have better luck with hiking training than I did at fishing training.
    After hiding our fishing gear in some tall weeds, we began the grueling climb to the top of the ridge.  I was considering giving the boy some training on how to deal with a heart attack victim, but luckily I didn’t need to.  Stepping out onto a rock precipice, we surveyed the beautiful lake below and took in all it’s beauty.  “This is great!  Let’s go even higher and see what it looks like from the very top,” I said, while trying desperately to catch my breath.  Lactic acid had begun to work its magic in my legs, but I was determined to show my son how to properly scale the side of a cliff.
    “Seriously dad, let’s go back down, besides it’s getting dark and we need to clean the fish,” he whined.  I wasn’t sure why he insisted on carrying his creel full of fish with us, but I guess he had his reasons.
    We headed even further up the mountain, finally reaching the top in the dark.  Suddenly, the trail and the surrounding forest seemed to have melded into one.  We weren’t even sure which way we had ascended the mountainside.  “Let’s just begin walking down, and surely we’ll come out in the vicinity of the lake,” I said, trying to calm the young man’s nerves.
    We slipped, tripped and fell and even momentarily walked down the side of the mountain, groping all the way.  Finally, we stopped after a rather painful slide through a wild thorn bush.  Wild thorn bushes rank right up there with Sycamore trees and grass, especially when they’re hiding under the cloak of darkness.  I used the light from my wristwatch to assess the damage, and to notice that we’d been bumbling around in the woods for over two hours.   “You know, raw fish are considered a delicacy in many Asian countries,“ I said, listening to our stomachs growl.  I stared at Ryan’s silhouette against the night sky, and was proud to have a son with such a finely shaped head, although I was sure that his eyes were rolling around again.  “Or, I could use my boot string and a couple pieces of dry wood to make a fire, if you’d like yours cooked.”
    “Dad, doesn’t the lake get it’s water from a stream flowing out of the mountains?” the boy asked, oblivious to the idea of eating the fish, and clearly a novice at survival skills.
    “Uh, maybe.”
    “I hear a stream over there.  Why don’t we just follow it down and hopefully we’ll come out close to the truck,”  he continued, as he plucked several ornery thorns from his forearm.
    We did as he suggested, against my better judgment, and sure enough we emerged from the thick brush near my truck.
    The sunbathers and families had long since traveled on, but the cyclists were now gathered around a campfire, in front of several tents, which looked like ant hills in the flickering light.  We retrieved our fishing gear from it’s hiding spot, with the aid of a flashlight loaned to me by one of the cyclists, and climbed into the truck.  We were sore, wet, and hungry as we drove away from the lake.
    “Dad, do you think mom’s worried?” Ryan said from the comfort of the passenger’s side of the truck.
    “Nah, she knows I’m well versed in handling myself in the great outdoors, and now you are too!” I answered proudly, as I steered the old truck back through the raspberry jungle.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    JUST PLAIN DUMB                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   To say that  no-one  in the world that likes a know-it-all would be an understatement.  But, there is one person who has come to enjoy the company of a know-it-it all and that person is me.  Why?  There’s a perfectly good reason as to why  I enjoy conversation with all of the great oracles that I know and some that I don‘t know.  It’s fun.  Fun?  Well, the knowledge filled folks out there tend to both loathe and love a good ignoramus, which again is me.  You see, they love the fact that I can seem so clueless about a myriad of subjects, and as a result of my profound ignorance, they get the chance to impart as much wisdom as possible upon me, thus highlighting their brilliance.  At the same time they loathe me for being so stupid. 
     Over the years, encounters with know-it-alls have evolved to the point that I go out of my way to seem as though I was raised by wolves and had just recently re-entered civilization.  I do this with people that I know, as well as total strangers. This behavior has brought me many years of entertainment with my school teacher wife, but that is a story for another day.  Recently, while standing in line at our local pharmacy, I pounced at the opportunity to provoke two very well dressed and obviously knowledgeable older men to respond to my lack of knowing about much of anything.
     Usually, when I need to pick a prescription up at the pharmacy, I simply cruise up to the drive thru, ask for what I need, and drive away.  On this particular day, there was a rather long line of vehicles, so I decided to go into the store.  After parking my old truck, which was loaded with wood that I had cut before driving to the pharmacy, I walked in and ambled toward the rear of the place. There,  I noticed several people  waiting.  At the back of the line, stood two older gentlemen.  One was dressed in a fine suit, with shiny loafers, striped tie, and John-Boy Walton glasses on his face.  The other had certainly just left the gym as he was adorned with a sweaty headband, designer running suit and very expensive tennis shoes.  I stood in line behind the men.
     “Winfield!  How are you old chap?”  the man in the suit asked, to the other fellow.  He had a booming voice, prompting everyone to turn around to see who the loud talker was.
     “Doing fine Charles!  Just fine!  I’ve been hitting the gym hard recently.  We finally finished our vacation home in Barbados and plan to Winter there.  Can’t be seen out of shape on the beach, now can we?”  Mr. Sweat suit replied in an equally booming voice, while fake laughing.
      “Well then, I guess that little tip I turned you on to did well.  We were just lucky that you were able to get in ground floor with the IPO, I'm glad it all worked out,”  they graying businessman said.
     At that point, I thought that this could be a great opportunity to show off my glaring ineptness.
     “Shoot, I’m glad your PO is doing good, but my PO is ain‘t hittin‘ on much.  The service is terrible. Took me fifteen minutes to get a stamp the other day.  Just pitiful,”  I butted in, knowing full well that the two walking apostles of knowledge wouldn’t be able to resist correcting a village idiot.
     “He said IPO, which is Initial Public Offering.  It’s stock.  Do you have any experience with stock?” the old gym rat asked with a smirk on his face, sure that I didn’t.
     “Well, I’ve never owned any personally, but my grandmother was thinking about buying a couple of cows once.  Just to keep the lot next to her house eaten down.”
     “Anyway, Winfield, I’m just glad you didn’t have to settle for a place in the Bahamas.  It’s a step down you know,”  old pinstripes said as both men turned their back to me.  “Did Martha ever find a dog to her liking?  I know she was desiring one the last time I talked to her.”
     Again, I saw another chance to be corrected and couldn’t resist.
     “ ‘Scuse me again.  But I know of an ’ol boy that has a whole bunch of Dash Hounds for sale,”  I said, leaning slightly toward the men while looking at them in a matter-of-fact fashion.
     “Did you say Dash Hounds?”  gym bag said, as both let out a hearty chuckle.  “What, pray tell is a Dash Hound?”
     “Little, short dog, stubby legs.  You know,  like a hot dog.  My buddy has a whole flock of ‘em,” I continued, while bending over and holding my hand flat just above the floor, to show the size of the dogs.
     “A flock of Dash Hounds!?  Damn boy, where are you from?”  the old man in the suit asked through an eruption of laughter, while starting at my muddy boots and dusty blue jeans.
     “I believe you are referring to Dachshunds, and they don’t come in flocks, they are born in litters.  Holy smoke!  You’re a bright one, that’s for sure,”  Winfield said again through roaring laughter.
     “Whatever, but they’re good dogs.  KFC registered, and I’ve got the number if you’re interested.  But, I’ve got to tell you, he wants an arm and a leg for them.  ‘Bout fifty dollars I think,”  I kept on, ratcheting up my ignorance.
      Instantly the roar of laughter became even louder as both men doubled over, unable to gain their composure.  By then, Charles had removed his John-Boy glasses and was wiping tears away with a monogrammed handkerchief he’d taken from his coat pocket.
     "That's a beautiful mammogramed hanky you got there, I usually just use my sleeve."
     “KFC registered!  No wonder you have a flock of dogs on the brain!  Lordy boy!  Fifty dollars!?  Arm and a leg! Mammogramed! Oh, I can’t take it anymore,  you’ve got to stop!”  Winfield attempted to say, through uncontrollable spasms brought on from his laughter.
     “What’s so funny?” I asked, with a completely straight face.
     “Go ahead of us.  I’ve forgotten why I’m even here!” Charles said through more tears.
      I stepped up to the counter and told the cashier what I wanted as the two experts of all things continued to giggle and try to compose themselves.  I walked past them as I exited the store,  and couldn’t help but smile and think to myself  how much an ignoramus means to a know-it-all.