Adios To Minnesota

My next door neighbor is a legend. Not only did he play football for the Ohio State Buckeye national championship teams in 1954 and 1957 he was a draftee of the Cleveland Browns. However, he opted to become an oral surgeon then moved on to facial surgeries; anything above the neck.

He numbers among his friends George H. Bush, John Boehner, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and that's only the beginning.

Last year this man wanted to go to Minnesota with me to close up my lake place at Ten Mile Lake outside of Hackensack. Unfortunately, he suffers from stage IV cancer and had to opt out of the trip. This year he was feeling much better and we made the drive.

I always detest closing up the northern Minnesota lake place. Not so much because I love it. It's a pain in the ass shutting down the house, packing the car and getting the boat out of the water and driving it to the boat storage facility.

It was my intention to drive to Eau Claire, Wisconsin and bed down in a motel for the night. That's a ten and a half hour drive and more than enough for me. My buddy decided we should drive further. What did he have to worry about? I was doing the driving. So, we drove and we drove and we drove until I'd done the entire 17 hour trip. When we arrived at the cabin I literally crawled in the back door---with dry heaves.

My friend was looking forward to doing some fishing and having a boat and motor makes it that much easier except, the last person I let use it forgot to pull the plug on the boat. Not only that a flap on the cover was open. This occurred a month ago. As I pulled the entire boat cover back my eyes met the inside of my boat filled to the brim with God's water.

This meant both batteries, the one connected and my spare had been inundated for a month. Both were Lazarus dead with no resurrection possible. One hundred and thirteen dollars later we were on the lake to catch massive amounts of nothing. If you've read this blog before you know that fishing in my lake is like fishing in the Dead Sea.

Four days later we were ready to come back to Ohio. At five in the morning I heard a moaning and my name being called. I ran into the bedroom and saw my 78 year-old friend lying on the floor with blood oozing in every direction. He told me he was having a stroke. I called 911 and eventually had him transported to a hospital in Brainerd, Minnesota an hour away.

The stroke wasn't a stroke. At the time we thought he had a severe shoulder injury so began driving for Dublin, Ohio. The man was in complete agony all that day and the next. Thank God he played for Woody Hayes. He was tougher than tough.

When we arrived in Dublin he went to Dublin Methodist Hospital. His injury wasn't a shoulder or ribs. It wasn't a concussion or skull fracture, either. The man had a broken neck. Can you believe it? I transported a man with a crack between his 6th and 7th vertebrate and he survived.

This man is a real man. On the way home he said, "I can hardly wait to go back to the lake next year".
Can you believe it. This guy has been through something akin to having razor sharp swords run through his body and he's talking about a 17 hour drive to some god forsaken woods.

Adios, Minnesota. I hate you in winter and the mosquitos are a killer in summer. I'd sell the cabin except the Queen thinks it's the best spot on earth. And what the Queen wants the Queen gets.

I can hardly wait until next year and the experiences I'll endure. The way I figure it's time burned off in Purgatory.