Lousy Fishin'

Remember when you got all excited about the anticipation of an upcoming event? It's not supposed to happen to sixty year olds but I still have the bubble gum brain of a teen-ager and the thought of Minnesota fishing gives me that thrill.
In my garage at the Minnesota lake home are seven rods and reels, three tackle boxes full of literally a couple of thousand dollars worth of fishing lures and a nice fishing boat with all the accessories; live well, fish finder/depth finder(broken) plus every other little gizmo known to catch lunkers. Eight days ago I made a beeline for Ten Mile Lake in beautiful Hackensack, Minnesota. The wife and I have owned the place for fifteen years and since my retirement two years ago I've spent a lot of fish time up there catching--very little. The lake is large, about 5,000 acres. It has a water clarity of 24 feet. This means the fish can see me before I put a Rapala on my line. It's spring fed and cold; not conducive to angling. Even so, you should visit some time. We're in the north woods. You'll see bear and deer.There are more deer in Minnesota than there are mosquitoes. I can find wild deer in Catholic churches---going to confession.
In this part of the world I've waited for a porcupine to cross a road, seen an American Bald Eagle swoop down on the lake to snag an inattentive northern pike. I've skedaddled away from a skunk ambling toward me. I've even cleaned egret poop off my newly stained dock. I've pretty much done it all.
After arriving at the 'Up North' place I opened up the cabin for a good bout of catching the world's tastiest walleye.
Ten minutes in the water and on my first cast I brought in a three pound largemouth bass. Excitement filled my body as I fought the fish and worked the net to land that evening's dinner feast. It was exhilarating! After three more days of nonstop casting, trolling, trying every trick in Al Lindner's fishing book I'd had it. Nothing happened. Now, I like a good challenge as much as anybody but three days of catching nothing was more than frustrating. In the language of today, "it sucked". I jumped in my Mazda and headed east. One thousand miles up and ditto on the return drive for one three pound bass. Doesn't seem fair, does it? We've a bass pond thirty yards behind our Ohio condo. If I catch nothing there I can walk home and I don't have to use any gas, either.
I'm selling the lake place.

There Ya Go

Three years ago I was in on a new wave of the vernacular now being used across the country. It came from a working buddy who lives in Mebane, North Carolina. He's a very good golfer. No he isn't. He's an excellent golfer. His name is Wyman Woods and he has an easy way with relating to people. Maybe that's because he's been around the golfing community pretty much his entire life. Good golfers know the ups and downs of the game so they don't get excited about a great shot and they keep an even temperent on those shots that make one want to cry and throw up at the same time. Wyman's a fun guy to be around.
Regardless, Wyman introduced me to a term I hadn't heard before. It was "there ya go". The first time I heard it I thought it sounded good even though I didn't know what it meant. I think I said something like, "if I put more weight on my right side I might hit it better". Wyman responded with "there ya go". The term could be used to end a sentence, cut off conversation, offer a surprise analogy or mean absolutely nothing. I'm leaning toward the last. To be precise one usually puts word emphasis on the word 'go'. I might be wrong in this regard but I think the phrase is not used as often by intellectual people. I've never heard my good buddy, Dr. Ramey, use it. I'm not saying Wyman, myself or anybody else isn't smart but Dr. Ramey fills up his vocab with colon, esophagus, medulla oblongata: words like that. Besides, one doesn't remove an appendix then utter "there ya go".
It's now three years later and my wife and I were just recently on a trip to Oklahoma, Dallas, Texas, San Antonio, Kansas City and Boone, Iowa. I heard "there ya go" said at fast food restaurants, gas stations, post offices-----everywhere. I was in the old home town of Boone, Iowa at a Quik-Trip gas station. The cashier was covered in tattoos and wearing a tattered Harley t-shirt. The bill for my coffee came to $1.19. I didn't think I had more than $1.18 without breaking another bill but at the last second I found a fourth penny. I said, "I found one" and he said: well, you know what he said.
So, I'm giving my good friend Wyman credit for starting a movement.
I think my just turned two year old granddaughter would agree. While at her home in San Antonio I told her I found her toy flamingo and she came back with, "do-dee-do".