by Curt Kovener
From the Curt Comments Archives originally penned about 20 years ago:
If you are reading this it must mean that I returned from a weekend camping-fishing-working expedition. Since we put most of the newspaper together early over holiday weekends, I can’t tell you what kind of time I had but rain or shine it was good.
Life is too durned hectic, schedules are too demanding…shucks, some people are needlessly demanding. So there are times when we must just “get out of Dodge”.
Such it was for my much anticipated Memorial weekend in the wilderness of nearby Washington County.
A good friend is building a home on some of the most diverse wooded, creek filled 40 acres the Almighty ever carved out of southern Indiana. That spot served as a base camp for the planned fishing. Memorial weekend is traditionally a primetime for bluegills. We’ll have to see what the cool spring and heavy rains did to that usual schedule.
But before the fishing pleasure there was work to be done. There was a roof to be put on the new cabin and since my carpentry skills are only slightly advanced beyond bending nails in boards, it traditionally is my job to carry bundles of shingles to the roof. On single story structures it is fairly simple. My height allows me to stand on the ground and lift them to an awaiting pair of hands on the edge of the roof.
But the cabin is a story and a half so the ladder and my legs (and every other grunt in my body) got a workout.
At night when the work was done there was a campfire, a guitar, and a jug of spirituous libation that encouraged us to bay at the moon in multiple part harmony and give the coyotes a run for their money in the night sounds. Camping near the remote fishing spot allows us to be on the lake as the sun is just coming up.
Nothing is so peaceful and tranquil as a mirror smooth lake in the coolness of an early morning. Wisps of mist float and linger above the water’s surface. Heavy dew seems to cling to everything. The birds are singing and feeding, the morning coffee boiled over a campfire is especially good and the fish are still hungry for our offerings of crickets & worms.
The only downside is the wet spring also has brought out mobs of mosquitoes. Ticks are prolific for the same reason and the deerfly have also taken advantage of the damp conditions to prolifically procreate.
But it doesn’t matter how bad the bugs may be, how hot, hot muggy, or how rainy. Like my compadre Mike says, “The worst day fishing is better that the best day at work.”
