Emil's Cabin XXVI - Raisin' the Roof

     Decking the Lookout was a breeze so long as we paid heed to the eight feet between us and the floor below.  And the hole we'd framed in the floor for the stairs that'd eventually rise.  I was struck by the notion that eight feet down is much farther than eight feet up.  Once again it was work in its purest form moving material upstairs without stairs.  I'd lift and push from below, Emil'd pull from above.  A three quarter inch sheet of plywood doesn't look heavy 'til you grab and move one.  All finger work.  Hard enough but the walls were worse.
     A twelve by sixteen floor's not a lot of space to stack materials, tools and sawhorses much less build stud walls.  We did our assembly below.  When finished we stood and leaned the beasts against the rafters, ascended the ladder and hoisted away, one at a time.  There's a reason they call it grunt work.
     Emil had us frame out rough openings for six double mullion and two triple mullion casement windows in the fifty-six feet of Lookout walls, more window than wall.  Guess he didn't want to miss anything bigger than a pine squirrel fart while surveying his kingdom.  I could see him now, peering down the double barrels of tripod mounted battleship binoculars, scoping the brook for rising trout, "Archie me lad, there's one just below the second set of riffles feeding on mayflies."  Then sliding down the brass fireman's pole directly into his waiting knee boots.  Less than a minute from sighting to hookup to chuckling release.
     Can't say I was dumbfounded but it did catch my notice how much a hundred-fifty pounds of nail and stud wall would bend when we drew it aloft.  Oddly enough they didn't seem worse for wear.  By mid-afternoon we had six, eight foot sections and two, four footers stacked above and ready to nail down.
     "The easy part's nearly done.  Once we get these walls up and braced we'll start in on the roof trusses.  Building them's not the challenge.  Getting them up here and nailing them down's when the fun starts.  Challenge and fun, can't think of a better combination.  Well, given a minute I might come up with a few dozen other things to top them but for the moment they'll have to do."
     "Archie me lad, we'll have do the next couple of steps by the seat of our pants.  Haven't fully thought them through.  Back when I was drawing the plans I knew we'd have to get creative when the upper roof went on.  Probably have to build some kind of scaffolding before we set to sheathing.  Had we prehensile tails we'd be fine but our ancestors forgot to bring them along when they climbed out of the trees."
     By supper the walls were up.  A trip to the cooler told us we were nearly out of food.  Emil scrounged up his ace in the hole meal, sausage and noodles.  Doesn't sound like much but when you're as hungry as we were it's pure ambrosia (one of these days I'm gonna have to find out what that is.  Sounds good but might turn out to be some kind of entrails stewed with beets.  We weren't too particular as to what we ate but might've drawn the line at that combination).
     His recipe was simple, simmer and brown some sausage, doesn't matter what kind so long as it hasn't started to ripen.  Boil and drain a pound of egg noodles.  Draining required care and spread legs since we lacked a colander.  Mix the two together while splashing in some kind of pepper sauce, Emil was partial to Tabasco.  Also work in a fair amount of black pepper and top it off with a blizzard of parmesan cheese.  The hot sauce was there to remind us to chew, otherwise we'd shoveled it in like there was no tomorrow.  Our first couple of bites would go down that way anyhow.  However, once the fire was kindled below we knew enough to slow down, smell the roses, and douse the flames before we burned to ash.  Good stuff.
     Headed to town on Wednesday morning with empty coolers and three laundry bags of ripe filth we called clothing.  Before returning we stopped at the mill where Emil picked up a couple of dozen studs and some planking.
     "I hadn't figured on needing this much lumber.  On the other hand I've never built a cabin before.  Live and learn.  And spend.  Should have done a better job at foreseeing the unforeseen.  Oh well, we'll have that much more lumber when it comes to building the outhouse.  Should have enough to construct the Tajma-crapper.  Might even be able to turn a few greenbacks with tourist trade.  People'll come from all over the midwest just to see what we've created.  On second thought I don't know if I can handle a dome.  And definitely need a better name.  Might have to try something along the line of the Prairie School.  Give it a Wright touch.  Maybe throw in some cantilevered decking and call it Falling Water West, the House Built on Word Play.  Yeah, I could hang my hat on that one."
     While at the mill we ran into Ted.  He and Emil got talking about how much fun they'd had on the Brule.  "By the way Emil, your windows are in.  Should you want I'll throw in the lumber you've ordered and bring the whole shebang along first thing in the morning.  Some of those casements are a bear to lift.  Throw in a cup of coffee and a slab of your cinnamon bannock and I'll help you load them into the cabin.  Sound good to you?"
     "Ted, I'd be more than grateful.  I figured me and Archie could handle it but it'd be touch and go at best.  By the way, we need to stack them on the second floor.  That okay with you?"
     "Don't see a problem with that.  Just make sure you're up and moving by eight-thirty.  I know how it is, old men and children need their sleep."
     By the time Ted drove in we'd already made breakfast, pulled all the braces we dared, baked a bannock, moved plywood into position and discussed the pros and cons of Walt Disney having drawn all his characters with only four fingers per hand.  Emil was of the opinion Mickey Mouse was given an extra toe on each foot as compensation but since the rodent never went barefoot there was no way to know.  He added that Disney's redistribution of digits was no doubt was a Commie plot to subvert the minds of American youth and should have been investigated during the McCarthy hearings.
     "Something like that could could've inhibited the ability of an entire generation to toe the line, lend a hand, shoulder a load, put their best foot forward and, most of all, be unable to insert their thumb in a pie and pull out a plum."
     'Bout time I joined the parade, "The way I see it Uncle Emil, it all goes back to the Garden of Eden. Seems God made Adam and Eve with only four fingers per hand.  Guess the Deity didn't like odd numbers.  In the early years after those apple eaters were kicked out of paradise there was a lack of choice when choosing mates.  Next thing you know there's a fifth finger popping up here and there.  Simple case of inbreeding.  The extra finger made them better hunters, farmers and soon the less productive quad-fingered ones started to disappear.  Walt Disney simply used a little logic and drew Mickey, Minney, Mortie, Ferdie, in fact every one of his cartoon characters, just as the All-Knowing originally intended."
     That set Emil back for a moment.  Finally gave me a stare, "Good Lord, what have I wrought?  Archie me lad, the world's in serious trouble."
      The rumble of the diesel greeted us five minutes before we saw it.  For a change Ted backed up the driveway and pulled to a stop alongside the cabin.  With a, "first we offload, then we eat" from Ted, we set to work.  Stacked the downstairs windows in a corner and tarped them over.  The upstairs load took a while.  Off the truck, onto the deck, lifted onto the platform then pressed above where Emil waited.  By nine-thirty we were sitting down.
     "Those windows'll be in the way when you go to framing the roof but I 'spose you know that Emil."
     "Yah, I've given it some thought.  Also given some thought to Archie being eighteen, limber and fearless.  There'll come times when when he'll be the skyhook I've always dreamed of.  No, we''ll just take 'er as she comes.  Build scaffolding and move it as necessary.  Once the roof's up and shingled it's clear sailing."
     "What I like best Emil is using Archie as a skyhook.  One ankle hooked in a forked branch.  Yeah, I know what you mean.  Done a few things that bordered on stupid myself.  Moving trusses while sitting on a wall frame, one leg wrapped around a stud, twenty feet off the ground and hanging into space.  I can do it Archie, so can you.  Just don't do anything really stupid.  Gravity can be a danger when it comes to construction.  Listen to your uncle.  Looks like he's swung his share of hammers and still has all five of his fingers." Ted paused, "Well, I'm off.  There's another load waiting on me down to the mill."
     Emil topped off Ted's thermos and he was gone.  Once the truck passed from earshot the silence of our clearing was intense.  "When Ted mentioned your fingers Uncle Emil, it was almost like he'd heard what we'd been talking about before he drove in."
     "Probably just a coincidence Archie.  But who knows?  The idea of him knowing's a lot more fun to think about.  Let's get to work."
     We began by building the four roof trusses of two by six lumber.  Used scraps of plywood as gussets.  The lookout was to have a hip roof sloping in all four directions with three foot eaves.  The main floor's roof would mirror the lookout's pitch giving the cabin the look of a two story pagoda.  Both sets of wide sweeping eaves would bring a hint of the prairie to the northwoods.
     "What can I say?  The roof's lack of pitch'll do it in eventually.  But you know, I don't care.  Growing old will do me in too.  Such is life and that includes death.  In the meantime I'll live in a cabin that makes me happy."  Once the trusses were finished we moved on to the scaffolding.
     There are times in life when you do what's necessary but it doesn't seem to move things forward.  Scaffolding's one of them.  Put it up, use it for a few hours, tear it down and assemble it in a new location.  Repeat the process 'til the job's done then store the lumber under the cabin.  By the second move we were getting good at it but each move took close to two hours.
     Emil's scaffolding was a jury rigged affair.  We gave it a few shakes before leaning a ladder on it.  Seemed solid.  Once aboard we tippy-toed for the first minute for fear of collapse.  Turned out the six foot wide decking was stable as bedrock.  Can't say I've ever been afraid of heights yet it took a while aloft to feel comfortable.  We finished the morning by hauling the first truss above and hanging it upside-down, crosswise, from the Lookout walls.
     Two hours into the afternoon the trusses were in place and braced.  "Now comes the fun part, Archie.  Always seems like there's a fun part coming along doesn't it?  Never made a hip roof before.  Looks simple enough when you've seen one framed correctly.  Not so simple when you take a close look at the compound cuts necessary to make one work.  Two angles to each cut.  Spoke with a carpenter back in Parkers about it.  He said to start with an extra long  corner piece of lumber and be ready to screw up 'til you get it right.  Once we get the angles figured out she'll go slick as snail snot."
     Don't know how or why but it turned out I had the touch.  Emil scratched his head for a moment then bowed to youth.  He penciled out the angles, I did the sawing.  Wasn't a job you could horse your way through but instead, required constant checking of the lines and saw kerf.  By the time of a late dinner we were nearly framed.  It was a day of careful concentration in which time passed unnoticed.
     Around four-thirty I heard a yell followed by a whirring sound and a splash.  Seemed to be coming from the other side of the roof.  When I peeked around the corner there stood Emil with his thumb in his mouth.  When I asked him if he was okay Emil simply said, "Archie me lad, would you lend a wounded old man a hand and help him find his hammer?  Could be it's in the stream.  Didn't think I had  that kind of distance left in my arm.  With a little luck we may be having stunned trout for dinner."
     "So what happened?"
     "Call it a coincidence in time and space involving flesh and steel in motion.  Hurts like hell."
   
   
   
   

Emil's Cabin XXV - Wandering the Woods

     I'd spent a lot of time by myself when growing up.  My brother and sister were born early in my parent's wedded years.  I was a surprise who came poking along near the end of my Dad's life.  The better part of a generation separated me from Kate and Will.  By the time I was school age my brother was in the Army and my sister was on her own.  Left me as pretty much an only child in a household where my Mom was off working to pay the bills.  Can't say I minded.  Can't say I had much direction in my life either.  The hours after school and the days of summer vacation were pretty much mine to do as I pleased.  Had a few chores but even more free time.  Never was lonely.  Had my friends, books to read, ball to play.  But most of all I enjoyed my time alone.
     Up in the Arrowhead it was just me and Emil.  And that was fine.  Sometimes we'd talk.  Sometimes we wouldn't.  But regardless, we were never alone.  And I missed my lone time.  Once in a while in the evening I'd simply say, "Uncle Emil, I'm going to wander around for a few minutes."  Emil'd look up from his book or pause between casts and say something like, "Write if you find work," or simply, "See you later," and I'd be off for twenty minutes, maybe more.  I suspected he also enjoyed his quiet time.
     Early on I'd learned most of the wildlife of the northwoods found me long before I found them.  By July the black flies had gone wherever it is they go when you don't see them anymore.  The skeeters came and went with the weather.  A week or so after a good rain they were back.  By mid-July I was probably supplying blood for the grandchildren of the bloodsuckers that'd worried me and Emil as we were clearing the driveway.  Best part was losing the wood ticks.  They were still around but few and far between.  On the upside I still had a pair of small, itchy swellings beneath the band of my tightie-whities to remind of failed body searches.
     What I was hoping to spy was along the line of a fox or deer.  Did my best to quiet my footsteps but for all the good it did I may as well have been beating a bass drum.  Turned out there was little to be concerned of unless I spooked a grouse and nearly soiled my drawers when it exploded from beneath my feet.
     Once away from Aspen Brook the going slowed.  Had to continually duck under or spread the brush and fallen branches.  I knew where I was heading.  More or less.  Farther uphill beyond the Sentinels stood a cluster of red pines that'd made their own clearing by shedding decades of needles.  Never gave it much thought back then but came to learn over the years that alder and hazel brush have no love for big pines.  As pines shed the needles that become duff, brush creeps away in horror.  One result was the bare ground beneath the old growth forests made it easier for logging teams to come denude them.  As Emil would say, there's a lesson in there somewhere.  Maybe, success breeds failure.  Even under the best of conditions forests come and go, then come again.  We're just another monkey wrench thrown in the process.
     The Sentinels I'd already passed were not a matched pair.  One stood tall and arrow straight.  Nary a branch in the lower thirty feet and not a one above was thicker than a lumberjack's thigh.  The other pine was an uneven trident.  The first branch, which would have been reachable with an extension ladder, gracefully curved out then shot up like a second trunk.  And was huge, maybe two feet in diameter.  The second, eight feet higher, was slightly smaller and rose at about ninety degrees from its big sister.  Whenever I looked up I imagined a treehouse spanning the three.  Then imagined the work involved.  Then moved on.
     There's a misconception about the northwoods being a thicket of majestic pines.  Maybe that's true in places I haven't been but up on Emil's land the pines were outnumbered by cedar, aspen, birch and maple.  Could be the reason Emil was so skitterish when it came to felling more than a dozen mature pines for framing lumber.  Those his buddy Greg had chosen were usually from clusters.  They'd thinned out the biggest of three or four with the idea the remaining trees would benefit from the extra sunlight.  In the Arrowhead country sunshine isn't an everyday thing like it is in the deserts of the southwest.  Up here every ray is important.
     Slowly rising inland I'd pass through a two acre stand of wrist-thick rustling aspen before reaching the base of the ridge.  As ridges go it's nothing special.  Maybe climbs a little over a hundred feet from its scree pile base.  The thought crossed my mind there's a car-sized agate somewhere in the jumble. Should there be - I sure didn't find it - and you have the notion, feel free to come give a look.  The ridge lies north of Emil's property line, mine these days, so you won't be trespassing.  Or pull up the driveway with the bribe of a homemade apple pie and I'll walk you there myself.
     Once on the scree I'd pause to rest, conform my backside to a jagged slab of mossed stone.  I knew to the foot where the cabin sat down below but couldn't as yet see it.  Wouldn't be long and the roof'd rise into view.  Emil chose his land well.  The view across the jade leafed valley was just this side of spectacular.  Like the small trout in the stream, the valley wasn't overwhelming but had a personal feel to it.  Now as the sun lowered and the shadows stretched, the green canopy below added a black tinge of shadow.  A good spot to sit and recall parts of my brief history.
     Won't bore you with the details.  Simply put, my life to that point had struck a balance.  Had my triumphs and had just as many failures.  But it was the squandered chances that weighed on me.  Was asked out of class near the end of eighth grade in a parochial school to speak with a man I didn't know.  We were joined by the school principle.  The man spoke of the advantages of going to a prestigious Catholic high school.  Attending St. Thomas had never entered my head.  Also, that he might be recruiting me 'cause I was the best baseball pitcher in the city league and had been a good student to boot also never entered my head.  Guess I couldn't fill in the blanks.  Simply told the man I had other plans, which I hadn't.
     Year and a half later, the last time I wore a baseball uniform.  The head scout for the Minnesota Twins was standing behind me as I fired fastball after fastball in the bullpen of Metropolitan Stadium.  At fifteen I was too young to be there but Mr. Guiliani hadn't been told my age.  All he knew was one of his birddog scouts had seen me strike out twelve in the four innings I'd pitched in relief one evening.
     It was a tryout camp for the Twins.  I was three or more years younger than the bearded men who'd preceded me on the pair of pitching mounds.  The man who was catching took one look at my baby face and picked up a fielder's mitt instead of a catcher's glove.  A half dozen pitches later one of my pitches tore the webbing out of his mitt.  Yup, I had a lively fastball.  And was the only pitcher invited back for a second look.  Like I said, that was the last time I was in a baseball uniform.  My arm could have taken me to a prestigious high school, maybe even a free ride to college.  But I simply walked away for no apparent reason.  Just did it.  Like water under the bridge, I figured there'd be more coming along sooner or later.
     That slab of stone was a good place to sit and have a smoke.  Above, back a few yards from the ridge, a truck passed on the McFarland Road.  Irksome intrusion of my meditation.  Reminded me I wasn't alone in the world and it was time to wander back.  Stubbed the smoke out, field stripped it and put the butt in my pocket.  A clean camp was a happy camp and I'd come to appreciate not stepping on discarded nails.  Also saw no good reason for crapping up the woods beyond the clearing.
     About the only thing that'd changed back in camp was the fresh pot of coffee.  I was greeted by a "How's tricks?  Did you see the bear?"  I hadn't.  "Well, never mind then."  Didn't know if he was pulling my leg but did know any further questioning would get me nowhere.
     "By the by Archie, I've been giving some thought to your situation.  What keeps coming to mind may or may not make much sense but in an odd way, it seems to fit.  As I see it, there's all kinds of strengths in life.  When you work with someone for a while, like we've done, their particular strengths stand out.  You seem to have at least two.  When faced with a problem you most always figure out a solution.  You're no blazing ball of fire in that department but more often than not it's one of those third choice kind of things.  When it comes to choosing between A and B, once in a while you come up with a C most people wouldn't see.  That's good.  But like I said, it takes you a while.  That's where your real strength shows up, endurance.  You never seem to tire.  Not that you're a bull-headed, hammer your way though, kind of guy.  Just that you'll keep the door open 'til something comes rambling along.  So that's where I figure you stand with the draft.  Over time, an answer will find you.  And you'll recognize it for the truth it is.  As for me, I'm gonna brush my teeth and get a good night's sleep so I have the energy to work you like a dog in the morning."
   
   
   
 

Emil's Cabin XXIV - Grunt Work

     Had our coffee beneath the Sentinels again.  One more time and we'd have ourselves the beginning of a ritual.  Soughing of the breeze in the needles above for rhythm.  Bird song and stream riffle for melody.  A pair of kingfishers smoked by like a couple of fighter jets off to save America from the red peril.  I figured they were looking for food.  Maybe snatching rising bugs out of the air or diving in the Aspen after minnows.  Emil didn't think so, "As far as I know the kingfisher is partial to moose eggs and cherries jubilee.  Seems the bird and the moose have one of those relationships, symbiotic or something, where one helps the other.  Mooses have a sweet tooth for underwater roots as does the kingfisher.  However, there's no way a little bird can uproot a large plant.  So they get the leftovers a moose passes along free of charge.  And the cherries jubilee sets off the pungent eggs just right."  I figured Emil's observations were the price I had to pay for getting paid.  The work itself was fun, in a miserable kind of way.
     Our task for the day was simple enough had it been done on the floor.  Oddly enough what we were assembling above our heads was a floor.  When we hopped aboard the deck all our material was in place jumping up and down in anticipation.  First off we turned the three saw horses into a platform by joining them atop with two by eights.  We assembled the platform along the west wall and leaned one end of the long beam atop.  Once aboard we hoisted it well onto the wall's sill.  Made sure we had a solid half foot of overhang.  Easier said than done.  Moving to the east wall we repeated the process, being careful to not overcook pulling the beam onto the sill for fear of dropping the far end.  Wouldn't have been the end of the world but in no way did we want to lift that bugger any more times than necessary.  Easy does it was said more than once.
     Here's where I'm supposed to write everything went perfect.  Not a hitch in the process.  But it turned out the center post was a hair short,  "Archie me lad, that is no problem.  We'll just cut us a shim out of scrap plywood.  The hard part will fall on your shoulders.  Being the overlord of this project I've chosen you as my beam jack."
     While Emil stood on the stepladder I shouldered the beam at the wall and tippy-toed it up a couple of inches.  Had to be careful to not let the beam flop sideways.  We had it on edge just like we wanted.  A flop to the side would put undo pressure on the nails and possibly loosen what we'd spent hours pounding tight.
     Getting it on the walls and tree didn't take long, maybe fifteen minutes.  Getting the beam dead center and square with the side walls was the challenge.  Like Emil said, I was the beam jack.   Lift and move, lift and move.  First one side then the other.  Emil provided the eyeballing.  Five moves of the platform and we were dead on Emil's marks, ready for the bracing.  L-shaped, pre-drilled angle iron did the job nicely.  Tied the beam and brackets together with heavy duty screws.
     "We're done with the beam for the moment.  Eventually the wall brackets will come off.  We'll tie the beam to the rafters when the roof is framed and trim the ends flush with the roof decking."  Emil paused, looked skyward, "The roof will have to go on eventually.  No doubt about it.  Don't think that beam'll shed enough water.  Let's see if we can get some of the joists up by lunch."
     I hauled twelve foot, two by eights while Emil marked off the hangers.  Grunt work was fine with me.  Hard to screw up.  This cabin was my uncle's baby and his worry.  All I was doing was making the delivery go smoother.  When we began back in June I figured my uncle knew what he was doing.  Better than a month had passed and he'd done nothing to shed that notion.  Yup, he had 'er figured out alright, down to the eighth inch.  Could have danced three elephants on the floor.  No doubt in my mind the building would outlive him.  Probably me also.
     Hanging the double two by eight beams that'd carry the lookout joists was another putz job calling for step ladder, platform and careful measurement.  We spent more time moving and inching stuff around than we did nailing.  At least the hangers on the main beam couldn't move once they were secured.  Out on the sill the smaller beams were once again held in place by angle irons.  'Course they'd also have to be removed when the roof was framed.  Two steps forward, one back.
     By afternoon's end we were putting decking onto the lookout joists.  And the view from above was worth the price of admission.  Could have seen all the way to Lake Superior had there not been hills and trees in the way.  Emil would have to settle for a partly obstructed view of the brook which was exactly what he'd wanted all along.  Lucky man.
     "Archie me lad, another fine day's work.  Watching this building grow out of the earth has been a pleasure.  Being the cause of growth, even better.  The summer's not yet half over and we're most of the way through the framing.  The thought crosses my mind now and then how much faster it'd go were I twenty year's younger.  Then I remember I'd be doing this alone.  Would've definitely needed the sky hook.  Maybe two.  Guess it's better to have waited."
     We sat on the one sheet of plywood we'd nailed down and watched the world go by.  This was one of those moments when I could feel the planet beneath me spinning along through space.  Not as fast as a tilt-a-whirl or we'd have been thrown off our perch.  For the moment all was right with the world.  Such moments don't last long.  'Specially when you've got a nosy uncle like mine.
     "Don't suppose you've killed or raped anyone.  Archie me lad, you also don't appear to be an arsonist.  At least I hope you're not.  Haven't said anything to lead me to believe you're a pacifist so whatever the issue you have with goin' in the Army can't be all that important to anyone but you."
     "Yup, that about covers it."
     "As for me, all's right with the world.  I'm sitting on the best trout stream in the state.  At least for me it is.  The brookies aren't fussy, not all that big and probably not of much interest to the outside world.  When the cabin's done I'll be able to crank open the casement windows I've got on order and sleep to the sound of water on its way to the Pigeon River.  It gives me great comfort to know my spit could eventually find its way to the Atlantic Ocean.  Might even be evaporated into rain and someday fall on my head as I'm flipping flies.  Yes sir, there's nothing quite like being able to spit on yourself through the efforts of time and Mother Nature.  No doubt about it I'm one happy man."
     "Uncle Emil, I haven't registered for the draft."  No forethought, it just came out.
     "The hell you say.  Is that what's bothering you?  I figured it was more on the level of having written letters to the Kremlin concerning all those nuclear secrets they teach you in schools these days."  Emil paused a moment in thought,  "As I see it you don't have much of a problem at all.  One of these days you'll wake up, find the need and go talk to the Draft Board.  Simple enough.  When you do, be humble and ready to volunteer for the draft.  Won't be easy but like I said, one day you'll find the need, might even find you and it'll be simple."
     "I suppose you're right. But I sure don't see how it'll ever be simple."
     "It'll seem simple once you've done it.  Archie, you take yourself too seriously.  Probably think you're God's gift to the world.  If so then let me have the honor of telling you, you're not.  Problem is you're eighteen years old.  Haven't been anywhere or done anything of consequence.  Haven't had to figure your way out of a big mistake.  Gettin' square with the Draft may very well be your first.  In a sense, you're fortunate to have done something that dumb."
     With that we went quiet.  Listened to the whirr of the dragonflies.  One landed on my shoulder and remained 'til we rose, descended the ladder and started dinner.
   

Emil's Cabin XXIII - Evening on the Aspen

     Down on the Aspen Emil had a grumble going, "There's more to Ted's method than meets the eye.  I'm working it just like he showed me but the trout seem to be giving the fly the stink eye.  Treat it like it's poison.  Could be I'm doing something wrong.  Could also be the reason hangs above, pierced in a branch about fifteen feet up in that popple.  Oh well, that was the last of Ted's flies and it was beat up pretty bad.  Guess it's back to cast and shoot."
     The sun was balanced on the treetops, taking its time to topple over the horizon.  One of those evenings when life slows to a crawl.  Fine with me.  I was in no hurry and could slow down with the best of 'em.  Didn't figure I was missing anything down in the cities.  The Fourth of July had come and gone.  Didn't need us at all.  What they were celebrating with parades and fireworks was pretty much what we were doing along the Aspen.  Freedom and the right to bare arms in the warm air.
     I always had a good time watching Emil work the stream.  Nothing fancy.  Waded in his old Keds, trouser legs rolled to his knees.  Carried a few flies and a length of leader in an old red and white Altoids tin stuffed in a shirt pocket.  Fifty years later he'd have been called a minimalist.  Guess he knew what he needed and saw no reason to pack more.
     "Nothing but a buggy-whipper when I'm out on the lakes.  Doesn't seem to matter as much to bass or bluegills.  But here on the Aspen it's another story.  Delicate.  And doesn't require as much line.  Ted was right about that.  Noodling and flipping.  Get the fly to land on the water like it's alive.  Lay it out, let it drop.  Then keep up the ruse.  Sometimes that's nothing more than having it drift along like there's no line attached.  That doesn't work I try pissing 'em off.  Skate the bug and confuse the trout.  'Specially brookies.  They're curious little guys always ready to come check out what just dropped in.  More like bass that way.
     Emil paused a moment, slowly lowered his rod tip then missed the hook set, "Damnation.  Oh well, such are the mysterious ways of Aspen Brook.  Should a real fly fisherman see me work a stream it wouldn't take but two seconds to figure me a faker.  Heck, so would my fifteen buck white plastic rod for that matter.  But I fool a few fish now and then.  And sure have a good time whether I do or not."
     Yeah, it was worth ten minutes sitting stream side listening to Emil.  Wasn't that I didn't enjoy worrying the trout myself but our stream fishing was a procession of leap frogging.  When we'd pass we'd chat.  Or sometimes I'd simply stop and enjoy the view.  Wasn't enough water in any one pool to share.  Also, wasn't enough trout to fish any pool for more than a dozen casts.  The trout always let us know when it was time to move on.  Seeing as how they bored easily, we worked our way down stream at a good clip.  Two hours on the water might find us a half mile from where we started.  Though we were rarely shoulder to shoulder, we were always within earshot.  Emil had a habit of chuckling and talking soothingly to a hooked fish that told me how he was doing.  Most often than not he was doing just fine.  His current grumble amounted to no more than he'd passed fifteen minutes without a hookup.
     Over the summer we saw, fished and fell in love with close to two miles of stream, learning as we waded.  One of Emil's overworked saws had to do with trout being educators.  Told us what they wanted.  It was up to us to pay attention.  Try something and see their reaction.  The smart ones were hip to our game from the get-go.  We figured those fish couldn't be caught.  At least by the likes of us.
     A few minutes after the grumble Emil gave up the ghost, came and sat with me on the shore.  There's moments in life that carry more meaning than others.  This was one of them.  We didn't say much but our words bore a lot of weight.
     "So, Archie me lad, how's your love life?"  That's a cliche of the first order.  Just words to start a conversation.  Not much for me to say.  Oh, I loved alright but my love hadn't as yet found life.  So I simply cocked my head and gave him a stare.
     "Wouldn't worry.  Wasn't much of a Casanova myself."  Emil returned my look, one eyebrow raised, "and there's nothing wrong with dying a virgin.  Can't say I'd recommend it.  Though I once talked with a sheepherder out in Wyoming who said he was happy, almost euphoric, being alone, just him and the sheep.  He figured a man could never be lonely surrounded by a few thousand sheep.  Nah, I wouldn't worry about it.  Your time will come and you'll know it when it does."
     "Any new thoughts on school?"
     Stared down at my dirty, once white canvas, slip on tennis shoes, Dutch printed on the toe of one, Elm on the other.  Had to think about the question for a minute.  Still wasn't excited about attending the U.  Might even have gone into the Army had I the choice.  But there was a hitch.  A big hitch.  Back when my time came to register for the draft I'd put it off 'til tomorrow.  Then another tomorrow.  Well, those tomorrows just kept piling up and now four months of them had stacked high, wide and deep.  I felt terrible anytime it came to mind.  Not having registered was illegal and in my mind, immoral.  Men in my family did their duty and served in the military, simple as that.  I knew I'd have to step up someday and clear myself with the Draft Board.  When the thought of my lack of action arose I sweat bullets about the consequences, then crammed it right back down.  That's what loomed behind my choice of going to school.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't and it was me doing the damning.
     "Nah.  Still not thrilled but I'll go."
     "Seems to me getting the Army out of the way would be the thing to do.  Gonna have to sometime."
     "Yeah, I suppose.  But me and the Army have issues.  Don't know of a better way to describe it and don't really want to talk about it right now."
     Guess I wasn't ready to make the leap.  If I couldn't with Emil how would I be able to face a board of complete strangers?  For lack of a better phrase let's just say I wasn't man enough.  Not easy being a hypocrite, no sir, not at all.
     Emil didn't have much to say after that.  But it seemed to me he knew.  And knew any words he might say would be a waste of time.  If anything, whatever he'd say would only make things worse.
     "Fine by me.  No doubt you know what's best.  At least a part of you does.  Sometimes it's necessary to do something wrong for things to turn out right.  This could very well be one of those things.  One way or the other, you've been a good worker Archie.  And a good companion on all our doings over the years.  Couldn't have done a one without you.  And for that I'm grateful."
     With that Emil returned to the brook.  All the while he'd been eyeing a chunky brook trout slurping down bugs on the far bank.  Before wading he'd tied on a colorful, black and orange, tiny blob of fuzz he called a Royal Wulff.  Awful small wolf if you'd asked me.  While humming 'Goodnight Irene' he did a couple of false casts to work out his line then laid the fly a few yards upstream from the trout.  For the next few seconds the blob drifted like a leaf, sweet as could be.  When she hit, the brookie made a sucking sound like the last slurp of a milk shake.
     A couple of foot high jumps and she rocketed down stream with my uncle in hot pursuit.  Rod high and his black, Keds high tops gallumping along, his one good eye on the fish.  Nearly went down once but did not lose the trout.  Finally, thirty yards around the bend Emil skated it to his feet.  Could have been seventeen inches, maybe more.  He waited for me so I could enjoy his prize.
     "Doubt we'll see another this large.  Best part's she's barely hooked.  Easy release.  Would have been a shame to kill something that'd lasted a half dozen Arrowhead winters."  A twist of the hook and the trout was gone.

Emil's Cabin XXII - Trees, In and Out

     Back at the cabin we pulled and folded the flooded tarp to let the deck air out.  When you're building outdoors there's no getting around the weather.  Emil said the problem with reality is it's too real.  Might even be where they got the word.  When it rains, things get wet and when you eat, well, you get the idea.
     All in all it'd been a good day.  So good we decided to set future Sundays apart.  Only do the things we liked to do.  Since we liked to work on the cabin, we worked on the cabin.  Guess it isn't work if you're having a good time.  Yeah, I know that's been said a thousand times but it's true, except for the times you cut yourself with a utility knife or fall off a rafter.
     "Archie me lad, seeing as how it's only three-thirty, what would suit your fancy?"
     "Tell you what Uncle Emil, if you're up for it let's see if we can throw on a few more sheets of plywood.  I'm about fished out for the moment and there's nothing I'd like better than to drive a few nails."
     So that's what we did 'til it was time to slap a few cold sandwiches together and call it supper.  Monday was more of the same.  Nothing fancy, just work.  Some sheets we nailed in place before sawing out a window or door.  Others I'd hold in place while Emil traced the opening then cut them on the saw horses.  Between times or while I was sawing, Emil would stare off into the trees.  What he called envisioning.  I asked what he was seeing,
     "Beams and posts.  I know how they should look, how they should be made, how they'll fit together on paper.  What I'm trying to figure out is if it all makes sense.  Can it be done?  Will it do what it's supposed to do?  And mostly how we're going to hoist a monstrosity of a beam into place, eight feet off the floor without killing ourselves.  It'll be an unknown 'til we give her a go and unknowns can go any number of ways.  Might be a case of me over-thinking something simple.  Might turn out to be impossible and we'll have to come up with a plan B.  Don't know which but we'll sure find out."
     Late in the afternoon the last of our homegrown lumber rumbled up the driveway.  Ted wasn't at the wheel this time.  Instead it was one of the Berglands.  "Wasn't doing anything special so dad shagged me up here figuring you might need the wood."
     Arne looked about my age.  Struck and embarrassed me I didn't yet have a driver's license and this kid was driving a straight truck.  Guess young men in the country grew up faster.  Thank God I was dirty and wearing a tool belt.  Didn't want to look like a city boy in the land of men.  Emil thanked him for the delivery.  We burned twenty minutes offloading with me trying my best to make the painful look like no sweat.  Bore down so hard when we moved the tamarack post I nearly cracked a tooth.  Smiling in the face of misery's no simple chore.
     Emil cracked open three bottles of pop and gave Arne the tour.  "Ted told me you had something special going on up here.  Looks more like a box at the moment but throw on what you call your lookout and it should be interesting.   My old man says we might get the whole mill up here to check it out when you're done.  Also told me to tell you your windows should be in by the end of the week.  Near a half truck load.  Mr. Schonnemann, that is a lot of glass."  With a best of luck, Arne was off and running.
     Tuesday morning we eased ourselves through breakfast.  Putzed so much the sun was up by the time we finished dishes.
     "Grab a cup of coffee Archie and come follow me."  We headed east along the brook and cut inland a few yards.  Once beneath the spreading arms of the Sentinels we sat down, our backs to the trunk nearest the water.
     "Figured since we're going to plant the tamarack log in the cabin today it might be a good idea to sit here and finish our coffee.  Don't ask me why, just seems right.  Besides, this is an important step in the construction.  No need to hurry it."
     Through a break in the brush we watched a doe and pair of fawns descend the far bank.  Mom seemed intent on drinking.  The fawns had other ideas and bounded around like they were auditioning for roles as Bambi stand-ins.  Finally they got the idea, two hoofs in the flow and drank like there was no tomorrow.  Must have been a drift of our scent that set mama's ears all atwitter.  Looked around, then all but kicked her kids' little butts to come follow her back to cover.  Seemed to me deer in the northwoods had it rough.  If hunters or wolves didn't get them, the herby-jeebies surely would.
     Emil flipped his dregs and rose.  "Good show.  May as well get to it."  We wandered back.  "Shouldn't take more than an hour to polish off the last two sheets of plywood, then we'll start in on some prep-work I've been considering."
     After finishing the sheathing Emil sent me to the pile to gather framing for three, heavy duty saw horses,  "The beam we're set to build will top two hundred pounds easy.  There's no way we can lift something that heavy over our heads while standing on tippy-toes.  Hopefully a three foot high platform will do the trick."
     When we sat down to lunch the horses were finished and we'd had started on the beam.  And it was a beast.  Triple two by eight thick, thirty-two feet long.  About a hundred, thirty penny nails tied it together.  Each nail just long enough to pierce and join all three timbers without popping all the way through.  We worked with one pound hammers and driving those spikes was a challenge.  I'd get one started then whack it for all I was worth.  Gripped the hammer two fingers over the end, reached for the sky and came down with a killing blow.  Good thing they didn't bend easy.  Twelve hits to get one set was my best.
     Emil spent near as much time eyeballing the beam against the line he'd snapped on the floor as he did there nailing.  "This beam is critical.  Has to be perfect.   Could be I said that about the posts, or maybe the floor joists, could have been the concrete mix, or even the muffins we made last Tuesday.  Forget all those, they didn't really mean squat.  This one is in another league.  One slip and it could be the end of life as we know it on the planet."
     Lunch never lasted more than forty-five minutes.  We rarely cooked the noon meal.  It was calories and liquid, as much of each as we could get down.  Maybe a dash to the cat hole at meal's end.  By now we were on our third drop zone.  No matter how foul it might be to us, many a forest dweller appeared to find sustenance there.  Seemed the creatures of the night appreciated the nutritional value of our leavings even when covered by a few shovel's full of dirt.  Retrieving scattered butt wipe was one of the less desirable aspects of woods life.  But both of us did it.  Emil liked a clean camp and I couldn't fault him for it.  'Bout the only thing we left ungathered was sawdust.  Sooner or later it'd turn to soil.
     The tree awaited.  While we uncovered, Emil began to speak but I cut him off.  Set off on a tangent of my own, "Archie me lad, this here's one special tree.  God grew it for me from a shaving off the true cross.  St. Helena came to me in a dream and said I should build her a church in the woods of northern Minnesota.  Erect it on a spot so far off the beaten path no one in their right mind would ever come to worship.  While you're at it, get some near useless teen-ager to come help you build as you're gettin' on in years.  Don't much care how you throw the thing together so long as you take extra special care to get that chunk of tamarack perfectly centered and as plumb as a bob.  You good with that Emil?  By the way, leave a few branch stubs so you can hang the Shroud of Grand Marais.  Of course the Shroud's another story.  I've already reserved a dream slot with the Big Guy for next October.  See you then."
     Emil gave me a sheepish grin,  "Didn't know I sounded that good.  Guess I better stop holding back.  That thing about the Shroud has me intrigued.  There's some potential there."
     Gut splitter.  Nearly blew my kneecaps off lifting the beast.  Couldn't begin to imagine what it must have felt like to a fifty-nine year old body.  Two hundred, three hundred pounds?  Felt more like we were carrying a Volkswagen.  Shoulders were separating, spines crushing and we left a track of footprints deep enough to stand the test of time - 'and along here children we've unearthed evidence of an ancient civilization.  From the depth of the impressions the primitive humans of the late second millennium must have been giants weighing at least four hundred pounds.'  Would have said that aloud had I the energy.
     I set the butt end of the log on the folded tarp Emil'd laid in the doorway to protect his baby and immediately trotted to Emil's end.  Slowly we inched the tree toward the center of the deck 'til it was fully rested within.
     "Thank God for the pain Archie.  At least I know I didn't die.  Damnation that was heavy.  What say we stretch our bones for a minute?"
     Emil's idea of a minute consisted of climbing onto the deck and doing a couple of neck rolls.  Crazy old man for sure.  Then it was squat, lift and slide.  Finally we raised the trunk on Emil's centered X like we were Marines on Iwo Jima.  Should of had Ted along to see if we were doing it right.
     "For now we'll block it in place.  The finish work will come when the floor gets laid."
     The rest of the afternoon was spent building eight, twelve foot long, double two by eights.  They were to carry the floor joists of the lookout.  Also would do double duty by tying together the front and back walls.  Emil figured the cabin could fall apart any number of ways.  Our job was to limit the possibilities.  Seen from above, the cabin would be a rectangle split in two lengthwise by the big beam and crosswise in six by the shorter beams.  Kind of a double-cross.  The weight of the lookout would be carried by the outer walls on the ends of the beams and the tree in the middle.  At least that's how he explained it to me.  By four we were done for the day.  Oof dah, barely eight and a half hours of physical labor.  Hardly worth getting out of the sack.
   

Emil's Cabin XXI - Cloudy With a Chance of Trout

     We rose in the dark.  Even earlier than usual.  Though up and dressed I sure wasn't awake.  But soon Emil's childlike excitement rubbed off on me like the measles.  For a moment.  Inside the tent the dark was so deep I first thought I was dead.  Then blind.  Isn't easy being caught between dreams and the waking world.  He'd found me in the middle of a good one.  But as I rose from the deep I lost it.  Gone.  Don't have many good dreams that I remember into the waking hours.  They seem clear as day when I'm traveling through them.  When I come around, all that's left is a smile on my face.
     The ones that stick aren't fun.  More of a sweat, panic and get moving in nature.  There's the tornado dream when I'm looking for a place to hide and the nuclear war one where I'm going like hell to get out of town before the big one hits.  Had 'em both plenty of times.  The only good part is I don't die in either one.  In fact come out clean as a whistle.  Maybe it's just a passing phase or maybe it's the way I am.  Never ready, always something on the horizon blowing in to do me harm and me on the run.  Run Archie, run.
     "Rise and shine Archie.  You've fallen back asleep.  This is no day to dawdle.  Don't want to keep the man waiting.  As Ted said, the sermon for this Sunday will be delivered stream side.  And I don't want to miss a word."
     By the time I'd stumbled out to relieve myself Emil had the stove fired up and coffee perking.  Grumbled a good morning to my uncle as I passed and headed toward the woods.  While emptying I raised my eyes to the heavens.  The stars above were so heavily laden with light they drooped.  I feared I might bump my head against one and set my hat afire.  Could have sworn others were lower than the tree tops.  That's when I smelled the sausages welcoming me back to earth.  What a morning!  Felt uplifted and I had to make myself useful.  Did a brief wash-up under the freeze of the pump.  While Emil cracked eggs into foaming butter, I sliced slabs of fresh bakery bread, slathered them thick and dropped a pair into the waiting pan.  Oh yeah, sausage and egg sandwiches for breakfast.  Even had mustard.  By five we were brushing our teeth and ready to hit the road.  Inside the truck cab on the seat and floor rested a thermos of Emil's mud, a box of sweet rolls, fixings for lunch.  In the truck bed an expedition's worth of trout tackle lay waiting.
     "Archie me lad, we're as ready as can be.  Hope the trout are too."
     We'd been down in Hovland no more than five minutes when Ted came rolling up in a green and mud splattered pickup truck nearly as old as me.
     Ted wasn't a man of many words.  In less than fifty he gave us the lowdown, "First choice here'd be the Flute Reed but the water's down and the fishing's tough.  So we'll do what my grandpa calls the Wiskode-zibi, Bois Brule to the French, just Brule these days.  Follow me.  We'll head up the Camp Road.  Let's get to it."
     Seemed the Camp Road was named after a CCC camp up near Tom Lake during the Depression.  The C's put a lot of unemployed men to work replanting timber back in the late '30s on land the lumber barons had clear cut back in the early years of the century.  Twenty-five years doesn't allow for a lot of growth up in the Arrowhead.  The pines we were passing showed it.  Most weren't more than eight inches on the stump.
     The dry spring we'd had might have turned the Flute Reed unfishable but made Ted easy to track as we wound our way up from the lake.  Just followed the yellow plume of dust.  Fifteen minutes on the Camp Road took us to a rough looking stretch of two track.  Another five minutes of bump, grind and boulder dodge and we were there.  Wasn't but a widening in the trail where we squeezed tight to the brush.
     Ted rolled out of his pickup, "We'll pack our gear down to the river.  Maybe throw an arm load of sticks and kindling down and tarp the pile over.  Looks like it could rain buckets.  There's a nice spot off a couple of islands where we can cook up some lunch."
     Took me a minute to realize what I took for breeze rustling the aspen leaves above was actually the rush of the river about a hundred yards below.  What I'd had in mind was more like the brook bordering Emil's land.  This sounded different.  Bigger.  More exciting.  And the truth be known, a little more challenging.  Big water, big fish.  Yup, I was all atingle with excitement and nerves.
     In fact, everything about this day struck me as different from any other I'd spent with my uncle.  This time he wasn't in charge, didn't have all the answers.  For a change he was walking in my shoes.  And he seemed to relish it.
     While winding up the Camp Road he'd said, "Archie me lad, it's not often you get a chance like we have today.  Ted's grown up in these woods.  Probably knows where he is just by the smell.  His blood line's been in these woods for centuries.  I'm thrilled just being here with him.  Doesn't matter whether we catch a thing today as far as I'm concerned.  Being able to share this river with Ted is reward enough."
     That sure put a different spin on it.  Maybe Emil never thought of himself as being boss in any situation.  Seemed to be all about sharing and learning and doing.  Even back at the cabin he was like that.  I barely knew how to hold a hammer when we'd started.  Each time something new came up it seemed to me he was telling me how best to tackle the situation.  From my life in the big city I'd come to see telling as being the same as ordering.  With my uncle it was different.  For him telling was the same as sharing.  He wasn't demanding I do things exactly as he was.  No, he was sharing experience and information.  More like 'I do it this way, give it a try.  It might work for you.'
     And that's how he stood with Ted.  Ted had knowledge passed down generation to generation.  The dirt beneath our feet coursed through his blood.  As it did his parent's, grandparent's, who knows how far back.  Just as it had with our ancestors way back in the old country.  At one time the blood of all our families down through the ages had walked the woods somewhere, Sweden, Germany, Middle East, Africa.  Today we were passing through Ted's woods on our way to scare up some trout for lunch.  Or maybe bologna sandwiches.
     Down below, the track of the Brule split the forest and exposed itself to the sky.  What had been partly cloudy down in Hovland had now grown overcast and hanging minute by minute lower as we set down our gear.
     "Don't know about you boys but this Ojibwe's heading back to the truck for his rain gear."
     Emil gave me a glance and we followed.  We might be wading wet but dry underwear held its appeal.  Taking no chances we donned both pants and jackets.
     Back on the beach Ted gave us the lowdown, "This here's a pretty spot to eat and watch the river pass but not so good for trout.  We'll head upstream a ways.  The Brule narrows a bit up there.  Couple of runs of rapids and some plunge pools that nearly always hold fish.  Both brookies and rainbows in the pools behind the rocks waiting for lunch to come along.  Should you have a choice, kill a handful of the rainbows.  The DNR stocks them.  The brookies are native.  Might even be kin so take care with them.  Treat 'em like they're your children.  Or better still, like my Grandma's oldest grandson.  Pack along only what you'll need.  Fly box, rod, some extra tippet and needle nose.  Should we catch a few I'll show you what to do."
     Off we traipsed upstream like Christopher Robin and Pooh on an expedition.  Up front, Christopher Robin was smoking camels and far to the rear Piglet was drawing on an Old Gold filter.  Ted's smoke cloud didn't rise an inch.  Just hung there in the cool, sodden air 'til Emil passed through and split it into whirlpools and eddies.  We wound along stream side on jumbled stone and root, occasionally cutting uphill to avoid wading lengths of bog or climbing over car-sized boulders.  The Brule had eroded a valley three times wider than what now flowed through the bottom.  At the islands where we'd dropped our gear the stream was better than thirty yards wide.  A lot of water but spread thin over fields of rubble.  Wouldn't have much luck floating the Grumman through there.  Occasionally we traced a faint path.  Could have been fishermen, more likely deer.  Typical of a deer path the ground was trampled but bowered over with brush three feet above.  Emil had taught me well and I followed safely out of whipping range.
     Hard to tell distance when bushwhacking but I figured it as a quarter mile when the twenty foot  high valley walls narrowed and squeezed the Brule to about a long cast wide.  Here it sped up and tumbled down a long series of shelf and boulder.  Didn't take a genius to figure out we were there.
     Ted gave me and my spinning rod the first pool.  "Little spinners'll work just fine.  So will a tiny jig and a strip of pork rind should you have any.  Me, I learned on worms and a hook.  Ain't fancy but it's deadly.  This is one of the best pools on the river so knock yourself out.  One moment…."
     He pulled his black-cased pocket knife, walked into the brush.  Returned carrying a length of alder branch trimmed to four feet with an inverted, v-shaped stub midway up.  "Should you catch any rainbows Archie, first break their necks then slide the branch through their gills.  The stub will hold 'em.  Lay the rig in the shallows where it's calm and put a big rock on it.  Simple as pie.  Lunch is up to you.  Me and Emil will head up to the next pools and do our best to not fall in.  When they stop biting come up stream and bring your catch along."
     He sure seemed confident I wouldn't screw up.  I was already working up excuses before I'd even tied on a an orange and black beetle-bug and tipped it with a strip of pork rind.  Back on the Aspen trial and error'd told me that combo almost always produced.  The men in the pools up above might be here on some kind of religious, get in touch with nature, pilgrimage but not me.  I was here to catch trout.  Didn't need to be dozens but it sure would be nice to provide lunch.
     Began with a back hand flip into the edge of the closest run where the river sluiced through a pair of moss-sided rocks.  Moments like this've always gotten my juices flowing.  Possibility was open ended.  Being eighteen only magnified the feeling.  My world had shrunk to twenty feet of fast water and the feel of the blue monofilament line sliding over my index finger as it spoke to me of the tick, tick, ticking, rock tumbling rig.
     Ted was right.  This pool was hot.  No more than a half dozen excited heart beats later I was into a trout.  The fight was short and sweet.  My first landing was no work of angler's art.  I simple horsed it in, removed the hook and rind, and squatted there in the shallows admiring the foot long, dark back and silver sided fish.  They call them rainbows but I always figured that an exaggeration.  The color's there alright, just not much of it.  Snapped its neck and branched it.
     My next, a brook trout, was another story.  Had all the colors of the rainbow above and the woods below and spread them will-nilly from nose to tail.  Throw in some spots and squiggles and you've got yourself a fish to admire.  Looked like something Van Gogh might paint.  Starry, starry fish.  Took care with this one.  Didn't even touch it.  Turned the hook out with my pliers and watched it wriggle back into the flow.
     'Bout then's when the drizzle started.  Not that it mattered much.  Slid my hood up and went back to work.  My feet grew near numb wading the Brule but joyfully managed to fish all three chutes.  When I headed upstream I carried five feet of rainbows on my stick.  The drizzle seemed to be getting bigger ideas.  Had we been back in camp we'd have been tent bound listening to the spatter on the roof.  Out here the rain seemed a good thing, a friend.  The dark above brightened the fishing.  Also put a grin on my face.
     Emil and Ted had fished their way upstream through several pools.  I came on Ted first and held up my catch.  Got a simple nod in response like he expected nothing less.  After dousing the trout I found a knee high boulder beneath a mist shrouded white spruce, sat myself down, lit up and watched the man fish.
     I'd figured Ted's method would look like the pictures I'd seen in magazines.  Maybe even something like the way Emil fished.  Long arcing line gracefully waved in and out before laying it down many yards away.  Then cautiously watching his daintily floating fly as it drifted with the flow.  Instead Ted seemed to be all about position.  No long casts for Ted.  When he wanted to reach a new target he'd move within striking range.  Never more than twenty feet of line out and pinched to the rod with his casting hand.  Could have been doing the same thing noodling with a fifteen foot cane pole.  Simple as simple could be.  Lift, whip, whip, blip.  Sometimes he'd wet and sink his fly, let it drift.  Other times he'd blow it dry and skitter it across the surface with a waving motion of the rod.  He'd only retrieve his line when he had a fish on.  In the short time I sat there Ted caught and landed three small brookies, none more than ten inches.  Two he touchlessly released in the knee deep water by slipping the hook with his forceps.  The other required care.  Ted scooped it from the shallows, cradled it in his left hand and carefully eased the hook from deep in the fish's throat.  Before the release he quietly said something.
     A half dozen troutless casts drew him from the pool.  Joined me above and lit a smoke.  I asked what he'd said to the fish.  If I didn't know better I'd say Ted actually blushed through his leathered skin.  "Told her she was beautiful and should go out and make some babies.  Hey, fish are people too.  Let's you and me go see how the old man's doing."
     Fifty yards up we came upon my uncle in mid-stream sitting on a boulder the color of a businessman's gray suit.  Alongside him lay two dead trout with heads snapped back.  Wasn't taking a break.  Though he was perched, Emil was still going at it.  Took me a moment 'til I realized he was throwing his fly pretty much like Ted.
     "Your uncle's a good man.  For an old dog he sure picked up a new trick in short order.  Before moving up to his first pool he stopped and watched me for a minute.  When I leapfrogged him, I returned the favor, gave him a pointer on how to skate the fly.  From the looks of the rock he's been doing just fine.  Hope you're hungry, we've got seven trout to eat."
     Catching sight of us, Emil reeled in, snatched his catch and waded over.  By now the rain was getting serious.  He slid his fish with mine, anchored the branch and joined us above.  That's when the skies opened.  Not much else to do but sit and hope it'd let off sooner or later.
     Slowly the two of them opened up a little on what they had in common, the war.  I figured it best keep my mouth shut.  Hadn't been anywhere or done anything to speak of.  The two of them were men who'd faced their deaths and no doubt taken part in the deaths of many others.
     "That a glass eye?  Seems like every time I look at you, you're only half home."
     "Yah.  Lost it before the war out in the Dakotas.  Gust of wind and a bit of wheat chaff did it in."
      Ted paused a moment, "Let me get this right, you had a glass eye and still ended up in the Army?  What'd you do, bribe the doc?"
     "Nah.  You know what those days were like.  Had a friend with my blood type take the physical for me."
     "So, you coulda sat out the war 'cause of your eye.  You coulda sat out the war 'cause of your age.  And for sure you coulda sat out the war 'cause you're totally crazy."
     "Hang on a second Ted.  Weren't you a jarhead?  Might just as well have walked up to the recruiting sergeant and volunteered to get shot.  Lucky for you Marines it wouldn't have been a head shot unless the sons of Nippon were aiming for your butt.  At least I had sense enough to take my chances with the Army.  Might have spent the war learning a trade like typing or painting curbs.  You dumb-ass Marines more or less jumped up and down yelling 'me first, me first!'"
     Besides being idiots they agreed the a-bomb was the right thing to do.  Though they'd both been seriously wounded near the end of the war, the Army and Marines was doing their best to patch them up and ready for the invasion of Japan.
     "Emil, that'd been hell on earth for sure.  Don't know about you but I was scared to death.  We'd have beat 'em, no doubt about that, but I doubt either of us would be here enjoying this rain.  Just the thought of not invading the mainland makes me thankful for every morning I wake up and put my boots on."
     What struck me most was neither mentioned combat.  They'd been there, no doubt about that but said nothing.  I didn't get it until my days in Vietnam.  You can talk your way around the outside of combat but never bring up what it was really like.  You think and dream about it all the time.  Even think you speak of it aloud but never do.  The words rise to the tongue then you swallow them like you're embarrassed or ashamed you survived when so many others didn't.  Could be they'd have had more to say if I'd have not been there.
     A moment later Ted showed us the fly he was using, "Only use two kinds.  One always sinks and the other tends to float."  There wasn't much to either.  No feathers that I could see.  And not much color, gray and brown.  "They're about as natural as I can make them, a little deer hair near the eye of the hook and a few turns of fine wool yarn down the shaft. To the one that'll sink I add another few turns of copper wire.  The secret is in knowing how to work one.  They don't look like any kind of bug so you have to make them swim or float like one.  Maybe doesn't even matter how I fish them seein' as how the trout up here are so easy to fool."
     The rain had slowed to the point where Ted lit up another Camel.  "Damn, this is one fine day.  And hungry?  You bet.  I'm so hungry I could eat two and a third trout.  Let's get back and rustle us up some grub."
     Lined up with Ted again in the lead.  They gave me the honor of carrying the trout.  Right off I slipped and slid on the greasy, clay slope, bottom down, trout arm raised, nearly to the jagged shore.  My backside may have gotten caked in soil but lunch was spot free.
     Back at the islands Ted quickly strung the canvas tarp, Emil got a fire kindled and I set to gutting the trout.  Ten minutes later Ted had the beans and coffee heating in a twig fire.  On the Coleman Emil was tending two pans of trout and taters with onions.  Northwoods feast with steam rising from the Brule and hanging in the pines above.  Emil fried the headless, skin on trout crisp, in butter.  The pink flesh pulled easily off the spine and steamed like the river below.
     Lunch lasted an hour.  Nary a word was spoken 'til coffee was poured and the cookies came out.  Oatmeal raisin.  "Lena never had much use for them.  Said the raisins looked too much like dead flies.  Who knows?  Maybe dead flies taste like raisins."
     Ted piped up, "Nope.  You're wrong about that.  Grandpa used to say they'd eat flies during the starving months in early spring.  Said they tasted like chicken.  'Course, so does squirrel, frogs, ducks and muskrat.  Me, I think chicken tastes like caribou poached in a delicate, white wine sauce with capers."
   
   
   

Emil's Cabin XX - Sky Hook

     What to do now that the stud walls were up?  Didn't take more than a few seconds for Emil to decide, "Cover them up with plywood so we can get to the real fun part."  I should have figured all those half inch sheets of plywood under the tarp had a use.  One at a time I hauled 'em over 'til we had a small stack.  Then we'd prop one to the outside of the studs and nail away.  Would have jumped right into two or more at a time but Emil said he forgot to order the sky hook.  I should have known better but had to ask,
     "Sky hook's one step this side of a wing and a prayer.  It's what you use when the impossible is needed to do the improbable.  After the wheel, the sky hook just may be the man's greatest invention.  Did some research and found it's another one of those Masonic things and also one of their earliest.  Bet you didn't know those boys claim their heritage all the way back to the pyramids.  Some historians pooh-pooh the notion but the sky hook proves the experts dead wrong.  How else could those five ton pyramid blocks have been lifted and dropped into place?  The beauty of the sky hook is its ability to work under any circumstances.  'Course hanging a chunk of metal to a section of atmosphere while under storm clouds may not be too smart.  Just ask Ben Franklin.  That business of him flying a kite in a lightning storm's just a bunch of hooey.  After all he was a Mason and privy to all those Masonic secrets.  A kite with a key attached has to be ready to fly at a moment's notice.  Ever try to get a kite airborne in a windstorm?  Not easy, maybe even impossible.  On the other hand a sky hook can be attached to the atmosphere at your leisure and will be there waiting should a storm rear up.  Had I the foresight to have ordered one we could have attached it right above the cabin, level with the tree tops.  Hooked up a block and tackle and 'masoned' the plywood into place like modern day Egyptians.  While I finished nailing off one sheet you could be swinging the next into place.  I tell you Archie me lad, a sky hook's worth its weight in unicorns."
     As it was, we were forced to use brute strength.  Would have been easier had we a brute to do the lifting (gotta watch myself or I'll turn into my uncle).  Friday afternoon we only had time to put three in place but it was a start.
     Saturday was laundry and grocery day.  I'd been out of clean socks for two days and my pants could stand on their own.  Thank God there was no one to see us.  Down at the stream the previous evening we were shut out for the first time in a week.  Emil figured the trout could smell us coming and no doubt figured us as skunk candidates.  Actually I was looking forward to a trip to town.  Clean clothes would be nice but an entire menu of food to choose from was exciting.  And we wouldn't have to do dishes.
     "I've given it serious thought Archie, no matter how good restaurant food sounds we have to hit the laundry first.  Then change out of this rank stuff before chowing down.  In the afternoon, maybe do some fishing pole shopping at the hardware.  Big day on Sunday.  We're to meet Ted up in Hovland at sunrise.  Don't know about you but I'm sure excited."
     Never one to waste a moment unless wasting was on the schedule, Emil had us finish sheathing the east side of the cabin before loading up and heading to town.  No doubt you've read of the horse and buggy days when a trip to town was an hour or more.  Even in the civilized world of 1965 Emil's was still near an hour.  The mill, a little more.  We clumped along the driveway a little before ten, the laundry by eleven and food a little after one.
     We'd been in The Hub enough times to no longer need menus.  Also knew enough to ease the front door shut so as not to startle the regulars by rattling the plate glass picture windows.  This was a nice place by northwoods standards.  Even had tasteful gray oilcloths on the tables and cloth napkins.  The food was both tasty and substantial.  Most every day they had a special and most every time we pulled up to the table that's what we had.  Meatloaf, roast beef, chicken, turkey, even walleye on Fridays to draw the Catholics.  Turned out lunch this Saturday was pork chops, fried potatoes, green beans and applesauce.  Emil asked for three orders.  The waitress raised a penciled eyebrow but said nothing more than, "You sure three will be enough?"
     Emil knew me and my stomach and since his dream he'd found new life in his frisky side.  Said, "Frisky comes with a price, that being the food bill.  Haven't had this kind of appetite since my basic training days.  And haven't been this dirty since the Philippines."
     We dug in fast and finished slow, savoring each bite.  Emil sipped a last cup of coffee with his pie while I smoked, "We'll hit the mill before they close.  Got something up there I want you to see.  Also need to order some more planks for the base of the lookout."
     Even though I was a city kid a walk through the saw mill was always worth the time.  Pyramids of logs here, stacks of rough sawn lumber there, finally stickered, dried and finished lumber by the tens of thousands of board feet.  To the back of the lot a bobcat spread and leveled hills of sawdust and chips.  A fragrance of percolating pitch and sweet birch drifted on the winds.  Almost smelled like cinnamon rolls and no doubt tasted like chicken.  Emil's ever dwindling stack was still there but soon to be gone.  The next load of lumber to be delivered on Monday would do it in. But that's not what Emil wanted to show me.
     "Good to see you again Mr. Schonnemann. 'Spose you're here to see the tree.  Took us a few curings in the kiln to shrink her down to size but she should work.  Trimmed it a flush eight feet on the ends.  If she does shrink a little more, you can always whack in a few shims."
     We'd entered the darkness of the big shed as Roy Berglund gave Emil the lowdown.  Not sure what he meant by 'the tree' but a single glance toward a stack of tongue and grooved birch flooring said more than words.
     "Looks just like I hoped it would Roy.  Maybe even better.  Peeled and the branch stubs still on.  That length of tamarack'll make a fine post.  Couldn't have asked for more."
     There was no doubt in my mind it'd once been a living thing.  Ceiling height, better than a foot in diameter, varying shades of gray, black and brown, a shallow S-curve to its rise, bumps and worm crawls tracking the skin like winding mountain roads.  Gave the log a texture no designer could improve on.  So ugly it was beautiful.  Guess you could call it character, maybe patina.  Couple of stubby branches at the top.  The base flared enough to hint of roots below.  I could almost smell the boggy ground from which it'd once risen.
     "Think we can lift it Archie?  Sure hope so.  That tree's gonna be the support for a whole lot of weight.  If we can't, we'll just have to lift harder."  Emil followed that with a snort of a laugh.

Emil's Cabin XIX - Walls

     Weather permitting, we'd usually beat sunlight to the deck.  Seemed almost exhilarating to be finally standing above the world as we bent to our work.  Definitely beat working on our backs in the dirt.  Emil even had a broom delivered with his lumber order.  Housecleaning was a necessity in his mind.  Said a clean workplace was a happy workplace then handed me the broom.  Come the end of the day sawdust was swept willy-nilly to the winds.  Butts and stubs were saved as kindling.  Any stud or plank remnant longer than a foot was stacked beneath the floor.  'You never know' was our gospel.
     We worked surrounded by the aroma of piney sawdust.  Bent to the task of constructing stud walls as sunlight and tree shadow danced on the floor.  Now and then we'd straighten and stretch our backs.  Look around if only to remind ourselves we were indeed in a forest.  Dragonflies by the dozens came to pay their respects, check out our work, perch on our hats.
     And it was a pleasure having a work surface.  Emil quickly turned the floor into a tool by nailing a length of two by six solidly through the subfloor and into the joists below with twenty penny spikes, heads exposed for easy removal.  Gave us a solid brace to back a section of wall-to-be as we nailed.  Once started we lived by hammer, nail, saw, pencil and steel tape.  Think about it, measure and mark it, lay it out and nail it.  Section by section slowly constructed, plumbed vertical, nailed to the deck and braced, the walls grew.  Emil's blueprint was out there floating invisibly above the deck where only he could see it.  Stud spacing, rough openings for doors and windows, placement of cross beams, all with an eye to the posts sunk to the earth below for weight transfer and Emil's eventual second floor outlook above.  Dimensions down to pencil lead widths drifted by.  Between sections Emil would pause, lift his hat and scratch his forehead, give a moment's thought as to where the next length of wall would stand, pull the fat yellow carpenter's pencil from his wallet pocket, write a few numbers on the subfloor and we'd be off.
     "Grab me a dozen studs Archie.  Double mullion casement in this one."  Then it was measure twice, mark and saw.  Sticks piling on the floor, always the right length and number.  Mostly I was weight, hammer swinger and go-fer.  Get it, move it, hold it and grab another.  Emil hummed and sawed away on his sawhorse table.
     Sounds like it flew together doesn't it?  And compared to the course of years since, it did.  Fourteen, eight foot sections.  Near two hundred studs not including bracing.  Come evenings it was all we could do to throw together a meal, hands cramping, fingers locked askew.  Thank God for bread, meat, fruit and cookies.  Ate tomatoes with a little salt sprinkled atop like they were apples.  We sucked down water and carbohydrates like there was no tomorrow.  We agreed that heaven must look just like Hershey, Pennsylvania.
     Emil claimed he could eat a chocolate bar just like an Finlander ate fish.  "Knew this old guy who never filleted fish.  Just sorted out the bones in his mouth while he was eating.  Every so often he'd pull out a wad of fish bones like it was snus.  Seems to me it'd work the same way with candy bars.  Unwrapping's a waste of good working time.  It'd be easier to simply cram the whole bar in my mouth.  Sort it out on the inside with my tongue just like the old Finn and keep on hammering walls together.  When I was done eating I'd just hack the wrapper out like a hair ball."
     Come Friday afternoon we'd finished the first floor framing and stood admiring our work.  Looked like we'd built a stand for boat construction.  Big boat.  What order there was in the walls was offset by the dozens of bracing boards.  Went every which way like a whale skeleton dropped from a B-52.  Sixteen holes for windows, most double mullion and two for doors.  A lot of glass particularly on the stream side.  Lacking stairs we still had to hoist ourselves aboard.
     "Odd thing is, it's starting to look like what I had in mind.  Library, kitchen area, wood stove, sleeping nook, I can see them all.  Makes me want to throw a tarp over it and move in.  Don't know about you but for me the charm of tent life is starting to wear thin.  I want to hear rain on the roof and a fire cracklin' away in the Franklin stove.  Almost a romantic hideaway with maybe a rhinoceros head mounted on the wall.  Yes, a rhino.  I've given the type of mount considerable thought.  Started with deer. Way too normal.  Then elk and moose.  Getting warm.  Then buffalo.  Almost went with buffalo.  Got some history and it's as ugly a beast as walked the prairies.  Finally rhino.  Ugly, dangerous, exotic.
     "'Course the rhino'd need a story.  Couldn't be I shot it over in Africa while on safari either.  Any booger with a pith helmet full of cash can shoot a rhino.  Then it came to me.  A story worthy of my warped mind.  Something like 'I woke up one morning thinking it'd be pleasant to wander down to Aspen Brook and start my day by fooling a brace of brook trout into the frying pan to break my night's fast.  Maybe a side of morels and watercress as a complement.  Laid there in bed for a few minutes enjoying the thought.  Those moments before sunup always give me pleasure.  Besides, I never like to rise 'til there's light enough to see my bunny slippers on the floor next to the bed.  No hurry at all, it wouldn't take but a few minutes to hand tie a couple of Royal Wulff's and string the rod.  Couldn't exactly place the reason but something about the lay of the bed just didn't feel right, felt atilt.  Carefully I reached back with my left leg.  Felt something hard and leathery.  On closer inspection it turned out to be the scaly hoof of a rhinoceros.  Sure didn't see that coming.  My startled gasp woke the beast.  While rubbing its eyes the rhino softly wished me a warm 'guten morgen.'  What luck!  Many's the time I'd said waking up in bed with a German speaking rhino was high on my list of things to do before I kicked the bucket.  Long story short, my knowledge of deutsch was barely sufficient to carry on a conversation but over the years Brunhilde, that was her name, patiently worked with me on my grammar and syntax.  When we toured the Rhine Valley - oh that Brunhilde sure did like her rieslings - I was able to speak with the townsfolk like a native.  And could that rhino fish!  She could lay out thirty yards of fly line in a stiff breeze and have her size twenty-two Adams tied on an eight feet of gossamer-like leader light on the water without so much as dimple.  Pure beauty.  It was almost a pity I had to shoot her for that mount you see over on the wall.  Sometimes, out on the porch near sunset I think maybe I shouldn't have.  Ah well.'
     "Archie me lad, now that's a story a man can be proud of.  Total fabrication of course but what is truth anyway?  That'll be the essay question on your quiz tomorrow."
   

Emil's Cabin XVIII - Resurrection

     Be careful what you wish for.  Yeah, it's an old saw but it sure fit when Emil shagged me out of the sack in the morning.  The way he'd slouched off to bed had me worried there was something seriously wrong.  Didn't want anything to happen to him now or ever.  Not that he was an old man.  Cripes, he could outwork me with one hand tied behind his back.  But he was closing in on an age when most men figured a workout was tipping a second beer.  And here he was hoisting, moving and hammering tons of stuff every day.  Odd thing was, he didn't have to do it.  Had enough cash in his baggy work overalls to buy himself a cabin on any lake in the area.  Even odder was he seemed to be having the time of his life.  Maybe he knew something about himself I was missing.
     When Emil crawled into his sleeping bag last night I didn't know what the morning would bring but sure didn't expect he'd be up before the sun and have breakfast ready.
     "Get you're lazy carcass out of bed Archie!  We'd be burning daylight if there was any.  Checked my Lives of the Saints and today is the feast of St. Subfloor of Carthage.  Should we celebrate properly we just might be rewarded with a load of homegrown lumber.  Hell or high water, we're getting it done today.  Tomorrow we start the walls."
     So that's what we did.  Climbed up on the joists and laid the joist-filling, craft paper-backed fiberglass batting while a serenade of breezes off the big lake ten miles away whistled us a happy tune.  Next came the three quarter inch thick, tongue and grooved plywood sheets.  I hauled 'em, Emil lined them up, tapped them together and we whacked them down thirty-six eight penny nails per.  Went so fast we had to take a full hour lunch break just so we'd have something to do in the afternoon.  Yeah, we were regular demons.  Emil was uplifted and near to dancing on the floor.  I simply fed off his energy.  By the time Ted showed up with Emil's load we were lounging on our deck sipping a cold brew and chewing on dried apricots.  Can't say I recommend that combination unless you're outdoors.
     Ted turned down the beer but did pump a mug of well water.  "You know seeing the two of you atop this deck doesn't surprise me at all.  Bet if I was to take a level to it the bubble'd be dead square between the lines.  But seein' as I could be wrong, I'll just sip this water.  So, tell me about it."
     Emil answered, "Today was so easy it was almost boring.  'Course I can't bend to tie my shoes anymore.  The ease of the work this morning set me thinking about God.  Must be boring as all get out being perfect.  Perfectly boring.  Nothing goes wrong, you're a regular know-it-all 'cause you happen to know it all.  Omnipotent, all-powerful, eternal, infinite, all that baloney.  Then I got thinking God must also be a perfect screwup, does everything, then forgets everything, perfectly confused, eternally wrong.  All at the same time.  So conflicted seein' as how He's a perfect everything both good and bad, God might as well be a teenager and stuck in eternal high school like my nephew Archie was droning on about last night."
     Struck us all so funny we all almost smiled.  It was good having Emil back even if he'd only been gone a day.  Talked turned to fishing as it most always does with the men of the northland.  Turned out Ted was a fly fisher.  Also turned out Emil's property bordered one of his favorite streams.


     Last night I had one of Those Dreams.  You know the kind.  Woke up around 1:30am, thought about it for a few minutes.  Didn't want to get out of bed to write it down but finally did.  Had enough of them in the past to know important dreams don't go away.  You don't get them on the first go-around they'll come back.  Big dreams, even for an ordinary person like me, like to be understood and acted on.  Rather than write it down here I'm gonna go ahead and let Emil have the dream.  Interesting that I named this chapter 'Resurrection' before having the dream.


     Also turned out Ted had been in the Marines during WWII.  Though he and Emil had been on different island captures they'd shared similar experiences.  The end of their wars was nearly the same, Emil was wounded in the Philippines and Ted got his second Purple Heart on Okinawa.  Outside of that they didn't have much to say about the war.  I didn't understand that at the time.  Vietnam eventually taught me why.
     As to stream fishing, Emil threw store bought flies with Shakespeare fiberglass.  Workman-like and more fitting to his love of flat water.  Emil was all about bass and panfish on the long rod.  A buggy-whipper he called himself.
     Ted, on the other hand, grew up handling bamboo same as his dad. Turned out Ted was a junior, Theodore Magnuson and cane seemed to suit his intermingled Ojibwe-Scots blood.  Not that the rods he learned on were anything fancy.  No, such rods didn't live in the Arrowhead country.  Trout rods by Payne or Garrison only came visiting now and then in the leather tubes of cash paying customers.  Ted learned his skill with tools his dad gathered from barrels at the hardware store.  Ten bucks tops.  Even then, snapping a tip on one of the bug infested, brush choked, North Shore streams was tough on the wallet.  Thankfully there were more Montagues and Horrocks-Ibbotsons where the broken one came from.
     Once again Emil let someone else do the talking.  Twice in one week.  From what I'd seen, maybe twice in a lifetime.  Sometimes I thought the only time he'd ever let Lena have the floor was when she said 'I do.'
     "My dad worked six days a week and took his sundays on the banks of many streams up here.  Temperance, Brule, Irish, Cross, up here on the Aspen.  Yeah, he fished 'em all.  Didn't put much stock in fancy equipment.  Hand tied his own flies and always fished whatever was the lowest priced and shortest rod in the barrel.  He figured the heart of the cast wasn't in the stick.  A good fisherman was a good fisherman regardless of equipment.  Besides, there's hardly a foot of stream on the Shore ever requires more than ten yards of line.  More likely it's no more than a gentle ten foot noodle to a brookie that doesn't much care whether it's a worm or chicken feather that's floating in the current."
     Long story short we ended up with a date to go fishing the following weekend.  We shook hands all around.  Once finished with the offload and Ted back on the road, Emil began,
     "'Spose your wondering why I woke up in such a good mood today?  I'll cut to the bone.  Seems I was dragging yesterday because I had something stopped up inside that wanted its way out.  Been feeling it coming on for a few days.  Woke up in the middle of the night after one of those dreams I get now and then.  Remember back in Manitoba on our first trip when I had the dream telling me what to do over our last few days?  Well, last night's dream was like that.  Only I don't as yet have a clue what it means.  Well, I do have a clue but it seems way too simple.
     "It was the end of the world.  Don't know how or why it was that way.  There's times I forget the first part of a dream.  Other times I think the dream just doesn't tell the part that's unnecessary.  Figures you already know.  Whatever the reason, by the time I picked it up the whole world was suffocating, one person at a time and there were only a few hundred people left.  Bing, bing, bing, one down after another.  Dropping like ducks in a shooting gallery.  But there was hope all the death would end before everyone was gone but it looked to be touch and go.  The last few people in line were chosen for their skills and as possible propagators.  One was a fertile, young woman.  Why it was that way I don't know.  It just was.  Anyhow, the last person in line to die had been practicing holding his breath in hope of a last minute turnabout.  Finally it was down to him and his lungs as all the oxygen was gone.  His job should he realize he wasn't going to make it was to push a button that'd store all human knowledge somehow.  Yeah, I know it sounds lame but I'm not making this up.  Finally, a few seconds before he blacks out he pushes the button.  Job well done.  Then he dies.  Pffft.  Sayonara.  End of the world.  Maybe a half minute later, give or take, the oxygen starts flowing back into the world.  And it turns out the last guy isn't dead-dead, just mostly dead and he revives.  Then three or four others.  No more.  That's when I woke up feeling really good.  Who wouldn't?  One second the whole world is dead, the next it's not and I'm alive and kicking.  In celebration I wandered into the moonlight and took a leak."
     "Oddly enough, I woke up with pinecones on my mind and got me wondering about those two big white pines I call The Sentinals.  That's where I relieved myself.  Anyhow, that's the dream.  Doesn't seem so earth shaking in the daylight but it sure did last night."
     For the first time in a few days we strung the rods and wade fished the riffles of the Aspen.  Emil said he was a little nervous about trout fishing with a man who actually knew what he was doing.  "Archie me lad, I've been making it up as I go along.  Might turn out I've been holding the wrong end of the rod."
     "Uncle Emil, I doubt you have anything to worry about.  I've watched you fish for several years and you're a joy to see."  I paused for effect, "And hear.  Like when you're telling a stand of hazel brush they've no business growing right where they could jump out and grab your backcast.  Besides, Ted seems like a man who's not out to judge you in any way or form."