A Town Untangled

REALLY COOL STUDS Once upon a town, temperatures were rising, summer had finally arrived, and romance filled the air. The time had come for young males to do what young males must do. Chauvinism and chivalry would now take center stage. Manhood was looming and there would be no turning back. An evolution of who-manity emerged during which rambunctious lads transformed and recast themselves as endearing macho dudes. With eight years of parochial school behind us, my friends and I stood on the very brink of greatness. Summer dawned and upon its concluding dusk would come a new dimension called public school. This time of passage demanded that we prepare ourselves and finally learn all that the good Sisters of Saint Joe’s had cleverly withheld from our ecumenical elementary educations. It was time as well to stretch the bestowed boundaries of holiness and hallelujahs by leaning a little bit more toward unencumbered devlish desires. In this era of reckoning, it was now or never to escape our cloistered lives and become really cool studs. Combining the flexed muscles of our virile brainpower, a plan was put into motion. The summer season must begin with a camping trip to our favorite swimming hole at the nearby state park. Lacking a tent, we turned to the ingenuity of having a friend’s dad park his huge feed delivery truck at the campsite and leave it there for the weekend. This would readily serve as home base for studville. Up to eight campers could toss sleeping bags into its rear box and doze under the shelter of a canvas canopy. It was for each of us, our very first bachelor pad. Independent of any adult supervision, this represented paradise. All that we needed now were members of the opposite sex to captivate and charm with our imposing personalities. To succeed as local yokels, our hopes and dreams required out of town gals who were easily impressionable and considerably naive. Although I alleged we were free of adult supervision, the word parental should have been used instead. Not only did a medley of park rangers patrol the campgrounds, yet one in particular represented the most formidable of foes. The middle school principal who would serve as our commandant next fall, worked part-time as a ranger each summer. It did not take long for this enforcer nicknamed “Cookie Man” to introduce himself at our campsite and issue a few precautionary warnings. With no tolerance for teenage tendencies, he was already perturbed about the firecrackers being innocently tossed into our campfire. Starting off with a bang, this paled in comparison to what would later develop into a major meltdown. In this 5000+ acre state park, comprised of reclaimed farmsteads and named after the first territorial governor, there were two separate campgrounds and two manmade lakes. Lacking transportation and thus mobility, we took up residence at what locals cleverly called the “old lake”. Its campground was in closer proximity to a beach than the “new lake” campground. Anyway, all of us were more than familiar with the “new lake’s” deadly environment of mishaps and man-eaters. Perhaps I should explain this commentary. The “new lake” was more of a fishing destination than swimming hole. As the larger and deeper of the two lakes, vultures often hovered overhead as monsters dwelled within its depths. Saber-toothed leviathans infested this lake and threatened all who entered it. Some referred to these fiendish fish as Muskies. The legend still lives on of one unsuspecting victim, whose foolishness resulted in a brutal blood bath. On a mid-summer day, an off-duty police officer from a nearby town, embarked on an angling outing with his girlfriend. After launching their boat into the “new lake”, they had little success catching anything during the morning hours. As boredom and rising temperatures set in, the police officer decided to cool off by dangling his bare right foot in the water. Annoyed by this maneuver, a nearby Musky surfaced and latched onto his big toe. In knee jerk response, he flailed his leg upward and into the boat. This did nothing to disengage the scaly predator from his foot. It flopped about in the bottom of the boat while continuing to mangle his toe. After considerable effort, he managed to extricate the fish from its death grip. With blood spewing about, it was time to call it a day and seek medical attention. Being such an outrageous ordeal, the police officer kept the Musky as evidence. In checking out the story, the area game warden was anything but sympathetic. Not only did he charge the fisherman with an illegal fishing method, yet cited this poor chap as well for possession of a Musky under the legal length which is a whoping 40 inches. Justice may be swift, but it also can be reversed. In response to public pressure, the charges were dropped against this angler who had already suffered enough. Among other things, this gripping episode proved that toe dipping, as well as skinny dipping,, were not advisable activities in these waters. Something even more sinister lies along the shores near the far end of the “new lake”. Numerous times while fishing this area with my brother Scott, we have been subjected to vicious attacks that left us scratching for answers. An invisible menace maimed our legs with festering pruple welts. Later we learned that this skullduggery was the work of chiggers, blood sucking mites which lay eggs in your skin and wreak havoc for weeks. It’s as gross as it sounds. After too many assaults by these malicious midgets, we abandoned this area for several seasons and moved on to another lake outside the park. Although this retreat led to a successful escape from the nasty chiggers, a different threat awaited us. Being accompanied on the next outing by our brother Tom, he immediately hooked into a largemouth bass and began reeling it in. Unexpectedly, a demented water snake simultaneously shot out from the rocky bank on which we were standing. It then skimmed across the lake surface, latched on to the tail of the hooked fish and commenced a topwater tug o war. Thank goodness it was not one of the deadly Timber Rattlers that still slither about this area, despite being nearly wiped out by bounty hunters. Nonetheless, no freakish fiascos like these ever occurred at the park’s “old lake”, which always lent itself more to tranquility than trauma. It should now be obvious wy we chose the “old lake” for our weekend retreat. Before scouting the campground and heading to the beach, someone suggested that we bolster our bravado by engaging in liquid persuasion. According to one of the more influential members of our gang, you could actually get drunk by poking holes into a watermelon and sucking out its contents through a straw. To our formative intellects, this sounded like a no-brainer dash into a brave new world. Having both watermelons and straws at our bidding, the imbibing began without hesitation. It was not easy drawing the juicy melon through small straws, yet we persisted and soon fond ourselves growing a wee bit giddy. That was about it for our intoxicating adventure which never quite reached the anticipated level of inebriation. Years later, we learned that a quart of vodka must first be spiked into the melon for this endeavor to accomplish any staggering results. With this debacle behind us, my friends and I decided to journey down to the beach and stake our mandated claims. It took no time at all to spot three nfamiliar young ladies suning themselves. With all the swagger of eighth grade graduates, stud time had arrived. Strutting forward, we circled the girls and introduced ourselves as the official beach patrol. We then learned that these sandy sirens were somewhat older and from out of state.