Fishing or not

To leave, or not to leave, That is the question.

The motor home is packed, the lot is reserved, the fishing boat is hooked up and I'm ready to go. The storms are moving in and if I know what's good for me I'll put everything back into the garage and settle down to read a good book instead of going on my long anticipated, weekend fishing trip. 100% chance of hail and high winds, lightning and flood warnings abound, even a tornado or two have popped up the last few days. Why do I continuously watch out the window for a break in the weather? Do I think that somehow in His busy day God will change the forecast just for me? Of course I do! I'm a true fisherman. It's the optimism by which we live. Each and every time we toss that line into the water we actually believe there is a trophy lunker fish waiting just below the surface. It's only a short distance of thought to switch over to a miracle like changing the weather isn't it?

No, I won't be going this weekend after all. Not a big deal, I'll just make it another weekend instead. Where I go, the fish are always biting. I've learned long ago to be a flexible person. Flexible is the standard for survival and sanity in a state like Michigan where the weather changes constantly from one extreme to another. I would probably be out on the water already except for the lightning. Standing on the bow of a boat, out in the middle of a lake, pointing a fishing rod skyward when lightning decides to strike is not the brightest of ideas is it? Even though, in hopes of being there when that trophy fish bites, the urge still exists to battle the elements. If you fish you understand I am sure. It's all in being there.

So, I will watch the weather until the sun goes down anyway. Tomorrow I'll put all that fishing stuff away until another day. All, except one pole which I'll take to a local pond and catch what I can. Some fishermen don't fish unless it's for a particular species, bass, pike, crappie, whatever. Not me, I fish, period. As a matter of fact, if this storm continues too long, my neighbor that has an aquarium in his living room best not invite me over and leave me unattended by that aquarium. I wonder if those fighting fish really fight all that well?...................

Competing in little known sports

"Competitive Cheer Leading" has been making the headlines lately right along with "Competitive Eating." I rank those two sports right up there with competitive Poker and Chess for pure excitement. Realizing that this is simply my opinion and there may or may not be anyone else agreeing with me. As much as I enjoy car shows, chock full of customized and restored vehicles of all shapes and models representing hours and hours of labor and thousands upon thousands of dollars, I'm not sure I'd call the competition an exciting sport. Only speaking as an observer of course. I figure, if you want to do something and do it well you must do it to please yourself, not the observer. But then again, if you want to get awards and collect money for it you have to then please the observer too.

Competition can be intense in any of those activities but many times it's not as obvious to every observer. Although this cheerleading can get pretty rough and tumble and I admire the participants. It is not my intention to demean any particular competition here, you can't argue with a massive audience. However, certain elements of the competitive spirit escape me sometimes. It's sort of obvious why mini bikini beach volleyball is popular, even with the sound turned down, but poker? A bunch of players sit around a table pushing out chips and making faces at each other. Competitive eating on the other hand always holds out hope for someone overindulging and throwing up. I have a tremendous amount of admiration for anyone that can compete in the game of chess, but once again as an observer it's not my cup of tea. Golf is on the fringe here, kind of close with Cricket when it comes to my attention. At least competitive barbecuing has the added benefit of food for the judges. I have noticed that the popularity of legitimate competitive combined beer drinking and jart throwing is slowing though.

At a few campgrounds and church picnics I've found competitive horseshoes as usual but coming up in the ranks is competitive ladderball and washer throwing. I went to a couple association picnics and watched women throw rolling pins at cardboard images of their husbands. Perhaps there is no end to what we can define as competitive. Some activities that pop into my head are: sewing, carpet cleaning, varnishing, window washing, shoelace tying, remote channel changing, computer booting etc. etc. I wonder if these types of competition are becoming popular because so little competition is allowed on the school playgrounds these days and people thirst for competition in order to find out where they excel? That's just a random thought, of course. You know me and my random thoughts don't you? I can certainly compete on a professional level with random thoughts. Wonder which channel it's on?...........Joe

Kindergarten and the blame game

Who did it? Who's responsible? I'm totally innocent! They made me do it! Sound familiar? Right out of the kindergarten hand book: When caught red handed, find someone else to blame. There is a lot of that going around lately.

I just finished reading, for the second or third time "All I really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, by author Robert Fulghum. It was published about 20 years ago, and may not be in print anymore. Kind of boring reading actually but still has some informative stuff in it along with a chuckle or two. It's spattered with little bits of wisdom from the ages: Play fair, don't hit people, flush, wash your hands, share, put things back and more, all good rules to live by. But there are other, less acceptable things we learned back then too, When you do something wrong forget it immediately and blame someone else, Cry and whine when you think someone doesn't share with you, Take what you can get. Most of us lose the unacceptable rules as we get older, some of us don't.

The news is filled with such things as denial, blame, whining and crying lately. From politics to business and literally all of life people are hanging onto those silly childish, kindergarten corruptions. Big oil says it's not their fault, government officials say it's not their fault, people that drive gasoline powered vehicles say it's not their fault and right on down the line. A bill was defeated concerning the extension of unemployment benefits, one party says it was the other party's fault, the other party says it was not, people unemployed for two or more years were going to lose their benefits because no one could agree on where the money was going to come from. Another blame game. "Not me!" "Not me!"

We live in an exciting time. Not a particularly fun or easy time but exciting never-the-less. It won't be any less exciting if some of us start taking responsibility for our own actions will it? I think it will become a bit more fun and possibly easier because we won't be so busy pointing fingers. My finger is getting a little sore anyway.............Joe

Publishers and Authors

Phew! Good things are happening with my publisher way faster than I can keep up with. I just sent off a letter to them asking for a slow down, easier to read information synopsis. Joe's Story has always been available in an easy to read, hard paper back version for $29.95. Huge amounts of copies have been sold over the past three years. Personal library quality, collector, hardcover copies have been surprisingly popular too. Now the publisher has made available a soft cover version for only $14.95 and also a paperback for only $9.95. I can't keep up with it all.

I have very much enjoyed working with my publisher. They have allowed me the flexibility I need in my busy, busy life. However, the part I find disconcerting right now during this exciting time of growth is that currently all the correspondence is carried out via email. My inbox has become saturated with emails from them. Through their policy of informative disclosure they have been sending emails at the rate of sometimes three or four times a day. Some are repetitive and some almost totally confusing. I. being the author must authorize their changes to our original agreement. I just sent off a request for clarification on what I have or have not authorized up to this point. The emails from them are computer generated, all encompassing and mass distributed to all the authors they represent, which numbers in the tens of thousands. I humbly requested a personal response. This is a very exciting time. My publisher is making some really innovative and progressive changes in order to keep up with demand and maintain availability. They don't take a hind seat to anyone it that category. But, every once in a while I believe an author needs a pat on the back and some inclusive interaction from those publishers.

There have been some pretty extenuating circumstances occurring over the past few years that were quite out of my control but requiring my help and demanding much of my attention. The promotion of Joe's Story and it's hard won lesson concerning CO poisoning was conducted in a lesser enthusiastic way than I would have otherwise preferred. That may be about to change. I feel it is important that my publisher and I go into that long anticipated and exciting phase in the same frame of thought.

I wish you a safe and wonderful day.........................Joe

Blogging comments in other languages

I have been participating in an intensive study program to improve some of my skills. It's been time consuming and exhausting but is winding down now so I can return to my usual writing regimen.

I am the first to admit that I am not the most educated person there ever was. But, I was not exposed to foreign language study to any great degree while in organized schooling either. Latin was interesting and is a foundation for many modern Romance languages today. I signed up for Latin in 9th grade because of along standing desire to become a priest and Latin was the language of the church at the time. As it turned out there are two distinctly different forms of Latin. Also, as it turned out, as a budding teenage boy my eyes turned from the priesthood to the perky cheerleaders. Be that as it may and a story for another day I am confused about an interesting turn of events lately. Many comments on my blog are in some form of Asian language. I have absolutely no background in this type of language other than I think I was cussed out in one once when a little old man bumped into me with a grocery cart. I've been told the Internet has sights where translations are instant. That's great! But by now most of you know that I am not in the least bit proficient in the intricacies of Internet use either. Although I appreciate any meaningful comments and find the perspective of other cultures often brings much color to otherwise bland subjects sometimes, it doesn't mean much when I can't read it now does it?

The indecipherable, to me anyway, comments are useless to me. I have no idea if they are nonsense or filled with wisdom, advertisements, snide, rude or humorous. I say this just in case anyone needs to know. I read and write in pretty much conventional English. I am always interested in meaningful comments but please make them in the language I can understand or send me to a site I can readily translate so we may communicate in a reasonable fashion. Thanks........................Joe

Finding the gold

We overheard the counter guy at the surplus store quietly talking to another customer about a long protected secret concerning the Pikric Acid plant. Our ears perked up to listen. The counter guy looked both ways to make sure no one was listening, I guess he didn't see us, and then he told the other guy about how some gold bars had been buried by the United States government to protect it just in case the country was invaded. Now it seems that the government forgot about the gold somehow they said. Some other guy had just discovered a drawing of some hidden caves in between the smoke stacks and the small river just South of them. Those guys were going to there in a couple days to find and dig out the gold and they'd be rich forever. Jim and I were dumbfounded, we had actually been in the entrance to those caves! We didn't go too far in because they were pretty dark and stunk awful. We suddenly thought dark and stinky weren't so bad after all. We made plans for the next morning.

So around 8:00 am we were on our bikes riding across the hills and knolls on our way to the caves. I had a hatchet and Jim had a small army shovel his dad had left from being in a soldier. Each of us carried a flashlight and extra batteries too. The sun was already burning down hot on our backs, the grass was still wet from the dew of the night, causing us to slip and slide as we raced towards the cave opening. We stopped just down a hill behind a small grove of bushy trees that hid the cave entrance. No one else was around that we could see. We certainly didn't want to share our gold with anyone. We made sure our bikes were covered under low hanging branches and walked to the side of the hill where the opening was. We hesitated for a minute and just looked at each other. Wow! All we had to do was go inside and pick up that gold.

We bent down and entered the cave entrance, shining our flashlights ahead of us, water trickled down the side walls and settled in small pools in between the rocks, spider webs hung along every surface and across the opening, getting into our faces and feeling kind of creepy. Noises came from inside but they weren't scary though, we thought it was just the wind. The wind is always in caves, we knew that from movies and stories. The cave opening was small, only about two or three feet high but as we crawled further in the ceiling got higher and wider. The ceiling was pock marked with deep holes and cracks. We penetrated deeper and deeper, excited as we were the darkness was all encompassing except for the steady beams of our flashlights. We stopped and shone our lights around, checking out every square inch of the inside to make sure we didn't overlook any gold.

Over our right, about ten feet away the wall had broken away slightly and we could see the corner of what we thought was a steel box. The edge was shiny but the side was rusty. We had to climb over some large, slippery rocks to get to it. Halfway there an bright light filled the cave to almost daylight, blinding our eyes. A loud voice yelled out, "What are you kids doing in here?" "You gotta get out right now!" We started to say the we just wanted to get that steel box but the guy yelled even louder and said we had to leave right then. We couldn't play in there any more. He helped us get up, back through and out the entrance to the outside. He was nice enough but wouldn't listen to anything we had to say. We just had to leave. We got on or bikes and left. When we got to the edge of the trees we saw a huge tractor with a front loader on it with a another small caterpillar with a plow on the front. A bunch of guys were standing around, some had shovels. We went home, all those grown up guys would have made arguing useless. Later that day we rode our bikes about 20 miles to Green Lake and went swimming. No sense in wasting a good summer day without school.

The next morning,right after peddling papers and doing chores, without breakfast we headed out to the caves. They had been plowed over and covered with dirt! We figured those guys with the tractor and front loader must have dug up the caves and found the gold and got rich. We had been that close...................................Joe

Finding gold

I was almost rich once. I was as close as you are to the computer screen right now. Yeah, that close. It was enough gold to support me and my descendants in the lap of luxury for a decade of lifetimes to come. I missed it by just that much.

Being 12 years old was a wonderful time, especially during the summer when the world is more accessible because you don't have to go to school. Waking up at 4:00am, washing up, grabbing my bicycle, picking up and folding the morning papers and then delivering them to my customers took two and a half hours. Fixing a bowl of cereal or a couple slices of toast and eating them only ten more minutes, my chores another half hour and the rest of the day was all mine to do with what I wanted. One particularly bright and shiny Monday morning in June I met my buddy Jim down by the local neighborhood grocery store, Ben and Goldies to purchase supplies for the day's adventure: Lunch meat, a loaf of bread, worms, fishing line, bobbers and hooks took care of our basic needs. Jim bought a compass for a nickle. We knew every inch of where we were going but compasses are interesting anyways. We took off on our bikes going like sixty, we were on a mission, a mission to become rich beyond our wildest dreams.

About two and a half miles from where we lived was a wilderness area, (to us anyway) filled with the unknown. We had been there often but there was never enough time to explore it properly up to that point. It was the hills and fields surrounding the old Pikric acid plant that had been built to provide explosive chemicals for bombs during world war two. The legend had it that when the war ended they tore everything down except the two huge, towering, red brick smoke stacks for the smelting ovens. Bricks, cement, tiles and steel from the old building were bulldozed into the surrounding landscape. Jim and I along with several other friends had scoured the area many times before and found a lot of really cool stuff: An old army helmet, a bent up knife, some old pot, pans, bottles, wire, broken glass and what looked to be a rusty old pistol. All of which helped us to believe there was other great and valuable treasure to be found. This day, Jim and I were sure we were going to find it. The guy at the Army surplus store had let it slip about the gold when we were there buying rabbit traps.

I actually have to go right now. I'll finish this as soon as I can..............Joe