Fishin' Buddies

After spending an entire July night at my friend Pete's house being as wild and crazy as we could possibly be, which for us meant staying awake for all but 3 hours of the night, alternating between periods of beating up on Chinese guys on his Playstation game, Dynasty Warriors 2, then making a few trips to the nearest gas station to refill on Mountain Dew, (after which we drove down State Route 13 with his headlights off) we woke up around 10 o'clock, delighted to find the early-July sun shining, creating a comfortable, mild 65 degrees. Perfect, we thought. Fully clad in shorts and T-shirts, a morning snack of Mountain Dew resting comfortably in each of our stomachs, we began the slow, methodical task of loading everything into his mother's Tracker. We covered just about everything in our packing, from our low-tech fishing equipment to the gotta-have-for-a-trip-of-this-magnitude music: Lynyrd Skynyrd. We chose Lynyrd Skynyrd because we both were fans of classic rock, and Lynyrd Skynyrd had been the traditional music we would listen to when we would escape on this adventure, ever since our first trip. Plus, it sounded really good in the sound system.

After three years of failed attempts, (mostly because of the rigid rules of his workplace) Pete and I were finally going to initiate Operation: Freedom to its fullest extent of three days, a feat we had not yet accomplished. Operation: Freedom was a concept that we, collaborating together, came up with to relieve ourselves of the confines of our high school (and later, college) educations. It was 2003, and we had just finished our senior year of high school, and, because we chose Ohio State as our college of choice, we would be free until late September. We chose OSU mostly because of its convenience of closeness to our hometown of Fredericktown. Anyway, Operation: Freedom was a three-day fishing trip to Carolyn's (a family friend of Pete's) house, near Mount Gilead. Carolyn has a good-sized pond on her property, which she lets us visit when we have the time to do so. The RV that is permanently parked out by the pond is essentially our house whenever we venture to the pond, whether that be for three hours, or three days.

Having done this trip three times before, we had become quite efficient at working out all the kinks in the system. After our first trip, we decided that it would be best for us to make a list of the things (which we appropriately dubbed the "Operation: Freedom List O' Essentials") that we would need to survive in an RV with everything but a steering wheel. This list had most of the things that people would perhaps associate with a trip of this sort, like chairs (which we named "Greenie" and "Ol' Red"), and our tackle boxes (named "JimBob" and "Earl"). The second half of the list was mostly food items, something a trip like this is not complete without. Prior to this trip, Pete and I had gone through a short stage of creating various culinary masterpieces, and for this particular trip, we had chosen our patented "Beer-becued Chicken" as our one exotic meal. Aside from the chicken and those things needed to make it, a few other items, mostly meat, were on the list, like hot dogs and the ever-popular Johnsonville Beer 'N Bratwurst.

After a half hour drive westward from Fredericktown, we reached our retreat, just as we left it the year before. There wasn't much to this retreat to begin with, really. There was the RV, which replaced the older version, sold after our first-ever trip to Carolyn's pond. This RV was better, though. It was bigger. It also had bigger beds, a CD player, and a 13" color TV. Next to the behemoth RV, there was also a picnic table under an apple tree, straight out of a cheesy 50's ad film for a patio set. I could almost hear the theme song to "Leave It To Beaver." Out toward the middle of the 200 x 200-foot pond, a rope attached to a raft divided the pond in half. On the north side of the pond, a lonely, dilapidated pedal boat sat quietly on the shore, waiting to be taken for a spin around the pond.

We unpacked in a record half an hour, and then it was time for our famous homemade lunch of Beer-be-cued Chicken. Making Beer-be-cued Chicken is more of a culinary art than anything else. Just the right amounts of barbecue sauce and beer (which we had "borrowed" from Pete's father) have to be carefully blended to make the perfect taste explosion.

"I'm friggin' starving!" I said, as I eased into "Greenie" my monogrammed camping chair, letting out a long sigh. I cracked open another can of Mountain Dew. The Raspberry Nestea Coolers would have to wait until dinner, I thought.

Pete just shook his head, laughing. "Yeah, me too," he said, as his new Q-Grill puffed to life. "Hey, you wanna make yourself useful, and get me the chicken, dude?" he asked.

I got up out of my chair after a few tries, and wandered into the RV, headed for the mini-fridge. "You want another Dew?" I asked, leaning out of the narrow doorway.

"Sure," he replied. So, after obliging his request, I came back outside, greeted by the summertime aroma of flame to meat. I breathed it in, smiling. "Gotta love summer," I said. Laughing, he said. "Hell, yeah!"

Soon after, we were eating our delicacy, enjoying the early summer breeze. "Remember the last time we came home after we were here, Pete?" I asked.

"You mean the time that we came back, and someone had crashed their truck into a tree in my neighbor's yard, and two other people robbed the post office?" he laughed, flipping the chicken.

"Yeah, that was weird, man," I answered. "I'm almost afraid to go home this time! There might not be a town left."

"Eh, that might not be as bad as you think, dude. Maybe we'd get lucky and the high school wouldn't be there," he quipped.

"No, that would not be funny," I said. "Then, Mom wouldn't have to teach her classes, she'd be home all the time, and she would get to nag me three times as much," I reminded him.

Pete thought about this for a minute. "God, you're right. I wouldn't want my mom home all the time, either," he said, chuckling.

"She'd probably say the same about you," I added, dodging the potato chip Pete threw at me.

"I'm gonna check to see if there are any bass over near the other side of the pond," I said, picking up my 6-foot fishing rod, dusting my shorts off. It was 2:00, and Pete and I, having finished our lunch, had been fishing for almost an hour, with only a few bites from the native Bluegills. But, we were still having a great time. Of course, I thought, as I walked over to the other side of the pond. We always have.

After scaring half a dozen frogs back into the pond, some of them startling me, I managed to get my top-water Spit 'N Sputter lure into the pond, about three feet away from the forest of cattails in one corner of the water. For those who don't know, a Spit 'N Sputter lure belongs in the family of lures known as "poppers," which all have a characteristic concave lip carved out of their plastic bodies, which, when the lure is twitched, causes the water to spray out in front of the lure, an action that predators like Largemouth Bass find very hard to pass up. I twitched it a few times, sending streams of water ahead of it in typical popper fashion, and that was all it took. Faster than I could react, an explosion came from the depths of the water, and engulfed my lure, leaving a swirling vortex where my bait had been moments before. A split second after the sudden surprise attack, I jerked my pole skyward, snagging my prey, a 14-inch Largemouth Bass. Hauling it up into my grasp, I couldn't help but wonder what was going through its mind as it gazed into my omnipotent-like (for it, at least) eyes. Or was it thinking anything at all? It's strange how I've always wondered these things. Yes, at the moment it was a captive of my treble-hooked lure, but only until released. Afterward, it would hurriedly swim back to its hiding place somewhere in the depths, perhaps cursing at the pain I had inflicted, and remain there, until it felt well enough to hunt again, and go about its other day-to-day regiments. It was free to do what it wanted, but it, like me, also had things that it had to do to survive. I don't need to fish to survive, in the same way as the Native Americans did, but the activity is embedded in me enough that when I don't do it (especially during the summer, when I have the time) I feel somewhat incomplete, like that part of my life's puzzle is missing. Like a mouse to a piece of cheese who will do what it takes to get it out of the trap, I am connected to that rod and reel, and especially to the outdoor environment in which I use it.

I caught a few more bass from that same spot within an hour, but mostly I was just casting for the sake of casting, not caring whether I caught anything or not. Over the 7 years that Pete and I have shared a love of fishing, we've both come to realize that there is more to fishing than just catching fish. Although he has an obvious shorter attention span when it comes to fishing (and other things, like school, and at the time, the opposite sex) than I do, he still enjoys being outdoors like I do, especially when we come to this particular pond. So, maybe it's more the friendship that he enjoys than the fishing. I'm the same way. But, it took me a trip or two to Carolyn's pond to realize it. For the first two trips, I spent most of my time fishing, and less time just sitting, doing next to nothing. But now, as we tell our friends whom are reluctant to join us here, "coming here is about 10% fishing, and 90% bullshitting." For us, fishing is first about the companionship, and secondly about the fish.

The remainder of the afternoon, we divided up between jamming to Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top, playing cards, and binge drinking on Mountain Dew and Raspberry Nestea Coolers. As the sun sank into the horizon, we, between gulps of Dew, thought about our late-night activities, most of which we knew would be spur-of-the-moment, as history would undoubtedly repeat itself. It was the Fourth of July, so we knew that, somewhere nearby, some small town was bound to have a celebration, judging by the periodic spurts of firework activity we had heard all day. If we were wrong, we had brought a few of our own flammable, don't-use-without-adult-supervision (HA!) paraphernalia, just in case. At 18, we were just about to cross the line between having responsibility, but out here, we knew we didn't have to be by-the-book responsible, just have common sense.

Sun set, the last breaths of daylight clinging to life, we decided that it was time to get the party started. "Fire, fire!" we exclaimed in our best Beavis and Butthead voices. Minutes later, we had a glowing fire cracking and spitting sparks into the air, like miniature neon orange fireflies.

"This is great," said Pete, the two of us hovering around the flames, just staring; both of us (me, I know) probably pondering what it is about fire that we find so humbling.

"Mmm, hmm," was all I said, sighing comfortably, eyes captivated by the orange and yellow sea of flames. We sat in the comfortable silence, just staring, feeling like the cavemen of the Old World when they had first discovered fire.

"You know, I'm not sure how much longer Lindsey and I are going to last," Pete offered. Having had this talk before, I knew he wanted input from me, something I was always glad to give, especially now that we were older. Lindsey was Pete's then-pretty-serious girlfriend of a few months at the time. I had seen this coming, somewhat, given their 3-year age difference, but I just wasn't sure when he was going to ask me about it. She was 15, and was still quite young, in all aspects of her self.

"So, what's wrong?" I asked. I sat silently, waiting for an answer, sipping my Mountain Dew.

"Well, sometimes she gets really annoying," Pete sighed. I could tell he had rolled his eyes slightly, judging by his tone.

I couldn't help but smile a little. "Well, she's still pretty young, dude. Some girls are like that," I answered.

"Yeah, I know. I'm just not sure of what to do. I mean, it doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen sometimes. She can be the most mature person around me, but then she can totally be the opposite," he said. "Sometimes she just doesn't act her age. At her age, I thought I was pretty even-keeled, you know? Yeah, sure I acted immature at times, being louder than was necessary, but that was basically only when I was around my friends. But, she does that kind of stuff more often than not. It also bothers me when she doesn't talk to me, especially when I am almost right next to her. I thought one of the points of a relationship was communication. Sometimes she makes me guess what's bothering her, which I hate doing, simply because I don't have a clue."

"I know, I've seen it. I think you ought to look at the bigger picture, though. If you feel like it really is something that kills the relationship, then I would get out, before she drives you nuts," I replied. I had always been good at listening to people, as well as telling them that they would be able to get through whatever they were going through. While in high school, I carried this skill into managing my school's cross-country team, dubbing myself "The Encourager."

"I guess," was all Pete said. "So, you wanna burn stuff?" He was behind me, rummaging around in the darkness for anything flammable, before I could even answer; knowing perfectly well that I was just as much of a pyromaniac as he was. I laughed, then joined him in the dim light, in search of the perfect, inanimate victims.

We came back by the fire with an assortment of items: several pop cans, a few plastic spoons and forks, a couple of pieces of Hershey's chocolate (which Pete unsuccessfully tried to stick onto a hot-dog stick) and an entire bag of buns (which we knew we wouldn't use-besides, it was fun to burn them). The ritual was over in about a half an hour, but it was the craziest 30 minutes of the trip, I think. Looking back, there may have been other things that went on, but I don't remember now. Apparently too much Mountain Dew coupled with a crazy best friend does impede one's memory.

By the middle of the night (usually our peak hours) we had pretty much trashed most of the area, set off all of our fireworks, and almost exhausted our supply of Dew and Raspberry Nestea. We had moved inside the RV, and were engrossed in a riveting game of Texas Hold 'Em, of which Pete was winning...by a lot.
"Yeah, so, I've pretty much given up on Laura," I said, looking unhappily at my losing hand. Laura was my best friend my junior and senior years in high school. We spent a lot of time together, and had become really attached. It didn't stay that way for long, though.

"Uh huh," replied Pete. "Raise you 50." I looked at my chips, then my cards, and folded. "I had nothing," I said. "Play again?" I asked.

"Sure," answered Pete. "I'll try to go easier on you this time." He was baiting me, I could tell. So, I bit.

"Bite me," I said, chuckling. "It's not my fault that I get dealt crap, man."

"Oh, so it's my fault?" Pete retorted. "Maybe it's operator error."

"Impossible. It's your fault. Always," I answered in a stately tone, arms crossed and laughing, but protecting myself at the same time, in case a 3 of diamonds or a marshmallow came flying my way.

Pete won that game, then I won the next, then Pete won again. We played for a few more hours, until he didn't want to win anymore. We sat in the dark for a while, just talking.

"What really makes me mad about Laura is that I was willing to stay in contact with her. I wasn't about to do all of the work, though. I mean, come on. Two calls in 2 years? That was it! Not cool. I get more calls from Michael [Pete's cousin] than her! She promised me when she graduated that she'd stay in contact. If you're gonna make a promise to someone, the least you could do is make a genuine attempt to fulfill it, you know? Damn!" I said, lying on the small couch across from the door. "You remember football homecoming two years ago? Afterward, I figured I'd get to spend some time with her, but no. Instead, what does she do? We go over to her friend's house, and who shows up? Her new boyfriend!" I huffed. "I had never felt betrayed by anyone until then."

"Yeah, I know," Pete answered from somewhere behind me, probably in the bigger bed. Pete never really said much when we'd have these kinds of talks (which always seemed to be in the dark,) about the time we were about to fall asleep. But, it was just nice to have someone to tell things like this, and that, at least, he was good at.

We fell asleep a few minutes later, and slept about 4 hours, until around 10:00 the next morning. I was the first one up. It was chilly that morning, even if it was July. But, it wasn't just any ordinary July day. It was the Fourth of July. Which, for us, meant more celebrating.

We spent most of the Fourth sitting around playing cards, bullshitting, and fishing every once in a while. Most of the day was spent in the shade, since it was pretty hot. For lunch, we decided to have the ham and turkey that we bought at the store before we came up.

After it got dark again, we listened for the unmistakable thunder of fireworks anywhere around us. Eventually we heard it from some town to the north, so we piled into the Tracker and headed out to the main route near Carolyn's house. We parked the Tracker in the lot of a nearby church, and sat watching the show in the distance. It's strange what thoughts go through your head while watching fireworks, or even just being with a friend on your own for a few days. As I looked up at the brilliant streaks of purple, red, green, and orange, I couldn't help but feel free. Not "free" like those in other liberated countries feel, but "free" like I was able to go on trips like this, without having to answer 20 questions like I used to. When I left the house nowadays, I didn't get asked, "Where are you going? Who's gonna be there? How long will you be gone?," and other imposing questions. "Be careful. Make sure you take care of everything you're supposed to," were the only remarks made. I was 18, and was finally treated as such-an adult.

I also was glad, strangely, not be attached to anyone in particular. Although I would've liked to have someone to share the moment with, that could wait, I thought. This is our trip. My thoughts went back to the Brad Paisley song, "I'm Gonna Miss Her" that I had heard after Pete fell asleep the night before. I don't think that his words were more true than at that moment when I was sitting, watching the fireworks..."Yeah, I'm gonna miss her, but, looky there...I got a bite."

For that one weekend, perhaps the most fun weekend I had ever been a part of in my 18 years, I had the most important things all around me: a best friend who didn't judge me for my decisions like others had, the time to have fun without any in-my-face supervision, and the comfort of a fishing pole to hold onto, not letting go. While time had proven that I couldn't count on Laura, time had proven that I could count on Pete, and I could rest assured that this refuge from reality would remain the same, even if the world outside changed. Like Pete's friendship, going back to this place year after year is like visiting an old friend. Each time I go back, there is something different, but for the most part things remain the same in this paradise, separate from the real world, which is definitely a comfort.