The old maps still hold a crease … and many memories
Every chapter in one's life unfolds with a sunrise or a sunset degrading into darkness.
For some, those nighttime hours that offer a stage to herald their melodies. For me, a spot in the cheap seats is just fine.
One could be lulled into dreamland by the staccato beats of rainfall cascading through the branches of the tall trees. The faltering embers in a campfire serve as a brief reminder of just how those who came before us used nature's gifts to make their lives a bit easier.
Flash back to a full day on Minnesota's Temperance River, where the color blue is displayed without the aid of a paint chip. This quiet, meandering neighbor to Duluth manages to hold its own while the rest of the world goes mad. Look carefully and you may spy a sleek trout working hard to further its bloodline.
Go south a smidge and a little east and you step into another world. You now have entered a land where locals treasure their brandy as much as their fabled angling. And if it's stories you want to round out your day, you're in the right place.
Wisconsin is where so many Illinois refugees repeat their pilgrimages year after year, keeping family customs alive while simultaneously working to satiate an endless hunger to find the big one, that elusive trophy muskie. Uncle Loud got one back in the '50s.
Dad had his share as well, only in those days we killed those beauties to help raise our testosterone levels to unbelievable levels.
The tipping point for the visitors who today dare to fill their gas tanks are those massive rib-eye steaks slathered in onions and mushrooms. Every tiny hamlet has one of these eateries claiming to have the best offerings.
Off to the cabin you then go, with a full stomach, along with bags of groceries and eyes that want nothing more than to close for a few precious hours.
You find that gravel road tucked between the birch and pines. It's the same as it was when your grandfather and father navigated it at night. The cabin still stands like a proud soldier, but now there's a single strand of wire, the tell-tale sign of modern electricity.
This was where boys learned the important parts of becoming a man. No recesses or spring breaks, just knuckle-down, outdoors education with a well-worn bamboo fly rod and ageless Pflueger casting reels.
I suspect you too have traveled these gravel pathways and also may be searching for your misspent youth.
And then a miracle happens. The sun inches its way back over the horizon. Renewed again, we know it's time to coffee up and test one's mettle in an unsure world.
It was on the nearby lake where a large topwater bass plug showed its stuff. A dozen casts to the edge of some heavy grass and, just like that, a Zane Grey moment unfolded. A muskie of unreal proportions surfaced and inhaled the lure. It danced around the top of the water like it was auditioning for a spot in a Las Vegas revue.
The episode was entered into the book of future conversations. Before I knew it, the morning's hours slipped away. Don't they always?
Ah, another new season unfolds, with its old maps and leftover mouse traps … and always a yearning for it never to end.
Life is grand.