After having a few days of almost summer like weather, it seems like we are, once again, back to windy, cold and cloudy weather. A couple of weeks ago, I was at our cabin near Talmoon, Minnesota, where, upon arriving on Monday, I enjoyed temperatures in the 70’s. When I woke up the following day, it was 36 degrees. The sun stayed out on Tuesday and it warmed into the 50’s, but that was the end of the nice weather. On Wednesday it was raining and only in the high 30’s and maybe topped 40, but it was all downhill from there.
I had actually been thinking about the days when I had a permanent campsite at Best Point Resort on Lake Tetonka near Waterville. I spent a lot of time at the camper over the 8 years that we had a campsite on that lake. I always enjoyed spending time there and got to make friends with a lot of nice folks. I would bring one or more of my grandsons with me whenever I could. They liked swimming and fishing from the dock whenever we weren’t out in the boat.
We had birthday parties for the boys at the camper, mainly for Brad’s son, Dylan. The kids all liked spending time there and at bedtime they would jockey for who got to sleep on the top bunk. Taylor, the second oldest of the bunch, always wanted the top bunk. I didn’t think much of it until he fell out of the top bunk. After that I tried to talk him out of it, but he was pretty stubborn, so I relented. I did put a couple of cushions on the floor to soften the fall that was pretty much guaranteed to happen. He did survive and came away without any serious damage.
Those were fun days, not only for the kids, but for Grandpa as well. I’d take them out in the boat to do a little fishing and cruising around the lake. Trevor was a fisherman from day one and, when we weren’t out in the boat, he’d be fishing off the docks or off shore. When we’d go out in the boat to fish, Trevor and Taylor’s younger cousin, Dylan, also wanted to fish. He was pretty young and I kind of wondered whether he would figure the whole fishing thing out. When we were on the lake, he’d use one lure for about what seemed like 2 minutes before he wanted to change. This would go on all day and it was up to me to change lures for him. I looked at it as doing whatever I could to keep him interested in fishing.
Today, Trevor has become a very good fisherman, and Dylan, although he doesn’t fish as much as Trevor, is a good fisherman in his own right. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I spent a lot of time with my grandsons, teaching them what I could about the sport of fishing. I am proud that all four of my grandsons like to fish and hunt. Trevor takes it to the extreme and Dylan isn’t far behind, so in looking back, I have to say that I enjoyed every moment spent baiting hooks, untangling lines, retrieving lures out of trees and trying to get them unsnagged from the bottom of a lake. Good old Grandpa has broken both Trevor’s and Dylan’s fishing rods trying to loosen a snag at one time or another. They would get a snag and I’d tell them I’ll get it for you. It’s kind of like that old “hold my beer” thing, it just never worked out the way I had planned.
Until next time: I know that, after that teaser of nice weather, we have suffered a little setback, but eventually the weather will turn and we’ll all be wondering why it’s so darned hot.
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