mainexile
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2007
- Messages
- 223
I believe that it was the summer of 1957; I was seven years old. My older brothers aged 10 and 13 respectively and I were terrorizing our little sister and others in the neighborhood. And our mother was reaching the end of her patience. So she strongly "suggested" that our father should take us boys on a fishing and camping trip. Now dad wasn't always very intuitive about mom's preferences, but this time it came through loud and clear (I think the smoke coming out of her ears was the dead giveaway).
We spent a couple of days planning and gathering up the three-man tent, sleeping bags, food and provisions and what gear sporting we had including tackle and rifles (more on that later), loaded it up the in Rambler station wagon along with dad's 5HP Elgin outboard and headed off to Mooselookmeguntic Lake in the western Maine mountains. Dad had reserved a boat at Haines Landing and a campsite on Stony Barter, a small, rocky peninsula on the far side of the lake. The boat was barely big enough for the four of us with little room for the gear. So dad loaded up the tent and some provisions and set off with my older brother across the lake (oldest brother and I remained behind to "guard" the rest of the stuff). Now the old Elgin was a great trolling motor - it would go all day at 1-3 knots, and WOT wasn't much faster. Dad was always tweaking the air/fuel mixture 'cause it "just don't sound right." Reverse was accomplished by spinning the engine around 180 degrees and leaning out over the transon to hold the tiller, which was in its stowed position of 90 degrees vertical.
Anyway, the round trip to Stony Barter and back took almost an hour, but dad had the foresight to leave some food and drinks behind to keep me and brother occupied. Finally we got ourselves and the rest of the gear to the campsite and set up the tent. We also had to erect a lean-to on the side of the tent because older brother didn't want to sleep in the same space with me and oldest bro. I tried to watch carefully as the campsite was orgqanized and the construction progressed. Dad took his hatchet and split some firewood and before I knew it, we had a decent fire going.
After all that, it was approaching dusk so we had a campfire meal of hot dogs and beans (another reason brother didn't want to sleep with us). Older brother crawled into his sleeping bag in the lean-to accompanied by the .22 caliber, bolt action carbine with a seven-shot magazine...in case of "visitors". The rest of us settled into our own sleeping bags in the tent.
At some point during the night, dad woke up to the sound of a metallic CLICK, CLICK, CLICK and a frightened moan. He grabbed his .30-30 and a flashlight and jumped out of the tent only to find older brother sitting up in his sleeping bag trying desperately to get a bullet into the breech. Bro had awakened to a noise in the campsite, and his flashlight illuminated two red eyes staring at him from a few feet away. Thinking that it was a bear or a lynx or a wolf, he was going to save all of us from being mauled to death (with a .22 no less). But he had apparently forgotten that there was already a cartridge manually loaded in the chamber with the bolt unlocked so that all he had to do was drop the bolt and pull the trigger. Instead he was feverishly trying to cycle a new cartridge into the breech. Dad said it was probably a raccoon scavenging for food, and that we should all calm down and go back to sleep.
Early the next morning, we awoke to a beautiful sunrise with a thin fog hovering over the lake. Dad said that we were going fishing, so we loaded the tackle and the five-gallon can of pre-mix gas into the boat, and the four of us set off to catch some breakfast. I neglected to mention that oldest brother is severely near-sighted and he had forgotten his glasses at home. A short distance from Stony Barter there is a rock the protrudes above the surface. It is a relatively flat-topped rock about six to eight feet long and two feet wide. This particular morning, there were three seagulls standing on it in a line. As we passed the rock from about 100 feet to the port side, oldest bro looked at the rock and asked in his most sincere voice, "Are they rowing, Dad?" In the still air of that hazy morning, the resulting laughter could probably be heard all over the lake.
After about an hour of being skunked, we decided to head back to camp for breakfast. Unfortunately, the old Elgin decided that we should stay out on the lake a little longer. Dad pulled the engine cover off and started practicing whatever black magic it took to keep that thing running. The mumbled words through clenched teeth I now realize were "deleted expletives" in today's vernacular. Apparently they were part of the spell he was casting on that temperamental collection of metal that he frequently referred to as the spawn of Satan. Finally, with the help of his magic wand (a well-worn screwdriver) and the proper incantation, old Elgin came back to life, and we headed back to the campsite.
Upon our return, Dad said that the campfire needed tending, so I jumped up and said, "I'll do it, Dad." He replied that I was too young to be splitting wood, but I persisted (whined) saying that I really could do it. OK he said, and I set off to gather and split some firewood remembering everything I had observed when he did it. The only thing I didn't do quite right was to let go of the wood when the hatchet came down on it. Yeah, you guessed it. The hatchet slipped off the side and came down on my thumb between the middle knuckle and the base. I've always been a rather profuse bleeder, and this wound really exemplified that fact. I must have screamed, 'cause Dad took one look at my thumb and decided that we needed to get to a doctor. So he loaded me into the boat and we set off for Haines Landing. On the way over, he said that I was probably going to need stitches on that wound...and a tetanus shot as well. Now I had a deathly fear of needles, so I started pleading with him that my thumb would be fine with just a Band-Aid and some mecurichrome. He just looked disgusted and said that we were probably going to have to leave and go home. As luck would have it, by the time we reached Haines Landing, the bleeding had stopped, and Dad started to think that maybe the 30-minute drive to the nearest doctor wasn't really necessary and that a bandage was all that was needed. So we headed back to Stony Barter.
As we neared the campsite, it was apparent from the odor that the bro's decided to cook themselves up some breakfast - bacon and eggs - WELL DONE!! Breakfast was totally inedible, and Dad was approaching critical mass. He eventually got us fed, and we set off again for a day of fishing, me with my overwrapped thumb, oldest bro with his faulty vision, and older bro WITHOUT the .22. We never did have any fishing luck that trip, and the Elgin continued to act up including the final straw of breaking a shear pin. At that point Dad reached overload. He replaced the shear pin with the good one from his tackle box (obviously this had happened before), and he announced that this fishing trip was over. We packed up and headed home to resume our terrorist ways in the neighborhood, and Dad never, ever took us on an overnight fishing trip again...and we never asked either.
We spent a couple of days planning and gathering up the three-man tent, sleeping bags, food and provisions and what gear sporting we had including tackle and rifles (more on that later), loaded it up the in Rambler station wagon along with dad's 5HP Elgin outboard and headed off to Mooselookmeguntic Lake in the western Maine mountains. Dad had reserved a boat at Haines Landing and a campsite on Stony Barter, a small, rocky peninsula on the far side of the lake. The boat was barely big enough for the four of us with little room for the gear. So dad loaded up the tent and some provisions and set off with my older brother across the lake (oldest brother and I remained behind to "guard" the rest of the stuff). Now the old Elgin was a great trolling motor - it would go all day at 1-3 knots, and WOT wasn't much faster. Dad was always tweaking the air/fuel mixture 'cause it "just don't sound right." Reverse was accomplished by spinning the engine around 180 degrees and leaning out over the transon to hold the tiller, which was in its stowed position of 90 degrees vertical.
Anyway, the round trip to Stony Barter and back took almost an hour, but dad had the foresight to leave some food and drinks behind to keep me and brother occupied. Finally we got ourselves and the rest of the gear to the campsite and set up the tent. We also had to erect a lean-to on the side of the tent because older brother didn't want to sleep in the same space with me and oldest bro. I tried to watch carefully as the campsite was orgqanized and the construction progressed. Dad took his hatchet and split some firewood and before I knew it, we had a decent fire going.
After all that, it was approaching dusk so we had a campfire meal of hot dogs and beans (another reason brother didn't want to sleep with us). Older brother crawled into his sleeping bag in the lean-to accompanied by the .22 caliber, bolt action carbine with a seven-shot magazine...in case of "visitors". The rest of us settled into our own sleeping bags in the tent.
At some point during the night, dad woke up to the sound of a metallic CLICK, CLICK, CLICK and a frightened moan. He grabbed his .30-30 and a flashlight and jumped out of the tent only to find older brother sitting up in his sleeping bag trying desperately to get a bullet into the breech. Bro had awakened to a noise in the campsite, and his flashlight illuminated two red eyes staring at him from a few feet away. Thinking that it was a bear or a lynx or a wolf, he was going to save all of us from being mauled to death (with a .22 no less). But he had apparently forgotten that there was already a cartridge manually loaded in the chamber with the bolt unlocked so that all he had to do was drop the bolt and pull the trigger. Instead he was feverishly trying to cycle a new cartridge into the breech. Dad said it was probably a raccoon scavenging for food, and that we should all calm down and go back to sleep.
Early the next morning, we awoke to a beautiful sunrise with a thin fog hovering over the lake. Dad said that we were going fishing, so we loaded the tackle and the five-gallon can of pre-mix gas into the boat, and the four of us set off to catch some breakfast. I neglected to mention that oldest brother is severely near-sighted and he had forgotten his glasses at home. A short distance from Stony Barter there is a rock the protrudes above the surface. It is a relatively flat-topped rock about six to eight feet long and two feet wide. This particular morning, there were three seagulls standing on it in a line. As we passed the rock from about 100 feet to the port side, oldest bro looked at the rock and asked in his most sincere voice, "Are they rowing, Dad?" In the still air of that hazy morning, the resulting laughter could probably be heard all over the lake.
After about an hour of being skunked, we decided to head back to camp for breakfast. Unfortunately, the old Elgin decided that we should stay out on the lake a little longer. Dad pulled the engine cover off and started practicing whatever black magic it took to keep that thing running. The mumbled words through clenched teeth I now realize were "deleted expletives" in today's vernacular. Apparently they were part of the spell he was casting on that temperamental collection of metal that he frequently referred to as the spawn of Satan. Finally, with the help of his magic wand (a well-worn screwdriver) and the proper incantation, old Elgin came back to life, and we headed back to the campsite.
Upon our return, Dad said that the campfire needed tending, so I jumped up and said, "I'll do it, Dad." He replied that I was too young to be splitting wood, but I persisted (whined) saying that I really could do it. OK he said, and I set off to gather and split some firewood remembering everything I had observed when he did it. The only thing I didn't do quite right was to let go of the wood when the hatchet came down on it. Yeah, you guessed it. The hatchet slipped off the side and came down on my thumb between the middle knuckle and the base. I've always been a rather profuse bleeder, and this wound really exemplified that fact. I must have screamed, 'cause Dad took one look at my thumb and decided that we needed to get to a doctor. So he loaded me into the boat and we set off for Haines Landing. On the way over, he said that I was probably going to need stitches on that wound...and a tetanus shot as well. Now I had a deathly fear of needles, so I started pleading with him that my thumb would be fine with just a Band-Aid and some mecurichrome. He just looked disgusted and said that we were probably going to have to leave and go home. As luck would have it, by the time we reached Haines Landing, the bleeding had stopped, and Dad started to think that maybe the 30-minute drive to the nearest doctor wasn't really necessary and that a bandage was all that was needed. So we headed back to Stony Barter.
As we neared the campsite, it was apparent from the odor that the bro's decided to cook themselves up some breakfast - bacon and eggs - WELL DONE!! Breakfast was totally inedible, and Dad was approaching critical mass. He eventually got us fed, and we set off again for a day of fishing, me with my overwrapped thumb, oldest bro with his faulty vision, and older bro WITHOUT the .22. We never did have any fishing luck that trip, and the Elgin continued to act up including the final straw of breaking a shear pin. At that point Dad reached overload. He replaced the shear pin with the good one from his tackle box (obviously this had happened before), and he announced that this fishing trip was over. We packed up and headed home to resume our terrorist ways in the neighborhood, and Dad never, ever took us on an overnight fishing trip again...and we never asked either.
