A Five-Year Old Legend...

Sorry, I cannot help the anticipation! Here's an exceprt from my vacation "diary" captured the day after our July 1, 2001 potluck. The world has changed since then. I'm happy the anticipated experience has not!

This year, there was a new family (for us) at the potluck. With them was a surfer dude who Sean later affectionately labeled “Sven.” At the picnic, Sven did not eat. I think he'd been out fishing all day, but simply wanted to enjoy the socializing and the beautiful atmpsphere on the terrace. He did drink (like a fish), and burped every time he’d take a swig of beer. Not just a quiet burp, but a Bose-woofer belch. It was actually rather gross as we were trying to eat our brats and enjoy the salads and other yummy stuff that people had brought! He said, “I don’t eat like you people in Minnesota….Just beer.”

After about 7 or 8 three-second burps, I was getting pretty disgusted. It’s one thing to let fly with a single burp, but this was literally turning my stomach. I was waiting…One more burp and I’d work up the gumption…I planned…No I rehearsed…In my mind..I was dyin to politely say something like, “I hate to make a scene with you on such a pleasant evening – but that’s really gross…And our family is trying to eat…”

But at about the time I got the nerve up, Kate let fly with a belch that sounded like that of a frat-boy beer chugging contest winner. I’m not sure where it came from. It was like one of those “possession” scenes on the Exorcist. Sven did not burp again. Nor did Kate. I'm glad I did not say anything.

After the potluck, which is always a large time, I took Jack, Mike, and Sean out for an hour of fishing while we still had light. I insisted that everyone use the porta-potty before we launched. The year before, we were in the boat for no more than 5 minutes when someone had to go! We fished from 8:30 till about 9:30. Jack was extremely loud!! He also could not hold his little-boy feet still. At about the time we got him still and quiet, and we were getting bites about every minute on our worms – he blurted out “Big Chief Dan Say Me Next!” He also wanted to tell everyone on Birch Lake (which is 23 miles long) that the rock we were fishing near was “King Rock.” We were pretty successful on our high-decibel fishing venture. Mike caught a northern. I got a big crappie. We caught an assortment of other fish. Sean caught what Mike referred to as a sucker minnow. Sean also got on a really big walleye - probably the biggest I'd had on while fishing up here, but he got off before I could get the net. Sorry Sean.