TR: An Ancient Mystery Solved

"Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
her islands and bays are for sportsmen."

Twenty-five years later, I went back up to Door County, Wisconsin this past
February, just for a weekend road trip. Everything around Egg Harbor, Fish
Creek, Ephraim, Sister Bay, Ellison Bay (on the Green Bay side) looked
pretty much as I remembered it, and Bailey's Harbor (on the Lake side)
looked exactly the same. I decided then and there to come back up in warmer
weather. Looked like a good place to spend some time in a small boat. The
bay side is a tourist mecca of long standing, mobbed, in the season, by tens
of thousands escaping the summer heat of Chicago and Milwaukee as well as
sizeable contingents from other areas, all milling about in a snarled and
clotted throng of bodies and cars and boats, and all dedicated soaking up
the scenic beauty, the quiet remoteness, while unloading obscene quantities
of cash and credit on real estate, "art," construction, "art", pottery,
"art," anything and everything to do with cherries, "art," mediocre wines,
t-shirts, fudge, "art," para-sailing, fishboils, and "art." Not
surprisingly, condos, cottages, hotels, motels, B&B's, McMansions, resorts,
and hideaways play a huge and ever increasing role in attracting an ever
increasing clientele in search of scenic splendor and seclusion.

Fortunately, geography and climate have conspired to limit the worst of the
desecration to the bay side. Look at Lake Michigan on a map, and imagine a
northeast wind coming in off the lake at thirty miles an hour.
Unfortunately, even the relatively harsh conditions on the east side of the
peninsula no longer provide sufficient insulation. The crowds have gotten
so large that, lemming-like, they spill over, and shoreline that has
remained pristine for millennia since the glaciers receded has seen a recent
bloom of mostly summer homes, though a lot of retirees are now beginning to
take up permanent residence.

Meanwhile, the very best of Door County, the islands, remain, mostly,
undeveloped. Washington Island, by far the largest with an area of roughly
22 square miles (if you discount the fact that the entire upper half of the
county is now technically an island since the completion of Sturgeon Bay
ship canal in the late 19th century), has a permanent resident population of
a few hundred and several dozen businesses catering to tourists (in addition
the few that serve the needs of the residents), up by a factor of ten, I
would guess, since I last crossed the island on my way to......

Rock Island, the jewel in the crown. As such things go in this day and age,
Rock Island is hard to get to. Unless you own a shallow draft vessel, like
a kayak for instance, the only way to get there is to take the car ferry
from Northport (at the northern extremity of the peninsula) to Washington
Island, drive all the way across it from southwest to northeast, and then
take the passenger ferry across. Rock Island is a state park. The
Wisconsin DNR prohibits motor vehicles (except for a couple of services
vehicles they keep there themselves, for maintenance) on the island. Even
bicycles are prohibited. The only permanent structures on the island (apart
from a few reputed but invisible ruins of days long ago) are a magnificent
boat house, a small residence, and a few associated outbuildings erected by
the former owner, Chester Thordarson (short biographical selections are
available on line.....and are worth looking at), and constructed in a style
reminiscent of his native Iceland using limestone quarried on the island,
and a lighthouse owned and maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard. As the name
suggests, the island is.....rock. One single large rock, as a matter of
fact, like all the islands up there. One single large rock that defied the
last glacier, although, being nowhere more than a hundred feet or so above
lake level, it may be seen as a minimal defiance. At any rate, all of it
being covered by a lush forest, it wouldn't occur to one that it is a rock
unless one sees the shoreline. Viewing from outside, one sees that the
entire shoreline consists of limestone bluffs, ranging from a couple of feet
in height to around sixty on the northwest side. The entire shoreline, that
is, except for about a half mile on the southeast side, where the prevailing
winds have blown sand up over the short bluffs, in the process creating a
beach worthy of a tropical isle.

So, what has all of this got to do with fishing? Good God, people, there is
water EVERYWHERE up there! Well, almost everywhere. In a seeming paradox
(in a state with 72 counties and over 15,000 named lakes......you do the
math) Door County has only eleven inland lakes that I can find on a map.
Yeah, I know, "inland lakes" sounds redundant. But anyone who has seen
Superior, Michigan, Huron, or even Erie or Ontario knows the need for the
term. Anyway, my primary objective was simply to paddle from Washington to
Rock, set up camp, and then spend the next day paddling around Rock Island.
Not a terribly ambitious undertaking as it is only something like 7 miles
(my own estimate, based on the fact that the trail around the perimeter is
roughly 6), so I should have some time to fish. Unfortunately, the day
started later than I had planned. What with breaking camp on Washington
Island, where I'd spent Friday night, and then poking around until I found
a place to get breakfast (nothing opens very early on the island), I was
already way behind schedule. Things got worse when I arrived at the
restaurant just ahead of another patron. As I reached for the doorknob, I
happened to look to my left and there, clinging to the exterior wall in
their hundreds were......bugs! Not just any bugs, mind you , BIG
bugs......the HEX! Huh? Hex.....in the big lake? Well, o.k., think about
it. Protected bays and coves......never see any substantial wave action.
Bottom is covered in loon ****. Not the thick black oozy stuff you see in
streams......grayish tannish stuff, marl, but loon **** nevertheless. Clean
(relatively) water and plenty of oxygen and organic detritus for food.
Perfect environment for hex. Well, I be go ta hell! So, the other
prospective patron stops to see what I'm peering at and I explain......in
exhaustive detail. He is obviously interested, so I go on at even greater
length, pointing out several other mayflies, the odd crane fly, midges,
caddis......all sort of yummy bugs. The hex was a mixed bag, duns and
spinners. The duns are darker than I remembered.....MUCH darker.....nearly
black.

Eventually, breakfast over, I made my way to Jackson harbor and, eschewing
the ferry (which wasn't due to depart for another hour anyway) I started to
rig up to paddle the mile and a half across to Rock Island. Hm......how to
carry all this **** (tent, tarp, sleeping bag, foam pad, a small lantern,
fuel bottle, fishing gear, bottle of wine, spare clothes, etc.) on one small
kayak? Foresight! I brought a trailer (aka belly-boat). Tent and sleeping
back got strapped on the fore and aft decks, respectively, and the rest went
in the trailer. One carabiner on the aft carrying handle, one at the D-ring
on the back of the belly-boat, and a twenty foot piece of rope completed the
rig. Off I went.

Pulling a trailer behind a kayak is a slow business. Nevertheless, I made
pretty good time covering the distance. Then I remembered that I would have
to carry all the stuff to the campground over by the beach, a third of a
mile overland from the boathouse dock/check in point if I stopped
there.....and there probably wouldn't be anyone there before the ferry
arrived anyway. So I changed course to veer around the southeast corner and
pull up directly on the beach. It was in this leg of the voyage that I
confirmed the rumors that, with the lake level being near historic lows, it
is actually possible to WALK from Washington to Rock, albeit with wet feet.
I learned later that it is done fairly often these days, and that one man
died in the attempt last year. Drowned. Apparently lost his way (sometimes
the path is not entirely clear under low light conditions) and got caught in
one of the nasty and ever changing cross currents that plague these waters.
It is not for nothing that the passage between the mainland and Washington
Island (well, actually between the mainland and Plum.....but it's all very
close together) is known a"Porte des Mort"......Death's Door.

By the time I got done setting up camp it was nearly noon......and there
were thunderstorms in the forecast for the late afternoon. No time to fish
casually, just gonna have to troll a wooly bugger or something as I travel
around the island. I'd been up here before, of course, and I'd also had
plenty of time to look into the water and see that there were smallmouth
bass and brown trout all over the place. Sometime, I will HAVE TO focus on
fishing, but this time it was all about the boating and the birds and the
bluffs and the amazingly clear water with a bewildering and ever changing
landscape on the bottom clearly visible at depths in excess of twenty feet.
I saw eagles cruising over the water looking for something to steal from the
omnipresent gulls and cormorants. I saw mergansers herding their young and
others battling one another over territory, a mate or, who knows, some
perceived insult. Spiders.....there are spiders in a stupefying array of
sizes, shapes and colors all over the island. There is a moderately sized
black species that evidently specializes in the habitat among the smoothed
limestone rocks that everywhere litter the shore at the base of the bluffs,
extending into the water. Fast movers. They sort of flit from one stance
to another.....you can't see their legs move. They're here.....then they're
there. Zeno's paradox is gibberish, they say. In many places, the bottom
is flat planes of limestone bedrock. In others it is fine gravel to house
sized boulders of limestone......limestone everywhere. Much of it has lain
on the bottom for eons; boulders the size of Volkswagens rounded by
thousands of years of shifting currents and ice....being slowly sanded and
ground. In some places the bottom has an eerie look of having been laid by
craftsmen. Rocks of all sizes, all of them with a smooth and flat top
surface, look as if they were carefully laid in a random, yet vaguely
geometrical pattern......not one of them showing a substantial protuberance
above the plane formed by the rest. Spooky. And it's quiet......oh Lord,
it is quiet when there is no wind or surf. I looked up from a moment's
reverie (or stupor, or what-have-you) at a rhythmic plopping noise. There,
about a hundred feet off shore, some little fish (presumably) was ejecting
itself from the water every couple of seconds, apparently in an attempt to
escape from some fearsome predator below.......unaware (as I was) of the
danger that lurked above. I was startled, once again, to hear a whirring,
buzzing noise, and looked up just in time to see an otherwise silent
herring-gull swoop down and put a sudden end to the contest. I've been
around gulls most of my life, but this was the first time I ever heard a
sound like that, just the air rushing over wing feathers in a power dive. I
heard the swish, swish, swish of an eagle's wing beats from a hundred fifty
yards away. Preternaturally quiet. I've never before experienced such
quiet in the bright light of day, out in the open.

Didn't catch any fish. Even paddling very slowly while looking at and
photographing the bluffs, my wooly bugger just skimmed the surface.
Besides, despite some scary quick drop-offs and surprisingly deep holes, for
this close to shore, I was typically in less than two feet of water. The
evidence suggests that the drop-offs, of which there is simply no end, would
be prime structure for lurking smallmouths and other choice prey (even the
charter boats will sometimes be within casting distance of shore), and I saw
a VERY large something, salmon or trout, rise entirely out of the water not
fifty feet from me at one point, but fishing just wasn't in the picture this
time around.

Maybe next time.

Oh yeah, the mystery. Some of you may recall that I asked for opinions some
time ago about what species of mayfly a not dimly enough remembered plague
(as I saw it at the time) from my childhood on Kangaroo Lake in Door County
might be. I described it at the time as being fairly large, black, and
prolific beyond belief. Well, yesterday, en route for home, I stopped at
the marl bottomed Kangaroo Lake and noticed that the property next to the
one once owned by my father's cousin Sam, which is to say right next to
where I was horrified by the infestation of killer bugs, still had the same
name and is apparently engaged in a business catering to the general
public.....selling beer steins and clocks (of all things, out there in the
middle of nowhere). Since the public was obviously welcome, I put aside
concerns about being shot as a trespasser, drove in and introduced myself to
the woman minding the shop. It turns out she is the daughter-in-law of the
proprietor who I knew there when it was a resort back in my childhood. She
remembered Sam and my father and all the rest of the extended clan. We
chatted for a while and I promised to send her a bunch of photos from way
back in the 50s. As I was on my way out the door, I stopped, turned, and
said oh by the way, do you happen to know if there's a big mayfly hatch here
about this time of year? Mayfly hatch? Lemme tell ya!!!.........yadda,
yadda!!!

Sonofabitch! It was the ****in' hex!

Wolfgang

Wolfgang wrote:
"Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
her islands and bays are for sportsmen."

Twenty-five years later, I went back up to Door County, Wisconsin this past
February, just for a weekend road trip. Everything around Egg Harbor, Fish
Creek, Ephraim, Sister Bay, Ellison Bay (on the Green Bay side) looked
pretty much as I remembered it, and Bailey's Harbor (on the Lake side)
looked exactly the same. I decided then and there to come back up in warmer
weather. Looked like a good place to spend some time in a small boat. The
bay side is a tourist mecca of long standing, mobbed, in the season, by tens
of thousands escaping the summer heat of Chicago and Milwaukee as well as
sizeable contingents from other areas, all milling about in a snarled and
clotted throng of bodies and cars and boats, and all dedicated soaking up
the scenic beauty, the quiet remoteness, while unloading obscene quantities
of cash and credit on real estate, "art," construction, "art", pottery,
"art," anything and everything to do with cherries, "art," mediocre wines,
t-shirts, fudge, "art," para-sailing, fishboils, and "art." Not
surprisingly, condos, cottages, hotels, motels, B&B's, McMansions, resorts,
and hideaways play a huge and ever increasing role in attracting an ever
increasing clientele in search of scenic splendor and seclusion.

Fortunately, geography and climate have conspired to limit the worst of the
desecration to the bay side. Look at Lake Michigan on a map, and imagine a
northeast wind coming in off the lake at thirty miles an hour.
Unfortunately, even the relatively harsh conditions on the east side of the
peninsula no longer provide sufficient insulation. The crowds have gotten
so large that, lemming-like, they spill over, and shoreline that has
remained pristine for millennia since the glaciers receded has seen a recent
bloom of mostly summer homes, though a lot of retirees are now beginning to
take up permanent residence.

Meanwhile, the very best of Door County, the islands, remain, mostly,
undeveloped. Washington Island, by far the largest with an area of roughly
22 square miles (if you discount the fact that the entire upper half of the
county is now technically an island since the completion of Sturgeon Bay
ship canal in the late 19th century), has a permanent resident population of
a few hundred and several dozen businesses catering to tourists (in addition
the few that serve the needs of the residents), up by a factor of ten, I
would guess, since I last crossed the island on my way to......

Rock Island, the jewel in the crown. As such things go in this day and age,
Rock Island is hard to get to. Unless you own a shallow draft vessel, like
a kayak for instance, the only way to get there is to take the car ferry
from Northport (at the northern extremity of the peninsula) to Washington
Island, drive all the way across it from southwest to northeast, and then
take the passenger ferry across. Rock Island is a state park. The
Wisconsin DNR prohibits motor vehicles (except for a couple of services
vehicles they keep there themselves, for maintenance) on the island. Even
bicycles are prohibited. The only permanent structures on the island (apart
from a few reputed but invisible ruins of days long ago) are a magnificent
boat house, a small residence, and a few associated outbuildings erected by
the former owner, Chester Thordarson (short biographical selections are
available on line.....and are worth looking at), and constructed in a style
reminiscent of his native Iceland using limestone quarried on the island,
and a lighthouse owned and maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard. As the name
suggests, the island is.....rock. One single large rock, as a matter of
fact, like all the islands up there. One single large rock that defied the
last glacier, although, being nowhere more than a hundred feet or so above
lake level, it may be seen as a minimal defiance. At any rate, all of it
being covered by a lush forest, it wouldn't occur to one that it is a rock
unless one sees the shoreline. Viewing from outside, one sees that the
entire shoreline consists of limestone bluffs, ranging from a couple of feet
in height to around sixty on the northwest side. The entire shoreline, that
is, except for about a half mile on the southeast side, where the prevailing
winds have blown sand up over the short bluffs, in the process creating a
beach worthy of a tropical isle.

So, what has all of this got to do with fishing? Good God, people, there is
water EVERYWHERE up there! Well, almost everywhere. In a seeming paradox
(in a state with 72 counties and over 15,000 named lakes......you do the
math) Door County has only eleven inland lakes that I can find on a map.
Yeah, I know, "inland lakes" sounds redundant. But anyone who has seen
Superior, Michigan, Huron, or even Erie or Ontario knows the need for the
term. Anyway, my primary objective was simply to paddle from Washington to
Rock, set up camp, and then spend the next day paddling around Rock Island.
Not a terribly ambitious undertaking as it is only something like 7 miles
(my own estimate, based on the fact that the trail around the perimeter is
roughly 6), so I should have some time to fish. Unfortunately, the day
started later than I had planned. What with breaking camp on Washington
Island, where I'd spent Friday night, and then poking around until I found
a place to get breakfast (nothing opens very early on the island), I was
already way behind schedule. Things got worse when I arrived at the
restaurant just ahead of another patron. As I reached for the doorknob, I
happened to look to my left and there, clinging to the exterior wall in
their hundreds were......bugs! Not just any bugs, mind you , BIG
bugs......the HEX! Huh? Hex.....in the big lake? Well, o.k., think about
it. Protected bays and coves......never see any substantial wave action.
Bottom is covered in loon ****. Not the thick black oozy stuff you see in
streams......grayish tannish stuff, marl, but loon **** nevertheless. Clean
(relatively) water and plenty of oxygen and organic detritus for food.
Perfect environment for hex. Well, I be go ta hell! So, the other
prospective patron stops to see what I'm peering at and I explain......in
exhaustive detail. He is obviously interested, so I go on at even greater
length, pointing out several other mayflies, the odd crane fly, midges,
caddis......all sort of yummy bugs. The hex was a mixed bag, duns and
spinners. The duns are darker than I remembered.....MUCH darker.....nearly
black.

Eventually, breakfast over, I made my way to Jackson harbor and, eschewing
the ferry (which wasn't due to depart for another hour anyway) I started to
rig up to paddle the mile and a half across to Rock Island. Hm......how to
carry all this **** (tent, tarp, sleeping bag, foam pad, a small lantern,
fuel bottle, fishing gear, bottle of wine, spare clothes, etc.) on one small
kayak? Foresight! I brought a trailer (aka belly-boat). Tent and sleeping
back got strapped on the fore and aft decks, respectively, and the rest went
in the trailer. One carabiner on the aft carrying handle, one at the D-ring
on the back of the belly-boat, and a twenty foot piece of rope completed the
rig. Off I went.

Pulling a trailer behind a kayak is a slow business. Nevertheless, I made
pretty good time covering the distance. Then I remembered that I would have
to carry all the stuff to the campground over by the beach, a third of a
mile overland from the boathouse dock/check in point if I stopped
there.....and there probably wouldn't be anyone there before the ferry
arrived anyway. So I changed course to veer around the southeast corner and
pull up directly on the beach. It was in this leg of the voyage that I
confirmed the rumors that, with the lake level being near historic lows, it
is actually possible to WALK from Washington to Rock, albeit with wet feet.
I learned later that it is done fairly often these days, and that one man
died in the attempt last year. Drowned. Apparently lost his way (sometimes
the path is not entirely clear under low light conditions) and got caught in
one of the nasty and ever changing cross currents that plague these waters.
It is not for nothing that the passage between the mainland and Washington
Island (well, actually between the mainland and Plum.....but it's all very
close together) is known a"Porte des Mort"......Death's Door.

By the time I got done setting up camp it was nearly noon......and there
were thunderstorms in the forecast for the late afternoon. No time to fish
casually, just gonna have to troll a wooly bugger or something as I travel
around the island. I'd been up here before, of course, and I'd also had
plenty of time to look into the water and see that there were smallmouth
bass and brown trout all over the place. Sometime, I will HAVE TO focus on
fishing, but this time it was all about the boating and the birds and the
bluffs and the amazingly clear water with a bewildering and ever changing
landscape on the bottom clearly visible at depths in excess of twenty feet.
I saw eagles cruising over the water looking for something to steal from the
omnipresent gulls and cormorants. I saw mergansers herding their young and
others battling one another over territory, a mate or, who knows, some
perceived insult. Spiders.....there are spiders in a stupefying array of
sizes, shapes and colors all over the island. There is a moderately sized
black species that evidently specializes in the habitat among the smoothed
limestone rocks that everywhere litter the shore at the base of the bluffs,
extending into the water. Fast movers. They sort of flit from one stance
to another.....you can't see their legs move. They're here.....then they're
there. Zeno's paradox is gibberish, they say. In many places, the bottom
is flat planes of limestone bedrock. In others it is fine gravel to house
sized boulders of limestone......limestone everywhere. Much of it has lain
on the bottom for eons; boulders the size of Volkswagens rounded by
thousands of years of shifting currents and ice....being slowly sanded and
ground. In some places the bottom has an eerie look of having been laid by
craftsmen. Rocks of all sizes, all of them with a smooth and flat top
surface, look as if they were carefully laid in a random, yet vaguely
geometrical pattern......not one of them showing a substantial protuberance
above the plane formed by the rest. Spooky. And it's quiet......oh Lord,
it is quiet when there is no wind or surf. I looked up from a moment's
reverie (or stupor, or what-have-you) at a rhythmic plopping noise. There,
about a hundred feet off shore, some little fish (presumably) was ejecting
itself from the water every couple of seconds, apparently in an attempt to
escape from some fearsome predator below.......unaware (as I was) of the
danger that lurked above. I was startled, once again, to hear a whirring,
buzzing noise, and looked up just in time to see an otherwise silent
herring-gull swoop down and put a sudden end to the contest. I've been
around gulls most of my life, but this was the first time I ever heard a
sound like that, just the air rushing over wing feathers in a power dive. I
heard the swish, swish, swish of an eagle's wing beats from a hundred fifty
yards away. Preternaturally quiet. I've never before experienced such
quiet in the bright light of day, out in the open.

Didn't catch any fish. Even paddling very slowly while looking at and
photographing the bluffs, my wooly bugger just skimmed the surface.
Besides, despite some scary quick drop-offs and surprisingly deep holes, for
this close to shore, I was typically in less than two feet of water. The
evidence suggests that the drop-offs, of which there is simply no end, would
be prime structure for lurking smallmouths and other choice prey (even the
charter boats will sometimes be within casting distance of shore), and I saw
a VERY large something, salmon or trout, rise entirely out of the water not
fifty feet from me at one point, but fishing just wasn't in the picture this
time around.

Maybe next time.

Oh yeah, the mystery. Some of you may recall that I asked for opinions some
time ago about what species of mayfly a not dimly enough remembered plague
(as I saw it at the time) from my childhood on Kangaroo Lake in Door County
might be. I described it at the time as being fairly large, black, and
prolific beyond belief. Well, yesterday, en route for home, I stopped at
the marl bottomed Kangaroo Lake and noticed that the property next to the
one once owned by my father's cousin Sam, which is to say right next to
where I was horrified by the infestation of killer bugs, still had the same
name and is apparently engaged in a business catering to the general
public.....selling beer steins and clocks (of all things, out there in the
middle of nowhere). Since the public was obviously welcome, I put aside
concerns about being shot as a trespasser, drove in and introduced myself to
the woman minding the shop. It turns out she is the daughter-in-law of the
proprietor who I knew there when it was a resort back in my childhood. She
remembered Sam and my father and all the rest of the extended clan. We
chatted for a while and I promised to send her a bunch of photos from way
back in the 50s. As I was on my way out the door, I stopped, turned, and
said oh by the way, do you happen to know if there's a big mayfly hatch here
about this time of year? Mayfly hatch? Lemme tell ya!!!.........yadda,
yadda!!!

Sonofabitch! It was the ****in' hex!

Wolfgang



enjoyable...as usual. thanks.

jeff

"jeff" wrote in message
...

enjoyable...as usual.

Were I a "writer," or did I aspire to being one, I would despair over the
impossibility of making the reportage as enjoyable as the trip. It was a
wonderful weekend, filled with enough events and (perhaps more importantly)
non-events to fill a book (which it will not) and a photo album (which it
did).

Oddly enough, not the trip itself, but at least the timing, was inspired in
part by a truly dreadful writer. Norbert Blei was just another name I'd
heard off and on over the years, just another "regional" writer (an apt
enough description in this instance whatever one may feel about it in
general) who happened to specialize in Door County. I'd been thinking about
this trip for a while....for several years, actually.....ever since John
(goddamn the pusher-man) introduced me to kayaking in Penns Creek. So,
falling prey (however briefly) to an uncharacteristic streak of
self-discipline, I was working my way methodically through one of the "to be
read" stacks about a week and a half ago when what should pop up on the top
but Blei's "Door to Door," an unconscionably self absorbed and
self-satisfied orgy of smug and pretentious gruel about "Art," "artists,"
(including, not a bit surprisingly) "WRITERS," misogyny, nascent "New-Age"
pop-crap, Door County "characters," Santa Fe, sublimated (if only barely)
lust for one's best friend's wife, Jungian blather, broadcast wholesale
contempt........well the list goes on and on.. Pure, unadulterated ****.
Amazing. Got great critical reviews from people who certainly knew
better.......even in 1985.

Anyway, Becky's got the house up for sale......got a showing.......I need to
be gone Sunday. O.k., no problem.

Where to go?

Hm........

thanks.

You're welcome.

Wolfgang

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:15:10 -0500, "Wolfgang" wrote:

"Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
her islands and bays are for sportsmen."
That's good stuff, Wolfie. Cheers.

/daytripper

"daytripper" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:15:10 -0500, "Wolfgang" wrote:

"Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
her islands and bays are for sportsmen."
That's good stuff, Wolfie. Cheers.


Thanks. And I assume you know that the line quoted above is not my own, but
for those who might be laboring under a misapprehension, it's Gordon
Lightfoot's.

Wolfgang

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:15:10 -0500, "Wolfgang"
wrote:

"Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
her islands and bays are for sportsmen."

*snipped*

Sonofabitch! It was the ****in' hex!

Wolfgang



Walk there you say? Sounds like un-nerving fun.

Nice TR.


g.c.

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"jeff" wrote in message
...

enjoyable...as usual.

Were I a "writer," or did I aspire to being one, I would despair over the
impossibility of making the reportage as enjoyable as the trip. It was a
wonderful weekend, filled with enough events and (perhaps more
importantly) non-events to fill a book (which it will not) and a photo
album (which it did).

Oddly enough, not the trip itself, but at least the timing, was inspired
in part by a truly dreadful writer. Norbert Blei was just another name
I'd heard off and on over the years, just another "regional" writer (an
apt enough description in this instance whatever one may feel about it in
general) who happened to specialize in Door County. I'd been thinking
about this trip for a while....for several years, actually.....ever since
John (goddamn the pusher-man) introduced me to kayaking in Penns Creek.
So, falling prey (however briefly) to an uncharacteristic streak of
self-discipline, I was working my way methodically through one of the "to
be read" stacks about a week and a half ago when what should pop up on the
top but Blei's "Door to Door," an unconscionably self absorbed and
self-satisfied orgy of smug and pretentious gruel about "Art," "artists,"
(including, not a bit surprisingly) "WRITERS," misogyny, nascent "New-Age"
pop-crap, Door County "characters," Santa Fe, sublimated (if only barely)
lust for one's best friend's wife, Jungian blather, broadcast wholesale
contempt........well the list goes on and on.. Pure, unadulterated ****.
Amazing. Got great critical reviews from people who certainly knew
better.......even in 1985.

Anyway, Becky's got the house up for sale......got a showing.......I need
to be gone Sunday. O.k., no problem.

Where to go?

Hm........

thanks.

You're welcome.

Wolfgang


....you gotta work Monday?

john

Wolfgang wrote:
"jeff" wrote in message
...


enjoyable...as usual.


Were I a "writer," or did I aspire to being one, I would despair over the
impossibility of making the reportage as enjoyable as the trip. It was a
wonderful weekend, filled with enough events and (perhaps more importantly)
non-events to fill a book (which it will not) and a photo album (which it
did).

Oddly enough, not the trip itself, but at least the timing, was inspired in
part by a truly dreadful writer. Norbert Blei was just another name I'd
heard off and on over the years, just another "regional" writer (an apt
enough description in this instance whatever one may feel about it in
general) who happened to specialize in Door County. I'd been thinking about
this trip for a while....for several years, actually.....ever since John
(goddamn the pusher-man) introduced me to kayaking in Penns Creek. So,
falling prey (however briefly) to an uncharacteristic streak of
self-discipline, I was working my way methodically through one of the "to be
read" stacks about a week and a half ago when what should pop up on the top
but Blei's "Door to Door," an unconscionably self absorbed and
self-satisfied orgy of smug and pretentious gruel about "Art," "artists,"
(including, not a bit surprisingly) "WRITERS," misogyny, nascent "New-Age"
pop-crap, Door County "characters," Santa Fe, sublimated (if only barely)
lust for one's best friend's wife, Jungian blather, broadcast wholesale
contempt........well the list goes on and on.. Pure, unadulterated ****.
Amazing. Got great critical reviews from people who certainly knew
better.......even in 1985.

Anyway, Becky's got the house up for sale......got a showing.......I need to
be gone Sunday. O.k., no problem.

Where to go?

Hm........


thanks.


You're welcome.

Wolfgang



these vicarious trips provide unique views i honestly enjoy...your
writing and perceptions are always an added benefit of the trip.

i assume we passed near the portal to the area you describe when we
drove down the eastern side of wisconsin at the conclusion of my first
visit? i look forward to reading the results of your future fishing
forays around the island. as my legs weaken, i find some comfort in the
access to quiet places that can be found in boats of all types.

jeff

"asadi" wrote in message
t...

...you gotta work Monday?

Yep, afraid so. And this coming weekend will be used up in apartment
hunting, packing, etc.

Wolfgang

"jeff" wrote in message
...

these vicarious trips provide unique views i honestly enjoy...your writing
and perceptions are always an added benefit of the trip.

Fortunately, living vicariously is cheap, safe, devoid of the most direct
and immediate effects of unpleasantness and, let us say, less than taxing.
We're all going to be doing more and more of it as gravity exercises its
inexorable influence on accumulated years.

i assume we passed near the portal to the area you describe when we drove
down the eastern side of wisconsin at the conclusion of my first visit?

I've discovered that I've got a very poor memory for the details of
excursions....you may recall that I'd entirely forgotten we went through
Marquette on that trip. But, yeah, I know we came down along the lake
shore, so we must have gone through Green Bay. Had we turned left there,
we'd have been within half an hour's drive of Door County.

i look forward to reading the results of your future fishing forays around
the island. as my legs weaken, i find some comfort in the access to quiet
places that can be found in boats of all types.

One of these days I'll have to do a trip in which the focus is fishing, just
because there's so much water and the fish are there. However, it's not my
favorite venue for fishing. Unless my legs give out sooner than yours
(admittedly, a reasonable enough proposition) you may have to wait a while.

Wolfgang