Once upon a fishing trip!

Years ago, I don't know how many now, but many, perhaps 30+ years. My first wife, Bonnie, and I took a fishing trip with her Mother (Glady) and her Father (Tom) on the Forest Lake Reservoir south of Munising, MI. It was one of those beautiful summer days, we had two boats, Bonnie and I in one and Glady and Tom in the other.

We fished the weed beds, the shallow, the old river bed. We cast, we drift fished, we fished with worms, minnows, and artificial lures. I don't even remember if we caught many fish, but we must've caught some.

We saw numerous Sandhill Cranes. Sandhill Cranes were an endangered species at the time and it was magnificent to see so many. They are a huge bird with a six or eight foot wingspan. When excited they make some God awful noise. We saw them wading in the shallows as we fished the shore, we saw them take off and land flying with long slow wing strokes moving quietly on the summer air.

We had a shore lunch and walked the small sand island we landed on looking at empty clam shells gathered on the shoreline. We watched large long-range SAC bombers flying out of Sawyer Air Force Base near Gwinn, MI. The takeoff and landing routes often took these large aircraft over the dense woods of the central Upper Peninsula, much to the consternation of the wildlife.

It was a grand day to be alive in the native out doors of my home land. I was with people I cared deeply about, and found comfort and assurance in there presence. Nothing was wrong with the world, and everything was right. It was a glorious day.