My grinnin guide
We got in pretty late, the owner, not to happy with us, said the guide would be ready for us at two. I dropped in my bunk. We dressed in the dark, left the knotty pine planks and someone with a flashlight came to get us. Even in the dark, I could tell that whoever was beaming around us and the dock was a pretty chipper fellow.
We motor up the lake in a gray steamy humid mirage. As the black night becomes a grayish dawn, I can almost make out his features. There is no mistaking his laugh. The boat shakes with his mirth.
Every time he smiles, he puts his hand up to cover his mouth. He's really shy about having only two upper teeth. He's not so shy about laughing at any of our Yankee cut ups in banter, joking, or fish casting mulligans. He likes to tell us that he lives in America's attic.
Im guessing he's no more than 21 years old, but he drove the boat to a non-descript spot in a lake, told us to drop a minnow, and we pounded the walleyes. We swatted at the bugs, he never flinched, said his hide was so thick they didn't even bother him anymore, unless they got in his eyes.
Having been on the water since three thirty in the morning everybody was more than ready at ten a: m to hit an island, any island, for some leg stretching and breakfast. He picked a doosey. It was a boulder strewn pile with one Charlie brown looking Christmas tree. From under the boats decking he pulled a relic British or Canadian military canvas bag that kept emptying itself like a magician's bag of tricks.
There was a bundle of split firewood, a greasy looking propane stove, one can of cooking lard, one zip lock bag of potato flakes, plenty of loose potato's, two blackened cast iron skillets, and two rolls of Charmin. From his shirt pocket he produced a bag of some seasoning and If you wanted to use the Charmin, at least on this island, there was no where to hide, I asked if he had an outhouse in the bag, and with a rising hand, he laughed and said no.
He went back to the boat, grabbed a fillet knife and in what takes me at least an hour, he skinned, cut, fired and fried us up one heck of a shore lunch in not time at all. No spatula, he just flipped those taters and fish with the knife like a sushi chef. He served our brunch or lunch by setting the skillets on a rock and pointing, no plates or tools, we ate with our fingers. We ate it all.
