Okay guys. I'm burned out on machining, my good wife has gone away to baby-sit a grandchild for the day, and I'm bored. I did my big boy chore for the day and swept up all the sand and crap off the garage floor that accumulated over the winter. Then I decided it has been a long time since I wrote a story.
So--Here's a new one, hot off the press. Don't be cruel to me about the lack of proper indents and paragraphs. I put them in the original word document, but when I copy and paste here, all the paragraphs and indents go away.
Drowning at the Dam
Back when the world was young, and ice cream could be bought for a nickel, I was a lad of twelve, with very few ways to make pocket money. My friend David had a paper route. My friend Randy had semi-wealthy parents.
Other than picking up pop bottles from the side of the road and cashing them in for 2 cents each at the general store, there just wasn’t any way to make money.
Remember now, this is about 1958, in a very remote rural area in Ontario. We were all poorer than dirt, but it was a fun time to be a kid growing up.
Lamable Lake was a fairly large lake, about 3 miles long, and at the outlet end the Brown brothers had put in a dam to raise the level of the lake, and built a water powered sawmill. (My friend Randy was the son of one of these brothers).
The dam was mostly made of earth, but the center section had a crib of logs forming a “chute” where all of the outflow of the lake had to go through. By raising the “stop-logs” in this four foot wide section, they could raise the lake level overnight to ensure a good head of water the next day to run the sawmill.
Where am I going with this?—Well—The lake was a very popular spot for anglers. It had a great population of largemouth bass, and lake trout. There were many dead logs on the bottom of this lake, and us boys had discovered that by rowing around to all of the popular fishing spots, we could look down thru the crystal clear water, and see fishing lures stuck on the logs. We would dive down, free the lures, then take them into Bancroft and sell them to a fresh crop of tourist/fishermen.
The outflow at the dam chute was very, very strong. A whole river was confined to that four foot wide chute, and the water was always frothing and boiling like crazy. Fish liked the high oxygen content in the water at the chute, and consequently, it was a good spot to catch fish.
Since the chute was made of logs, there were many really good lures stuck in the sides and bottom of the chute. Only problem was that the current was so strong, you couldn’t swim up in there to harvest them. The water would hurl even the strongest swimmer back out of the chute, tumbling end over end in the current.
Being desperately in need of some funds to buy ice cream or a Coke, I decided today was the day!! I was going to swim up that chute and harvest some lures, come Hell or High Water.
And I did. Against great odds, I swam and pulled myself up thru the tremendous current in the chute, until I seen a beautiful big segmented lure with treble hooks. It was shiny black with luminous blue spots on it.—I remember this clear as a bell, even though it was fifty nine years ago. I reached down to wrest it free from the wood in which one set of hooks was embedded, and just as I closed my hand around it I lost my grip on the sides of the chute and was swept backwards by the current
This managed to embed 4 or five of the treble hooks in the flesh of my left hand, and there I was. Five foot under water, flailing around in the current, and unable to let go of the damned thing---and unable to breathe.
What did I do? I didn’t have much choice. I yanked like Hell, hoping that the lure would either pull out of the wood or out of my hand.
It pulled out of my hand, and I was swept ass over teakettle out of the chute and into the main mill pond. I was bleeding like a stuck pig, but I was able to get a breath of air.
None of my wounds were life threatening, and I didn’t dare tell a parent what I had been doing. (That would have been life threatening.) We snuck a bottle of iodine out of Randy’s house and poured it over my hand (OUCH OUCH OUCH!!).
That night I told my mother that I had been teasing one of the cats that lived under the ice house and it had scratched me in revenge. My mother told me I should leave cats alone after this, and I heartily agreed that she was right.
My mother is 97 years old now, and she never did find out what happened that day. I’m sure glad the Ma doesn’t have a computer or read stories on the internet,
Brian Rupnow July 2017
So--Here's a new one, hot off the press. Don't be cruel to me about the lack of proper indents and paragraphs. I put them in the original word document, but when I copy and paste here, all the paragraphs and indents go away.
Drowning at the Dam
Back when the world was young, and ice cream could be bought for a nickel, I was a lad of twelve, with very few ways to make pocket money. My friend David had a paper route. My friend Randy had semi-wealthy parents.
Other than picking up pop bottles from the side of the road and cashing them in for 2 cents each at the general store, there just wasn’t any way to make money.
Remember now, this is about 1958, in a very remote rural area in Ontario. We were all poorer than dirt, but it was a fun time to be a kid growing up.
Lamable Lake was a fairly large lake, about 3 miles long, and at the outlet end the Brown brothers had put in a dam to raise the level of the lake, and built a water powered sawmill. (My friend Randy was the son of one of these brothers).
The dam was mostly made of earth, but the center section had a crib of logs forming a “chute” where all of the outflow of the lake had to go through. By raising the “stop-logs” in this four foot wide section, they could raise the lake level overnight to ensure a good head of water the next day to run the sawmill.
Where am I going with this?—Well—The lake was a very popular spot for anglers. It had a great population of largemouth bass, and lake trout. There were many dead logs on the bottom of this lake, and us boys had discovered that by rowing around to all of the popular fishing spots, we could look down thru the crystal clear water, and see fishing lures stuck on the logs. We would dive down, free the lures, then take them into Bancroft and sell them to a fresh crop of tourist/fishermen.
The outflow at the dam chute was very, very strong. A whole river was confined to that four foot wide chute, and the water was always frothing and boiling like crazy. Fish liked the high oxygen content in the water at the chute, and consequently, it was a good spot to catch fish.
Since the chute was made of logs, there were many really good lures stuck in the sides and bottom of the chute. Only problem was that the current was so strong, you couldn’t swim up in there to harvest them. The water would hurl even the strongest swimmer back out of the chute, tumbling end over end in the current.
Being desperately in need of some funds to buy ice cream or a Coke, I decided today was the day!! I was going to swim up that chute and harvest some lures, come Hell or High Water.
And I did. Against great odds, I swam and pulled myself up thru the tremendous current in the chute, until I seen a beautiful big segmented lure with treble hooks. It was shiny black with luminous blue spots on it.—I remember this clear as a bell, even though it was fifty nine years ago. I reached down to wrest it free from the wood in which one set of hooks was embedded, and just as I closed my hand around it I lost my grip on the sides of the chute and was swept backwards by the current
This managed to embed 4 or five of the treble hooks in the flesh of my left hand, and there I was. Five foot under water, flailing around in the current, and unable to let go of the damned thing---and unable to breathe.
What did I do? I didn’t have much choice. I yanked like Hell, hoping that the lure would either pull out of the wood or out of my hand.
It pulled out of my hand, and I was swept ass over teakettle out of the chute and into the main mill pond. I was bleeding like a stuck pig, but I was able to get a breath of air.
None of my wounds were life threatening, and I didn’t dare tell a parent what I had been doing. (That would have been life threatening.) We snuck a bottle of iodine out of Randy’s house and poured it over my hand (OUCH OUCH OUCH!!).
That night I told my mother that I had been teasing one of the cats that lived under the ice house and it had scratched me in revenge. My mother told me I should leave cats alone after this, and I heartily agreed that she was right.
My mother is 97 years old now, and she never did find out what happened that day. I’m sure glad the Ma doesn’t have a computer or read stories on the internet,
Brian Rupnow July 2017
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