Untitled

     Don't know what to call this entry.  It'd be easier if it was about or by Emil but it's not.  At the same time it is.  Probably mentioned it earlier that me and Emil are the same person.  And at the same time we're not.  The way I see it, from the moment I was born a part of me, that being Emil, was already at the other end of my life making sure I ended up where I was supposed to end up.  Just like the cabin, the blueprint of my life was in Emil's mind, up there in the treetops, down to the last stud and nail, before the first shovelful was scraped out of the first pier.
     Can't say that was on my mind when Lois and I wandered the streets of Pequot Lakes around the turn of the century.  Don't recall what came first, the story or the name.  Not that it matters.  But I do believe Emil was there long before he introduced himself at the liar's contest on that Fourth of July.  Wrote it many times that my life is filled with irony.  Figure that as Emil's idea of a good joke.  His idea of guidance was to send me off in the opposite direction of where he wanted me to end up.  'Course I may have lent a hand now and then.
     My Uncle says there's more than one way to get from A to Z.  Also knows if I had my choice I'd shoot arrow straight through my three score and ten.  Or find myself dead-ended around J.  Even worse, somewhere south of Q.  His idea is to go through life as a wave.  Sometimes above the line, sometimes below.  Only matters that I'm on the line at the important points.  And that's what he was driving at about me and the Draft.  Or me and smoking.
     Doubt I've mentioned this but the stories 'Canada' and 'Emil's Cabin' are being written for my grandchildren with the idea they come to know my life, even the warts.  Nothing in these stories actually happened.  And yet, nothing was made up.  I'm not that clever.  Been wilderness canoeing in northwest Manitoba a number of times, built a cabin from the piers up, didn't register for the Draft when I turned eighteen and did tear out a glove webbing in the bullpen at old Metropolitan Stadium.  The story that comes next'll follow the same blueprint.  It's already up there in the treetops.  All I have to do is listen to my Uncle Emil and peck it out.