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.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
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."
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."
Sunday, February 8, 2015
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.
"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.
Friday, February 6, 2015
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."
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."
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
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."
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."
Monday, February 2, 2015
Emil's Cabin XVII - Aimless Rambling
Grand Marais was the center of activity in the area. Didn't take much to be a center up in the Arrowhead as people were outnumbered by everything but flush toilets. When in town we'd take a tour of the sights. Gas station, IGA, one of the three cafes, always the Ben Franklin and hardware store. There Emil bought a leather handled Estwing hammer.
"Always wanted one but felt them to be downright decadent. Almost too nice to be gripped by hands like mine. Yup, this Estwing stands at the pinnacle of several millennia of metallurgy and deserves respect. It'd be a shame to mishit and bend a nail with such a tool. Maybe I should get a second? One for each of us. Share the blame. Seat them in our tool belts as though we were Knights Templar about to rescue the treasures of Christendom. Or simply satisfy ourselves with sinking nails into decking and two by fours. Maybe even blacken a thumb nail as a badge of honor. Sir Archie, we shall make this steel ours!" And off he marched to the front desk with me trailing behind like an unworthy lackey.
Don't know how many men of Uncle Emil's bent walked the aisles of Hardware Hank. No doubt the town had its share of characters over the years and thankfully, though definitely out of the ordinary, Emil was harmless. But he did raise his share of eyebrows. Being comfortable in his own skin and a little hard of hearing often drew unprepared others into his world. Sometimes from the far side of a cafe or three aisles over in the grocery store. Yes, Uncle Emil left an impression in many places he frequented, also a smile.
Emil kept up his banter as we wandered from store to store, "Ever tell you about my friends the Vidarcci twins, Harry and Gary? That Knights Templar thing got me thinking of them. Also the Muslims and the Masons, mainly 'cause the twins once joined them, the Masons that is. As far as I know they never became Muslims. They figured joining a group with a name like Masons was sure to get them work as brick layers. Good luck with that. Even I knew better. Anyhow, word of them as lodge brothers eventually reached St. Bruno the Incontinent - he was the thirteenth apostle you know. Should you ever take a close look at the painting of the last supper, Bruno's in the background just disappearing into the men's room - where they were parishioners, got them a dressing down from father Frank and banned from the Knights of Columbus. As was inevitable they were also thrown out of the Masons when they got the secret handshake confused with the one from the KC's."
By now we'd walked through the glass doors of The Hub and hunkered down to broasted chicken and mashed potatoes. Normally a time of celebration for us but I had some concerns about my uncle. From the general level of Emil's ramble, way below par for him, I could tell he was distracted and asked him if he was okay,
"Truth be known Archie, building the cabin is a bigger job than I'd thought it would be. But one thing I know for sure is I'm reaching the age where physical labor is sure to grow tougher every year. Last summer when thinking of what was coming up I figured the two of us could finish most of the structure, outside and indoors, in three months. Now I'll be happy should it be buttoned up against the elements by the time you head to school in the fall. Once I can move in, the finish work can be putzed away at my own speed."
"Could be part of the problem is building a new life in place of the one I had with Lena. Old dogs and new tricks. Can be done but it ain't easy. Anyhow, for better or worse it's finally lumber time. So we'll swing by the mill on our way back to let them know."
Like most folks, Emil assumed I had a driver's license. Why not? I'd been born in the U.S. of A. and seemed to be missing no necessary body parts. But no license. No car in the family. No prospect of borrowing what wasn't there and no desire to drop a bunch of cash on a car just so I didn't have to take the bus. Once I'd confessed, Emil came to see it as one of his missions on earth to put me behind the wheel. But never on the Gunflint Trail or the McFarland Road.
"No offense Archie but I'd have to have a gun to my head before I'd consider turning you loose on the Gunflint. Not so much I don't consider you a fine, upstanding and intelligent young man. Noooo. It's more that I lack a death wish. And a painful demise it'd be."
Whenever we were down in Grand Marais he'd turn me loose for a few miles on the highway. Emil's truck was a four speed manual transmission. Cornering required clutching, shifting and steering, all at the same time. That's why the Gunflint Trail was out of the question. As was maneuvering in town and any downhills requiring stopping or starting. Once down from the mill and on the highway it was a different story. Occasionally Emil'd let me take the wheel in town and do the run all the way to Hovland. And I'd do it flawlessly. Big grin on my face like I was ready for the Grand Prix.
"Outside of the whiplash and the pain my ears suffered from your grinding of the gears, you're getting better. Didn't even once come near to screaming in terror this time. Well, maybe that one time near the five mile rock. And again as you somehow managed to take the syncro out of the synchromesh transmission on the downshifts over the Brule. Yup, another eight or ten years and just maybe you'll have it down pat."
After dinner we did little but sit by a small fire. For once I did the talking. Not a good sign. Emil was dog tired and showed it. He even started me off on a ramble of my own. Talk about topsy-turvy. Leaned back and got the ball rolling with, "High school. Figure you must have gone. So tell me about it." While I stared off to the heavens he leaned back in his red camp chair and sipped coffee.
My time in school was a little embarrassing for me. Throughout my description I kept my eyes averted. Didn't dare make contact for fear of seeing the disappointment on Emil's face. "Well, it was four years long if you count ninth grade. And must have be easy seeing as how I graduated with honors without doing a whole lot. Would have had my picture in the yearbook had I'd gotten off my butt a few days earlier. Got a lot of finger wagging 'shame, shame', about being on the last page with no picture over my name. And an embarrassment to me when I saw a copy. On the upside, the yearbook I never bought didn't cost a cent.
" But heck, there was a lot more than that. Would have been the star pitcher on the baseball team had I played after ninth grade. Could have been salutatorian had I knuckled down. So for the most part high school was a coulda, shoulda kind of thing. Shoulda gone to DeLaSalle High School but just like I'd been warned by Sister Eleanor Marie, I didn't get my application in on time. Almost didn't get into ninth grade 'til I got off my rear and registered about a week before school was to start. Didn't date, didn't go to dances. Guess things that terrified me held no attraction. You'd almost think I was making this stuff up to pass time but it's all true. Geez, I better stop or you'll kick me out of camp."
That wasn't the end of it. Went on for a few more minutes. Not that I had any regrets. I'd done what felt right at the time. Some students swam through the waters of high school, some sank. I treaded water.
When I finally looked up, there sat Emil, sound asleep, chin on chest. Don't know if he heard a word I said. Probably would have been best had he not. I gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
"Sorry about that Archie. Guess I was tired. Don't know about you but I'm gonna brush my teeth and hit the hay", Emil chuckled, "maybe next time around, high school will go better for you but I doubt it. Mostly it's about survival. Seems you did fine." He shuffled off toward the tent. The sun was still up when he turned in.
Sat there for another hour. Smoked a couple of butts and watched the flames flicker down. Coals below, stars above, I also turned in.
"Always wanted one but felt them to be downright decadent. Almost too nice to be gripped by hands like mine. Yup, this Estwing stands at the pinnacle of several millennia of metallurgy and deserves respect. It'd be a shame to mishit and bend a nail with such a tool. Maybe I should get a second? One for each of us. Share the blame. Seat them in our tool belts as though we were Knights Templar about to rescue the treasures of Christendom. Or simply satisfy ourselves with sinking nails into decking and two by fours. Maybe even blacken a thumb nail as a badge of honor. Sir Archie, we shall make this steel ours!" And off he marched to the front desk with me trailing behind like an unworthy lackey.
Don't know how many men of Uncle Emil's bent walked the aisles of Hardware Hank. No doubt the town had its share of characters over the years and thankfully, though definitely out of the ordinary, Emil was harmless. But he did raise his share of eyebrows. Being comfortable in his own skin and a little hard of hearing often drew unprepared others into his world. Sometimes from the far side of a cafe or three aisles over in the grocery store. Yes, Uncle Emil left an impression in many places he frequented, also a smile.
Emil kept up his banter as we wandered from store to store, "Ever tell you about my friends the Vidarcci twins, Harry and Gary? That Knights Templar thing got me thinking of them. Also the Muslims and the Masons, mainly 'cause the twins once joined them, the Masons that is. As far as I know they never became Muslims. They figured joining a group with a name like Masons was sure to get them work as brick layers. Good luck with that. Even I knew better. Anyhow, word of them as lodge brothers eventually reached St. Bruno the Incontinent - he was the thirteenth apostle you know. Should you ever take a close look at the painting of the last supper, Bruno's in the background just disappearing into the men's room - where they were parishioners, got them a dressing down from father Frank and banned from the Knights of Columbus. As was inevitable they were also thrown out of the Masons when they got the secret handshake confused with the one from the KC's."
By now we'd walked through the glass doors of The Hub and hunkered down to broasted chicken and mashed potatoes. Normally a time of celebration for us but I had some concerns about my uncle. From the general level of Emil's ramble, way below par for him, I could tell he was distracted and asked him if he was okay,
"Truth be known Archie, building the cabin is a bigger job than I'd thought it would be. But one thing I know for sure is I'm reaching the age where physical labor is sure to grow tougher every year. Last summer when thinking of what was coming up I figured the two of us could finish most of the structure, outside and indoors, in three months. Now I'll be happy should it be buttoned up against the elements by the time you head to school in the fall. Once I can move in, the finish work can be putzed away at my own speed."
"Could be part of the problem is building a new life in place of the one I had with Lena. Old dogs and new tricks. Can be done but it ain't easy. Anyhow, for better or worse it's finally lumber time. So we'll swing by the mill on our way back to let them know."
Like most folks, Emil assumed I had a driver's license. Why not? I'd been born in the U.S. of A. and seemed to be missing no necessary body parts. But no license. No car in the family. No prospect of borrowing what wasn't there and no desire to drop a bunch of cash on a car just so I didn't have to take the bus. Once I'd confessed, Emil came to see it as one of his missions on earth to put me behind the wheel. But never on the Gunflint Trail or the McFarland Road.
"No offense Archie but I'd have to have a gun to my head before I'd consider turning you loose on the Gunflint. Not so much I don't consider you a fine, upstanding and intelligent young man. Noooo. It's more that I lack a death wish. And a painful demise it'd be."
Whenever we were down in Grand Marais he'd turn me loose for a few miles on the highway. Emil's truck was a four speed manual transmission. Cornering required clutching, shifting and steering, all at the same time. That's why the Gunflint Trail was out of the question. As was maneuvering in town and any downhills requiring stopping or starting. Once down from the mill and on the highway it was a different story. Occasionally Emil'd let me take the wheel in town and do the run all the way to Hovland. And I'd do it flawlessly. Big grin on my face like I was ready for the Grand Prix.
"Outside of the whiplash and the pain my ears suffered from your grinding of the gears, you're getting better. Didn't even once come near to screaming in terror this time. Well, maybe that one time near the five mile rock. And again as you somehow managed to take the syncro out of the synchromesh transmission on the downshifts over the Brule. Yup, another eight or ten years and just maybe you'll have it down pat."
After dinner we did little but sit by a small fire. For once I did the talking. Not a good sign. Emil was dog tired and showed it. He even started me off on a ramble of my own. Talk about topsy-turvy. Leaned back and got the ball rolling with, "High school. Figure you must have gone. So tell me about it." While I stared off to the heavens he leaned back in his red camp chair and sipped coffee.
My time in school was a little embarrassing for me. Throughout my description I kept my eyes averted. Didn't dare make contact for fear of seeing the disappointment on Emil's face. "Well, it was four years long if you count ninth grade. And must have be easy seeing as how I graduated with honors without doing a whole lot. Would have had my picture in the yearbook had I'd gotten off my butt a few days earlier. Got a lot of finger wagging 'shame, shame', about being on the last page with no picture over my name. And an embarrassment to me when I saw a copy. On the upside, the yearbook I never bought didn't cost a cent.
" But heck, there was a lot more than that. Would have been the star pitcher on the baseball team had I played after ninth grade. Could have been salutatorian had I knuckled down. So for the most part high school was a coulda, shoulda kind of thing. Shoulda gone to DeLaSalle High School but just like I'd been warned by Sister Eleanor Marie, I didn't get my application in on time. Almost didn't get into ninth grade 'til I got off my rear and registered about a week before school was to start. Didn't date, didn't go to dances. Guess things that terrified me held no attraction. You'd almost think I was making this stuff up to pass time but it's all true. Geez, I better stop or you'll kick me out of camp."
That wasn't the end of it. Went on for a few more minutes. Not that I had any regrets. I'd done what felt right at the time. Some students swam through the waters of high school, some sank. I treaded water.
When I finally looked up, there sat Emil, sound asleep, chin on chest. Don't know if he heard a word I said. Probably would have been best had he not. I gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
"Sorry about that Archie. Guess I was tired. Don't know about you but I'm gonna brush my teeth and hit the hay", Emil chuckled, "maybe next time around, high school will go better for you but I doubt it. Mostly it's about survival. Seems you did fine." He shuffled off toward the tent. The sun was still up when he turned in.
Sat there for another hour. Smoked a couple of butts and watched the flames flicker down. Coals below, stars above, I also turned in.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Emil's Cabin XVI - La Cucaracha
Twenty-eight down. Twenty-eight up. Fifty-six sheets of plywood. Honeycombed between by two by ten floor joists cozied within fiberglass batting. Glass is perfect nesting material for mice. And the reason for the bottom layer of plywood. Not that Emil didn't like mice. Even thought they were cute little, beady-eyed buggers. Just that he knew in the deepest reaches of his soul they'd be happier living outdoors and dining on food the good Lord had planted there just for them. Also seemed to have little appreciation for mouse turds on his kitchen counter. Preventing those droppings was my introduction to the cockroach.
The day began with pencil and steel tape marking off the last of the hangers. Lots of hangers to carry lots of eight foot joists. One hundred-eighty hangers, each tacked in place with roofing nails. Eight nails per hanger. Tap-tap-set. Again and again. A mantra of repetition. Each of us bent to the task like monks in prayer. Shirts off, tool belts filled to the gills with the stubby, gray, galvanized nails. All in all, a morning's work. And nothing more than a warmup for the fun awaiting in the afternoon.
"Seeing as how this may be your last lunch on earth Archie me lad, what might your pleasure be?
Spam and eggs or eggs and spam?"
Of course I said nothing of the kind. What I did say was, "You cook it, I'll eat it so long as there's enough."
As he fired up the Coleman, Emil began, "The dying cockroach wasn't really a company sized punishment. No, it was usually reserved for after hours and restricted to a few of the chosen. First off you have to understand the nature of a DI, that of being eternally pissed off. Didn't matter what the reason, if any, they just were. The Drill Sergeants also had eyes in the back of their heads. And one one each side. They'd ofttimes catch an innocent doing some nonsensical thing incorrectly and not say a word 'til after duty hours. We'd have our boots off getting ready for the next day's misery when Smokey would come storming up the stairs just to mess with our minds. Took a minute's worth of ranting with all of us standing at attention and trying our best to be invisible. Finally, the man'd call out the chosen and have them assume the position. Flat on their backs, arms, legs and head raised off the floor in prayer to a greater power. Much like a dead cockroach. Laying there would be easy at first. Then harder and harder 'til it turned painful. 'Spose any of us could have tried to call their bluff and stood up, only we figured doing so would simply lead to some further, unseen misery of an increased intensity.
"When we're finished stringing the joists this afternoon or tomorrow morning that's the very position you are going to assume. Only, for you it'll be under the joists and holding a sheet of three-eighth inch thick plywood while I set a few nails. Sound like fun?"
The world grew small during those two days. As though the beauty of forest and stream around us no longer existed. Our view was either looking down to string and hammer the joists or on our backs working opposite the wishes of gravity. Each joist was trimmed for a snug fit, whacked in place and secured to each hanger with eight more nails. Thousands of simple steps followed by thousands more, each one important.
Next came the misery. Like all misery, placing and securing the under-decking loved company. Made it a lot easier sharing the work with my uncle. Once a sheet was corner-trimmed to fit jigsaw puzzle tight to the posts, it was my task to position and clamp it in place from beneath while laying atop a rack. The rack was there 'cause my legs and arms weren't long enough to reach the joists. While I laid there, stretched to the max, Emil scampered around me tacking each corner in place. Once a sheet was secured we both hammered away with eight penny nails. She was a neck cramper extraordinaire. Each of the twenty-eight sheets required called for a short break before we started on another.
Two and a half ten hour days took us from the start of the banding to being ready to lay the subfloor. And was also time for us pigs off to head to town for civilized food, a lumber order and grocery shopping.
I'll not belittle those hours by calling them easy. At best they were tolerable but only in retrospect. Since those days I've done more difficult things. However, there was an almost giddy joy to finally being shed of a difficult task and looking forward to fried chicken at the Hub Cafe.
The day began with pencil and steel tape marking off the last of the hangers. Lots of hangers to carry lots of eight foot joists. One hundred-eighty hangers, each tacked in place with roofing nails. Eight nails per hanger. Tap-tap-set. Again and again. A mantra of repetition. Each of us bent to the task like monks in prayer. Shirts off, tool belts filled to the gills with the stubby, gray, galvanized nails. All in all, a morning's work. And nothing more than a warmup for the fun awaiting in the afternoon.
"Seeing as how this may be your last lunch on earth Archie me lad, what might your pleasure be?
Spam and eggs or eggs and spam?"
Of course I said nothing of the kind. What I did say was, "You cook it, I'll eat it so long as there's enough."
As he fired up the Coleman, Emil began, "The dying cockroach wasn't really a company sized punishment. No, it was usually reserved for after hours and restricted to a few of the chosen. First off you have to understand the nature of a DI, that of being eternally pissed off. Didn't matter what the reason, if any, they just were. The Drill Sergeants also had eyes in the back of their heads. And one one each side. They'd ofttimes catch an innocent doing some nonsensical thing incorrectly and not say a word 'til after duty hours. We'd have our boots off getting ready for the next day's misery when Smokey would come storming up the stairs just to mess with our minds. Took a minute's worth of ranting with all of us standing at attention and trying our best to be invisible. Finally, the man'd call out the chosen and have them assume the position. Flat on their backs, arms, legs and head raised off the floor in prayer to a greater power. Much like a dead cockroach. Laying there would be easy at first. Then harder and harder 'til it turned painful. 'Spose any of us could have tried to call their bluff and stood up, only we figured doing so would simply lead to some further, unseen misery of an increased intensity.
"When we're finished stringing the joists this afternoon or tomorrow morning that's the very position you are going to assume. Only, for you it'll be under the joists and holding a sheet of three-eighth inch thick plywood while I set a few nails. Sound like fun?"
The world grew small during those two days. As though the beauty of forest and stream around us no longer existed. Our view was either looking down to string and hammer the joists or on our backs working opposite the wishes of gravity. Each joist was trimmed for a snug fit, whacked in place and secured to each hanger with eight more nails. Thousands of simple steps followed by thousands more, each one important.
Next came the misery. Like all misery, placing and securing the under-decking loved company. Made it a lot easier sharing the work with my uncle. Once a sheet was corner-trimmed to fit jigsaw puzzle tight to the posts, it was my task to position and clamp it in place from beneath while laying atop a rack. The rack was there 'cause my legs and arms weren't long enough to reach the joists. While I laid there, stretched to the max, Emil scampered around me tacking each corner in place. Once a sheet was secured we both hammered away with eight penny nails. She was a neck cramper extraordinaire. Each of the twenty-eight sheets required called for a short break before we started on another.
Two and a half ten hour days took us from the start of the banding to being ready to lay the subfloor. And was also time for us pigs off to head to town for civilized food, a lumber order and grocery shopping.
I'll not belittle those hours by calling them easy. At best they were tolerable but only in retrospect. Since those days I've done more difficult things. However, there was an almost giddy joy to finally being shed of a difficult task and looking forward to fried chicken at the Hub Cafe.
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