| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
Tom Chaney: Minnesota Dreaming Of Writers And Their Books: Minnesota Dreaming. Tom recounts the ‘joys’ of fishing and a trip through Minnesota to Canada and says he will review the book later. This column first appeared 17 January 2010. The next earlier Tom Chaney column: Crime and Punishment by the Quire By Tom Chaney Minnesota Dreaming While I was living in Iowa and pretending to teach young folks about theatre, it fell that I had an invitation from a student and his father to head out to Calm Lake near Atikokan, Ontario. I was promised walleye and pike and bass Now I had fished in the lakes of Hart County -- caught my first fish in the freshwater lake, read "farm pond," out on the Munfordville-Glasgow road near what is now the Horse Cave International Airport. If memory serves me aright the fish was a carp and it measured about six inches. One fishless trip to Dale Hollow yielded buckets of rain, a flat tire on the boat trailer, and a miserable night beneath said trailer whilst my companions found a tire in the dark of the night. So I took the promise of good fishing in Canada with a grain of salt. But off we went: the student; his father; his young brother; and your intrepid correspondent. What I took no note of in the planning was Minnesota. Those folks who brag about the extent of Texas have never been to Minnesota. Our plan was to cross into Canada at International Falls -- straight north from Indianola, Iowa. The distance was something under a thousand miles. Three days later we passed Minneapolis. In a bit less than a week we hit the border -- invading Canada with a boat, some tackle, a few potatoes, and a jug of oil -- assured we would catch more than enough to keep us fed. Now the fishing was fine -- better than promised -- in a lake so clear that I watched a walleye take my bait thirty feet beneath the boat. The only event to mar the trip involved the young brother. I have since learned that small children have many ways to befoul a fishing trip. This kid seized upon the worst. In the upper reaches of Calm Lake the four of us were casting and jigging and smoking our pipe, when the little urchin let us know that he had a strike. It turned out to be a right smart of a walleye -- by far the largest of the day. His older brother laid down his pole and took up the net -- ready to get the fish in the boat. Just as the youngster maneuvered the walleye alongside the boat, there arose a considerable flutter. The netter dipped into the turbid water and up came the walleye which had become merely bait for a healthy sized pike. Both were taken. The wretched child had outdone the three of us experienced anglers all put together. It was a good thing that the three adults were ecologically minded; else Calm Lake would have been polluted with the remains of a very young fisherman. Though I have seen him only on occasion since that time some thirty-odd years ago, I still bare him ill will. I believe he has entered the Lutheran ministry. I am sure his congregations over the years have been regaled with stories of those two fish. Does he know how close he came to not surviving the trip back to the dock? Let's see. . . . There was a reason for this tale. Oh! Yes! Minnesota. Fate has taken me to that state over the years. I wandered and learned of plastics backstage at the Guthrie Theatre for a week. I toured a play to a number of high schools in Minneapolis. I traveled to the northern wiles of Minnesota to perform a wedding for the son of good friends. And, yes, and more permanently, my niece Corinth now dwells in an urban igloo in the frigid reaches of that place. The family traipsed to Minneapolis a couple of years ago for Christmas and snow -- of which they have enough. This amniadversion started out to be a discussion of a new book by a favorite Minnesota writer, John Sandford. He dedicates the novel to a friend -- a musky fisherman -- promising to make musky fishing a no more intelligent a pastime than it actually is. And I always confuse musky with its cousin -- the northern pike. Oh! Well! I'll get around to Sandford and his book another time. I'm sure it was only the strong hand of providence that kept us from drowning that kid. Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, planning his next meal, and occasionally selling books at THE BOOKSTORE Box 73 / 111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749 270-786-3084 Email: Tom Chaney - bookstore@scrtc.com http://www.alibris.com/stores/horscave This story was posted on 2015-01-18 02:52:31
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Books:
Ed Goble book makes Apple iTunes best seller list Tom Chaney: The Developing Image of God Mike Watson has busy year publishing Tom Chaney: Elvis: A Tragic Life Tom Chaney: Carl Hiaasen Strikes Again SCC student publishes 1st book; being turned into screenplay Great list of local authors to be at 3rd Annual Adair Co. Book Fair, 11 Oct 2014 Review: The Never Ending Mile/Life & times of Winn Hensley Mike Newton reviews book: Call Sign Dracula Book club at AC Library discussing: Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan View even more articles in topic Books |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
