The Calm Before The Storm
July 26, 2017 at 3:45 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
Two of us are fishing to feed all four of us. The 7-year-old girl in the middle seat likes to catch fish but doesn’t really know how to do it yet. The 3-year-old boy roaming around the boat is begging someone to cast his line out for the 50th time in 10 minutes.
This summer has been dubbed “the summer of staying home.” We are saving our money for some work that needs done at the Grossman Compound and some bigger plans we have for next summer.
But this week is a week where we hook the boat up to the Dodge Journey and head north from our relatively quiet corner of the Midwest, through the home of the Chicago Bears to the home of real bears.
My wife’s family makes the trek also. We spend the night on the way up and then go the rest of the way Saturday morning. The beauty of this vacation is that it takes minimal preparation because it is virtually identical from one year to the next. We pay the same in tolls going around Chicago, we stop in the same area on the way up, we reserve the same cabins at the same resort every year, we stop at the same place for groceries. Outside of the hotel rooms, buying your fishing licenses online and packing, it’s really effortless.
The water in the lakes where we are fishing are rated 12 to 14 for clarity, meaning you can see 12 to 14 feet down. There are beavers and bald eagles. The muskies require two hands to hold for pictures, and the bellies of the pike sag in between your arms.
But for my family and I, we fish to eat, so our preferred method is a bobber, 4-pound test line and some sort of worm-like creature on a hook at the end of it. Our hope is it falls into a huddle of hungry and motivated blue gill or crappie.
Catching fish or not, there is something poetic and almost romantic about being in a boat with a float out in every direction and a zephyr of a breeze to make them dance gently. Before children, there would be nothing said in those moments. It would be you, the birds, and the occasional big fish splashing as its prey would come near the water’s surface.
Calm. Quiet. Peaceful.
Now, of course, with the previously-mentioned children filling the Minnesota air with “Dad, why have I caught more fish than you?”, “I’m still hungry” and “Can I have a juice box?” And of course the infamous “Are we almost done fishing yet? I want to go swimming.”
But we don’t seem to mind.
More than the fish that we bring home from the shadows of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox’s statues are the memories – memories of things the kids saw, things they did and the thrill of waiting to see just what that thing is that’s pulling on the other end of the line.
It’s also about extended time with cousins, sitting in the “community hammock” in the middle of the resort. It’s about taking baths in giant Tupperware containers because your cabin only has room for a shower. It’s about seeing turtles and trying to see how close you can get to them without them retreating inside their shell.
It’s about a son sitting on his dad’s lap after dark and watching a thunderstorm roll unimpeded across the lake, and seeing the reflection of the lightning flashes on the water.
And it’s about the stories of all of those things and more being told by those two kids to their own kids and loved ones someday.
Saturday, before the sun has made its appearance above the Minnesota horizon, we will load up our belongings, our catch and those memories and begin the long drive home.
With no unforeseen problems, we will roll into our driveway around 9 p.m. About 36 hours later I will be sneaking away from the office to join the Warsaw Tiger football team at its first official workout, and with it my 27th sports season at the radio stations in Warsaw will be underway.
My body will be there on the sidelines watching and learning as it is every first day of football practice, but a little piece of my heart will still be on that lake, feet propped up off the edge from the back seat of a green-hulled boat, peering out at a bobber on the lake … waiting and wondering if that worm at the end of my line is down there by itself.
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Two of us are fishing to feed all four of us. The 7-year-old girl in the middle seat likes to catch fish but doesn’t really know how to do it yet. The 3-year-old boy roaming around the boat is begging someone to cast his line out for the 50th time in 10 minutes.
This summer has been dubbed “the summer of staying home.” We are saving our money for some work that needs done at the Grossman Compound and some bigger plans we have for next summer.
But this week is a week where we hook the boat up to the Dodge Journey and head north from our relatively quiet corner of the Midwest, through the home of the Chicago Bears to the home of real bears.
My wife’s family makes the trek also. We spend the night on the way up and then go the rest of the way Saturday morning. The beauty of this vacation is that it takes minimal preparation because it is virtually identical from one year to the next. We pay the same in tolls going around Chicago, we stop in the same area on the way up, we reserve the same cabins at the same resort every year, we stop at the same place for groceries. Outside of the hotel rooms, buying your fishing licenses online and packing, it’s really effortless.
The water in the lakes where we are fishing are rated 12 to 14 for clarity, meaning you can see 12 to 14 feet down. There are beavers and bald eagles. The muskies require two hands to hold for pictures, and the bellies of the pike sag in between your arms.
But for my family and I, we fish to eat, so our preferred method is a bobber, 4-pound test line and some sort of worm-like creature on a hook at the end of it. Our hope is it falls into a huddle of hungry and motivated blue gill or crappie.
Catching fish or not, there is something poetic and almost romantic about being in a boat with a float out in every direction and a zephyr of a breeze to make them dance gently. Before children, there would be nothing said in those moments. It would be you, the birds, and the occasional big fish splashing as its prey would come near the water’s surface.
Calm. Quiet. Peaceful.
Now, of course, with the previously-mentioned children filling the Minnesota air with “Dad, why have I caught more fish than you?”, “I’m still hungry” and “Can I have a juice box?” And of course the infamous “Are we almost done fishing yet? I want to go swimming.”
But we don’t seem to mind.
More than the fish that we bring home from the shadows of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox’s statues are the memories – memories of things the kids saw, things they did and the thrill of waiting to see just what that thing is that’s pulling on the other end of the line.
It’s also about extended time with cousins, sitting in the “community hammock” in the middle of the resort. It’s about taking baths in giant Tupperware containers because your cabin only has room for a shower. It’s about seeing turtles and trying to see how close you can get to them without them retreating inside their shell.
It’s about a son sitting on his dad’s lap after dark and watching a thunderstorm roll unimpeded across the lake, and seeing the reflection of the lightning flashes on the water.
And it’s about the stories of all of those things and more being told by those two kids to their own kids and loved ones someday.
Saturday, before the sun has made its appearance above the Minnesota horizon, we will load up our belongings, our catch and those memories and begin the long drive home.
With no unforeseen problems, we will roll into our driveway around 9 p.m. About 36 hours later I will be sneaking away from the office to join the Warsaw Tiger football team at its first official workout, and with it my 27th sports season at the radio stations in Warsaw will be underway.
My body will be there on the sidelines watching and learning as it is every first day of football practice, but a little piece of my heart will still be on that lake, feet propped up off the edge from the back seat of a green-hulled boat, peering out at a bobber on the lake … waiting and wondering if that worm at the end of my line is down there by itself.
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