Veteran's Day '08

I am the only guy in the family lineage since the turn of the last century that didn't serve in the army. At the time that I was eligible, I fervently hoped I would not have the opportunity. Nixon had just initiated the 'Christmas bombing' of North Vietnam and my number was due to be drawn in the draft lottery a month later. Fortunately I got number 248 and they only went to 119 that year, the last year that anyone was drafted in the US. That was not a problem with my grandfather, dad, and youngest son; they all volunteered.

Grandpa Emil was in the MP's in WWI, today being the 90th anniversary of the end of that "war to end all wars". There is a great shot of him leaning on a building, somewhere in France, and the family legend is he is guarding an off limits whorehouse. My dad volunteered after Pearl Harbor and crewed in twin engine tactical bombers in the ETO, A-20's and A-26's. They bombed bridges, rail yards, and won the Presidential Unit Citation when they decimated the 9th and 10th SS Panzer divisions at the Falaise Gap after D-Day. My youngest son volunteered because he was interested in the field of security management and also because he is a stubborn, bullheaded Norwegian, not unlike myself. He was in basic training when all the pagers carried by drill instructors went off at once on the morning of September 11, 2001. He landed in Kuwait the day the war began and served as a humvee gunner from Kuwait City to Basra, to Nasiryah, and eventually up to Baghdad. He is still in the army, now an officer, in an artillery battalion in New York.I'm sure there are many folks out there with a similar story. But unless you've been there, as Silbs points out in his excellent Veterans Day post, you can't begin to know what it was like and what was endured. So take a few minutes to think about that today, no matter what your politics are. In my opinion, whenever a country invades another one the invader is in the wrong. I'm a history major; I can't think of one exception to the rule. Conversely, I don't think floating little paper boats down the river on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing does a damn thing to advance world peace. I always think of the old man and the same comment every year at that event: "I'll bet the guys on the Arizona would get a real kick out of this shit". If it did nothing else, dropping the bomb short circuited the transfer of the 416th Bomb Group to the Pacific theater, thereby ensuring the existence of me and my two sons. But the bottom line is that war, any war, is a destructive and highly negative event. Just think about the people that were involved in, survived, and in many cases did not survive and tell em you appreciated their service.

The arrows were flying

For the first time since last March we headed north without kayaks on the roof. This was the weekend to get the deer stands ready for the opening of deer gun season in Wisconsin on 22 November and I thought that eliminating paddle temptation would be a good plan. Other members of the camp would be bow hunting but I didn't buy a license this year. A combination of limited hunting weekends plus aggravation at the State of Wisconsin for charging out-of-state landowners the full non resident fee, combined to make me decide to take a year off. Charging taxpayers in the state, who don't utilize many of the services their taxes support, full $165 out of state license fee rankles me considerably. There needs to be a middle ground but since we out-of-state taxpayers have no representation locally or statewide this will be never happen. As James Otis, a Boston politician circa 1775 famously said, "Taxation without representation is tyranny". And I'm confident the tyranny will continue indefinitely.

It was a fine weekend however, and winter was in the air. Rain turned to sleet and then to snow on Saturday but there were breaks in the weather. Bucks are in the rut this time of the year as is evidenced by ground scrapes, where they paw all the leaves away from an area and add their footprint 'signature', and rubs where they scrape the bark off trees with their antlers. Deer are running all over the place, lovin' on their minds, and its a great time to be up in the bowstand. This weekend I had the rare pleasure of having a cup of coffee with the hunters before daybreak and then crawling back into bed for a couple hours. I was just starting breakfast for the crew when GurneyGranny stormed in. "I missed an eight point buck because something's wrong with this GD bow! This was GG's first year of bowhunting and an 8 pt buck with a bow would not only be quite a coup but it would also get the rack into the prestigious "Eight or Better Lounge", (aka the porch) at the camp. My first thought was an accusation of 'buck fever', that malady that causes your heart to race, breathing to become shallow, and arrows to fly over the backs of deer when you glimpse the big buck. I checked out the bow however and it was indeed an equipment failure; a shaft that held a small plastic keeper had slid forward, releasing the keeper and knocking the arrow off the knock when the bow was drawn. Extremely disappointing when you're out all morning in the nasty weather.

But that was not the only eight point buck that was missed last weekend. On Sunday morning TheKingOfIronwoodIsland came dragging back to camp half frozen after sitting in the 26F (-3C) weather. He had his game camera, which had been out all night, and wanted to see what had wandered past his stand. He mumbled something about wanting to see 'if the one I missed' is on there. My ears perked up. "One you missed today?", I asked. His stand that was relocated after the timber sale was called 'Four Strikes' for now obvious reasons. All of the stands have names denoting some event, usually mildly humorous, that occurred there. Excalibur, Wounded Knee, Twin Towers, Freefall, and the Invisible Woman are all well known locations that anyone in camp could walk to as easily as a downtown building or park in the city. Sure enough, the lucky 8 pointer was on the camera and the story came out. "There were does watching so I had to move slowly, it was a brand new stand I was unfamiliar with, my fingers were frozen, the arrow hit a twig, etc, etc,. Dr Dave's diagnosis was immediate: Buck Fever! Dr Podman and Dr GurneyGranny offered a second and third opinion but the diagnosis remained the same. The sheepish yet guilty expression below says it all.

Its actually kind of cool that after all the years and all the deer hunting that a person can still get all fired up with adrenaline to the point that something almost automatic becomes difficult. Walking the woods with the VOR and pointing out the buck sign has me all fired up for deer season. Frying up the last package of venison bacon is another major motivator. Maybe I should have bow hunted and maybe $165 isn't so bad for the priveledge of filling your freezer with three deer. The lure of the kayak on Lake Superior is powerful but the lure of the hunt trumps it. I am officially in rut!

Video Night, a visitor, and a Great Lakes update

Last night was SKOAC video night in the basement of Midwest Mountaineering and another crop of excellent kayak videos were debuted. This is the night that marks the semi official end of the paddle season, although my pathetic offering for the evening was an infomercial for the 4th Annual Gales of November paddle next Thursday. I would like to think that is the official end of the season but we shall see. We had excellent videos from Pukasawa Park in Ontario, the Silver Islet to Rossport paddle, the Chippewa Flowage (the 'Big Chip') in northern Wisconsin, and some Apostle Islands stuff. We also saw Jerome's portfolio for his budding outdoor modeling career but I'm sure most are trying to blot that out of their memory banks. It was a great night with good memories, an adult beverage or two, and early planning for next years potential adventures.

Its been a rough week for me however, with late nights for the election, a customer after work event, and the SKOAC videos last night. A visiting dignitary will be jetting in from Milwaukee today and the plan is for an informal happy hour reception with a pseudo elite group of paddlers. The snow is beginning to fall here so we hope Midwest Airlines is on time. After that its off to the hunting camp for what promises to be a weekend of R&R.

The most momentous event of the week, the Obama election, must be mentioned also. During the campaign Obama pledged $5 billion bucks for a Great Lakes restoration project. Of course both candidates pledged $5 billion bucks for almost anything that anyone wanted during the campaign but there are indications that Obama just may follow through. He is from Chicago, a Great Lakes city, and is actually aware of the issues. His newly appointed Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, introduced a comprehensive Great Lakes cleanup packgae in Congress in 2003, which is a great indication also. Our economic malaise and the giant budget deficit will be major challenges but we can hope that the Great Lakes at least get a good look and a taste of the Federal pie. Its gotta be be better than what we've seen after 16 years with guys from Arkansas and Texas at the wheel.
(Photos courtesy of Ron O)

Northland water temperatures

Last Friday the trio of RonO, TheManFromSnowyLegs, and I did some paddling at the mainland sea caves in the Apostles. It was sunny with a north wind, light swell, and perfect for wearing a tuliq. This meant some rolling, of course, and we remarked that the water was fairly warm for Halloween day on Lake Superior, warm enough that gloves weren't really needed with a nice warm, wooden Greenland stick. This was not the case on Lake O'Brien when we arrived at CampO after a grueling trip across the top of Wisconsin.

The first thing we noticed when we pulled into the camp was that the KingOfIronwoodIsland had his bright yellow CD Storm on the roof of his VW. This could mean one of three things: he wanted to get one last paddle in before sticking the boat up in the rafters; he needed an excuse to avoid roofing for the better part of the day; or he finally was prepared for some rolling instruction. Some probing questions over beers did not reveal the Kings true intentions, although the MFSL offered his opinion that it was a bit cold for rolling instruction. The next morning we hit the water to see just how cold Lake O'Brien really was.

Since we had completed our assigned roofing task of picking pieces of the old roof off the ground and throwing it in the dumpster, our trio headed for the kayaks. When we paddled down past the cabin, the King quickly said, "Wait up, I'll grab my boat". I noticed right away that there was a critical safety violation on the job site; there was more than one Croatian on the roof. Four Croatian brothers, two of which are partners in the ownership of the camp, can't agree on what to eat for dinner, much less roof line angles, fascia style, shingles v steel roofs, etc.; hence the One Croatian rule. The King saw the kayak run as a good chance to flee the jobsite in the midst of an obscenity laden brotherly debate on whether or not to rip out a section of the roof and start over. After witnessing one of these 'discussions', a visitor remarked on how the dissolution and collapse of Yugoslavia now made complete sense to him. We were quickly joined on the lake and paddled around the outside of the beautiful, near wilderness lake. Otters, diver ducks, and ring of mature cedar trees, browsed up as high as a deer could reach, made for a great little day paddle. On the way back, near the middle of the lake, it was time to see if the King did indeed have rolling on his mind.

RonO and I pulled up the hoods on our tuliqs and over we went. When I came up I couldn't feel my face. Suddenly the ice on the south end of the swamp made sense; this lake was going to be frozen in less than a week. I stifled the normal, "Oh Christ, thats cold!" and made some benign comment, hoping to lure the King into giving it a try. Ron however, came up with the "Oh Christ, thats cold!" when he broke the surface. The ManFromSnowyLegs, rolling with a drysuit and neoprene skull cap, rolled twice, muttered a couple obscenities, and headed for the hot lakeside sauna. His Majesty had seen enough. "Think I'll stay dry and warm today" was the comment as he headed toward shore. I told him he could use Ron's tuliq and my boat but he wasn't buying it for a minute. If only we could have faked it better we might have lured him into the water but its tough to stay nonchalant when you have an ice cream headache and your face is blue. Bottom line is that a huge body of water like Superior stays a lot warmer a lot longer while the small ones tend to heat up and cool down much more rapidly. I guess thats intuitive info but its the first time I've experienced it real time. The King will have to wait until next year to nail that sweep roll.

The election year mimosa tirade breakfast

This weekend was the Annual Grouse Kill weekend at CampO in Iron County, Wisconsin. One of the great traditions of this event is the election year mimosa breakfast, designed to provoke political tirades from the wide ranging political backgrounds of the guests in attendance. We even had a representative of the Commonwealth there, advocating replacement of the Federal system with a parliamentary form of government. Everyone agreed that the 6 week election campaign sounded wonderful but that we'd kinda miss having a president. One of our most passionate bleeding hearts (almost hemophiliac, actually) could not make the event due to Halloween activities and our token religious right guy didn't show either, balancing the absences. That still left us with a wide variety of views with right wing redneck, rock ribbed Republican, yellow and blue dog Democrats, Libertarians, and at least one guy whom I believe voted for the irrelevant Ralph Nader all represented.

I must confess that the event is not without its detractors. A member of the CampO ownership group, the WoodFondlingBarrister, feels that drinking mimosas and then heading out to grouse hunt, work on roofs, roll kayaks, or pull docks out of the water is not only a questionable order of events but also saps any ambition that might be present in a group that is normally lacking in that quality anyway after Friday nights welcoming festivities. In the final billing letter for a momentous timber and property matter that he represented me on, the Counseler wrote, "I am making an additional generous reduction in an already too low bill with the proviso that the resulting savings may not be used to fuel political rants or otherwise incite the guests at CampO". I felt that this was a blatant bribe and an attempt to limit political debate and discussion. To prove that I was not susceptible to special interest money, I purchased a large magnum of champagne (key ingredient in a fine mimosa, of course) and a gallon of orange juice with part of the nebulous 'savings' referred to in the letter.

It was a spirited discussion. Publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to The Onion were cited, candidate voting record claims were shouted down, voices raised, tables pounded, and everyone pretty much got their point across. And, like the flurry of political ads this time of year, no ones mind was changed one iota. The best comment from anywhere on the political spectrum was regarding Gov Palin; "She's like a turtle on a fence post. Its not real sure how it got there, has no idea how it will get off, and you gotta question the judgement of the person that put it there". Unlike the congress however, when its time to get something done the guys at CampO pull together. That was illustrated by the weekend roofing project. It was also pointed out that all of us have friends across the political spectrum. I've noticed that many people, especially in urban areas, seem to have an unspoken political litmus test for friendship. We all agreed that not only was that complete bullshit but that it also makes it difficult to develop any empathy for other views, which is the key to working together.

Go vote tomorrow. I have my candidate picked out but go pull the lever whether its for a Republicrat or one of the fringe parties. Its called participatory democracy and everyone needs to particpate. And please, PLEASE don't go into a three year old-like sulk if your candidate loses. You'll get over it, especially if you look for a bit of common ground. The country is in desparate need of a new roof. Now go vote.