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."
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