Golf guests, tiny birds and wonderment (bewilderment?) about Mr. Orange Face …

My experience as an Airbnb host is beginning to level out. With the funnier-by-the-minute tryst in the rearview mirror, Ellen and Reid are learning the dos and don’ts of opening your home to others. They won’t be following suit anytime soon.

I continue to opine/lament about the regime in Washington; it’s just a dire situation. But I’m in no position to be a politician. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I wouldn’t want to be an elected official in a nation that would put me in office.

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August 14, 2017

Ellen/Reid: Well, the long week has past and I can finally catch a deep breath. The Airbnb couple was just fine as were my friends Christie and Doug. I sacked on the first floor couch (not an unusual napping spot for me) and things worked out in good fashion.

They were all in for the PGA Championship which, after visiting it on Thursday morning, it confirmed for me that golf is perhaps better seen on TV than in person. Sure, when you’re there you can feel the vibe and energy but after a while you wonder how in the hell you’re going to navigate to another suitable viewing spot among the hordes of golf watchers who are largely headed in the same direction you are. The enjoyment of the tournament is all about location, location, location – as in where you get to see most of the action.

The party Friday night was good but I was AWOL from a lot of it, flitting from guest to guest and totally neglecting my job as a host. Sondra and Christe did a lot of the restocking of food and they also shouldered most of the clean up in my unexcused absence. The smoked shoulder was somewhat disappointing. It graded to a C+ at most. Not quite as pulls-apart-in-your-hands tender as previous efforts. I just couldn’t keep the smoker in ‘the zone’ even though the shoulders went on at 4 a.m. The temperature just never reached optimum smoking conditions. The result was fine enough but just not as good as had been done before. Sondra and Jody helped to set up in the garage since there was imminent threat of rain and although the downpour held off we never did leave the garage. Man, did we go through the wine. But a brewery’s worth of beer was left behind. And there’s also enough left overs to feed a small Army.

The hummingbirds have been waging aerial wars for a space at the feeder.

Hummingbirds have made a beeline to the feeder. Their aerial combat for position at the trough of sugar water has been fun to witness.

My friend Sherry counseled me on a red dye-free sugar mix and that has the little flyers zooming to the trough in tiny waves. Their display of combat has been fun to watch although I’m not sure of the damage one hummingbird could inflict on another.

Got the itch to make a foray to Charleston after being away far too long and will load Miss Emma atop the Camry in a couple of hours. Really, really excited to get back down there after a couple of months. There aren’t any lofty expectations for a stringer of reds or ‘specks’ but anything will be better than nothing.

It’ll give me some time away from the news headlines. I’m just so disappointed/disgusted in Trump after the weekend white-instigated violence in Charlottesville. How can he not single out, and condemn, Nazis and white supremacists (the same thugs who conjointly wave the U.S. flag alongside swastikas and the Confederate flag. Great. Two entities that tried to defeat America)? He is just a complete and utter moron. An idiot of the first order. It’s a shame and a shock that I would be a better president. He’s just not a leader, not a sane person, not civil, not reasoned, not diplomatic, not much of nuthin’. And his poll numbers (fake news!) are dropping to near-historic lows. Of course, Mr. Orange Pouty Face probably thinks ‘strength’ and the nerve to make unpopular stances are the signs of leadership. And his bluster on the pimple on a gnat’s ass, North Korea, is just flat-out foolhardy and dangerous. And to think he’s got his little, fidgety hands on the nuclear triggers. We need an old fashioned coup d’etat or military junta. Republicans have got to, at least privately, wonder what the hell is going on. As the mid-terms get closer and Agent Orange keeps this up, a nervous GOP is gonna have to figure out a way to regroup without him. That his base sticks with him doesn’t say much for the American electorate. They’re getting what they deserved – a jerk on yet another golf vacation – or make that a ‘working vacation’ as he calls it. Let’s hope he works himself right out of a job. C’mon Mueller.

Love, Dad

Time heals all and a reunion …

This is my 10th year in North Carolina. I exited Des Moines on a Monday morning with all my possessions stuffed into my car and arrived in Charlotte on a Tuesday night in a rainstorm worthy of a Hollywood back lot.

One of the elephants in the room, or at least my room, is the decade that has passed since a chain of events dispersed the four of us to different parts of the nation; California, Illinois, Minnesota and North Carolina.

Time heals all. Thus a trial balloon has been floated about the possibility for the four of us to reunite, to talk of our separate yet shared pasts and to assure each other that things are indeed okay.

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April 4, 2016

Ellen/Reid: Ellen, my head is still spinning from that hilarious FaceTime last night. I mean, the camera was never still for one moment. It was like the family version of the Blair Witch Project. The girls are just an absolute riot. Emma is, well, Emma and Georgia is just coming into her own little personality. Poor Tim was getting climbed by those two munchkins as if he were a mountain. But that’s what makes you guys special.

Reid, it was great to talk this weekend. Really, find out from DePaul when the graduation ceremony is. I want to be there and it would be good for you to walk across the stage (do they even do that anymore?). It would just be a good excuse to get up Chicago way. For the both of you, we need to push the family reunion envelope. Your mom and I haven’t done anything beyond thinking it would be a good idea for us to get together. Zero other thought has gone into it, but I would propose Santa Fe sometime in the fall. We’ve been there before and know the town well. You could bring Liz and Tim and the girls, and your mom could bring her new hubby. No sense cutting corners. It would be cathartic for everyone, at least in my estimation. What do you guys think of that at first blush?

This newspaper thing at the Mint Hill Times is gathering a head of steam. I’ve already done a handful of stories, including one that involved the local town council. The word is this morning they are prepping the proposal for me as editor and it may be delivered as early as today. One of the things I have to wrap my head around is the editorial process; freelancers are already knocking on the door and I have to have the process down in lock-step sooner than later. There is still no clue about the hourly commitment but the assumption is it will be more rather than fewer. Alas, what it may do is squelch the idea of a Wyoming jaunt

All the news that’s fit to print …

News – the creation of it or my reaction to it – seems to be a common thread in last week’s letter to Ellen and Reid.

I like the very notion of being involved in news. It’s fun, challenging, is a creative outlet of sorts and, given my father’s fondness for it (including the Omaha Sun Newspapers), there is some history of family involvement in the newspaper business. I’m glad this apple didn’t fall too far from my father’s tree.

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March 28, 2016

Ellen/Reid: For some reason I was moping here on the couch last week when out of the blue comes this opportunity to be the editor of a small town paper. Talk about going from the very low to the very high. The very thought of it is just so energizing and it has the potential to turn my retirement plans – such as they were – 180 degrees. The Mint Hill Times is undergoing a re-birth since its acquisition by some folks who have publishing experience but no real newspaper experience in the news sense. That’s what I can bring to the table. I just love the idea of being a news guy again. It would rip a page out of your late grandfather’s career when one of his first news jobs after World War II was to work for the Sundance Times and Crook County News up in Wyoming. My initial meeting was Friday with one of the co-owners, a woman who was the first to hear my ‘this is how news ought to work …’ diatribe. As we wrapped up our lunch at The Hill, a local bar in Mint Hill, I got up from the table and walked outside to a street corner to cover, and file, my first story for the paper, a Good Friday gathering of several hundred worshippers. She set up a Saturday morning meeting with her husband and the other owners over coffee at a local McDonalds to talk about editorial philosophy. It went fine.

What’s up in the air is how much time I can devote to this endeavor; although we talked only about part time work, by necessity it would really be full time at first and who-knows-what later. Most small papers like The Times are highly dependent on advertising to make things click and they are just getting up to speed. A lot of the news would be soft features. No real hard news to speak of but mostly goings on in town. That’s the nature of the beast. They have a group of six free lancers, not counting my students, that whoever ends up being the editor would have to ride herd over. News organization is a big deal for them since they have no real process in place. I owe them an outline of how I’d run the virtual  ‘newsroom’ since they have no physical office as of yet. We’ll continue to work through things this week. But if nothing else I’ll be a writer and that’s fine, too. My students aren’t stepping up quite like I expected them to but I’ll goad them over that hurdle.

My plans this week were to head to Charleston tomorrow for another day trip of fishing but that’s on hold now in view of the newspaper discussion.

Miss Emma and I may have missed a saltwater excursion last week, but we’ll make up for it this Wednesday, April 6 when we traipse to Bowens Island for a day of angling for reds and specks.

About 20 folks from my golf Meetup group will head to a funky concert venue, The Fillmore, this Friday night for a tribute show to the Eagles. The place will be absolutely jam packed and I’ve snagged about 30 free tickets. What the place gives up in terms of ticket prices they make up for in $10

A testimony to the inherently boring …

The bar is set pretty low in terms of the interest quotient for letters. Anyone who tells you otherwise is smoking something illegal in most states except Colorado and Washington.

For the most part a letter is inherently boring, perhaps even to Ellen and Reid (and most certainly to you). The long-held conviction here stands that what is written week-in-and-week-out is largely a reflection of grandeur-less daily life. A hodgepodge of bland and vanilla normalcy if you will. The value of a letter is to paint a larger picture of routine events over time. That’s the most I can expect the kids get out of it.

Yeah, it might be snippets and snapshots about fishing failures or riding my bike or trying to be an artist or attempts to teach or anything else. It doesn’t amount to much of real interest. It just makes it another morning in another week in another year of staying in touch.

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March 14, 2016

Ellen/Reid: The romaine/arugula seeds are in the ground – if you can call container gardening ‘ground’ – but we’ll have to settle for what dirt we have.

Most of the furniture – the loveseat and one chair – arrives tomorrow with the tables two weeks from now. Wish it would all be here at once. The furnishings will fill a considerable, and embarrassing, void on the first floor. Maybe the room will see some real use for the first time in 10 years.

New furniture is a start in a seldom used room. But one look at the decor-less walls and shelves show a lot more design TLC is needed in a hurry.

Hard to believe I’ve never sat in the room. It’s almost a three season room since it’s so cold down there in the winter. Heat rises from the first floor to the third. I woke up this morning with a paint scheme for the hoped-for art on the wall.

My 90 day dating site experiment mercifully ends tomorrow. It’s been a complete bust for the most part. I’ve met some nice women but I think the issue lies with me rather than them. In the final analysis I’m just not ready to settle down. That’s a hard thing to admit to. What I do know is it’s hard to hope all the time but you can’t force things. That I golf with my group has been a deal-killer for some who see it as selfish on Saturdays, and maybe they have a valid point. But for the most part golf is my social structure, save some friends from Caldwell, and I’m nowhere ready to give up on trying to be physical or athletic.

Ellen, I’ll ship All the Light We Cannot See to you later this week along with some coffee beans (you’ll get five bags of French roast beans, too, Reid). The book is good and you’ll zip through it in no time. Glad Tim likes the hiking pants. Arc’teryx really makes some good stuff. I’ve not come across anything better. Reid, I’ll walk six miles to the bike store later this week to buy the new three speed, plus the helmet you insist on, and ride it back home.

Bought a lowering kit for the Road King. It works by impacting the rear shocks (and) should take the back end down about two inches. It’ll make me feel better to have a little more knee bend and thus more control by lowering the center of gravity. I don’t know why Harley made the bike so damn tall. The plan is to still ride later this spring to Chicago and St. Paul and then points West.

My Central Piedmont Community College class is over. My students and I wrapped things up over a few beers and fish tacos – and a lecture – at a local cantina. They really were a good crew. Part of our swan song was

To quit or not to quit? ‘Dad, get over it’ …

I’ve probably plunked down a smooth 4 G’s for the privilege to flail the water with lures and baits at disinterested fish.

In the expense column are Miss Emma, rods, rubber waders, a Yakima rack system, a tackle box jammed to the gills with untold hooks-weights-lures, a GoPro, dry bags, top dollar coolers, et al.

Better make that 5 big ones. The cost of fish per pound? Gold is cheaper.

Surely Ellen and Reid roll their eyes when their old man is in the dumps. As is her custom, Ellen isn’t afraid to tell her dad to ‘get over it.’

Good point.

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February 23, 2016

Ellen/Reid: Reid, I really appreciated your “Don’t quit!” response to my self-pity text about my latest fishing failure near Charleston. You need to come down here so we can validate our abilities. It was just so deflating to get up at 0-dark thirty, jet out of the house at 3:45 a.m. and drive 225 miles at breakneck pace to release one little speckled trout. I went to a new place on the Wando River on the Mt. Pleasant side of Charleston and once there, at the highest of the high tide, I wondered aloud ‘How the hell am I going to fish this?’

Miss Emma surveys the scene along the expansive Wando River. We met our match and paddled back empty handed. But really, as the carnival barker might yell, “You pays your money and you takes your chances.” Hell yes. Emma and I ought to heed Reid’s sage advice: “Get back out there.” And we will – next week.

There were no visible creeks, just an endless expanse of grass alongside wide, wide water. The prevailing thinking holds that the reds venture into the grass at high tide to feed on small crabs so I paddled in, but saw no fish tailing, no disturbances to tip off their positions, no nothing. We retreated to the more familiar structure of some docks where the one little speck took a plastic bait. The prevailing thinking also says speckled trout mass together, and where you find one, you’ll find more. But nothing else came to the surface. There were three rods on Miss Emma and I alternated from a popping cork and fake shrimp to cut mullet on a Carolina rig with the final rod rigged with a lightweight copper colored something-or-other. A couple of strikes and that was it. I tucked my tail and headed back to the ramp a few hours earlier than might have been otherwise. What was really debilitating was a small flat boat of young guys seen and heard just a creek or so away from us reached the ramp the same time as we did. They had boated multiple reds on virtually the same bait I’d been flinging around and about. I do think it’s the fisherman rather than the fish. But damn it,

No rest for the weary, but who’s keeping track? …

‘No rest for the weary’ goes the saying. I do my part by burning the candle at both ends. Ellen and Reid know this; if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Travel, teaching, fishing, walking, golf. The order of importance isn’t important. Rather, it’s all in the doing.

It’s worth noting a few passages were snipped from this letter. Those are for the kid’s eyes only. You’ll find out about the tangents soon enough.

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February 15, 2016

Ellen/Reid: Let the period of rest commence. I feel beat to a pulp but it was all worthwhile in all respects. It’s a lot to pack into a few days. More on that later to both of you.

If I can travel and keep seeing sights like this, I will. Looks like a lengthy trek around the Alps in Europe is in the offing. More on that next week.

What a drag to return to cold. It is a major bummer. Went to the store last night once I landed in town and the shelves were predictably barren since there’s supposed to be a storm blowing through the Piedmont. Charlotte, however, just goes ape at the mere suggestion of inclement weather; schools are closed today yet so far nary a flake has been seen let alone piling up. As far as can be determined, we drive the same cars on the same tires as you guys have in Illinois and Minnesota. We’re just a bunch of weather softies. Yeah, I know we’re short on the number of snowplows, but for crying out loud the streets have been brined. An inch of snow or two for you guys wouldn’t even be a good start to a storm, let alone all this weather gibberish about shutting down the town. All this talk of ‘black ice’ just drives me nuts. It’s nothing you haven’t seen for years and years in the form of hard-packed snow. I mean, really?

AT&T Uverse is gone. Cut. Goodbye. Now comes the ordeal of trying to replace it with Netflix or some other service when there is something to watch. So far I haven’t missed it one bit. I’m not sure what I’ve done with my time but what I do know is it hasn’t been spent ogling the tube. That’s for the better, I think. You guys are going to have to advise me on how to hook up/use those other services. Don’t be shy since I’m relatively (make that totally) clueless as to how all this Internet/streaming thing works. For the most part, my entertainment hours are spent dialing up Pandora or listening to my iTunes playlist.

I am, however, ready to go fishing in Charleston again. The new GoPro audio-friendly camera back just arrived and will give it

Retirement starts to stick and a ‘no’ to Charleston …

Not that they ask, but Ellen and Reid get dripped on routinely about this thing called retirement.

One of my post-retirement options that only they knew about, until now, was a long-considered move to Charleston. The saltwater marshes and arts and food really were a draw. But the perceived romanticism of the town aside, it is a traffic and overcrowding nightmare. No chance I’ll move there. That’s why they sell non-resident saltwater fishing licenses.

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January 18, 2016

Ellen/Reid: This retirement thing might be starting to stick. Each day I sleep a little longer, get up a little later. Such as this morning: rise and shine at 7 a.m. That’s roughly two hours later than the norm. Maybe there was a smidgen of work hangover lurking somewhere in my consciousness that urged me to ‘wake up, wake up.’ But that apparently is beginning to ebb.

There’s not going to be any surgery right now. The doctor said he’s lived with the same thing for a few years, and that if minor pain/discomfort isn’t too bad, he advised I just suck it up and live through it. I agreed with him. But he didn’t hesitate to say if things took a wrong turn to give him a call and he’d refer me to a specialist. It’s not terribly painful but it’s goofed up my floor exercise regimen. I’m limited to what I can do in that regard. There were some issues lifting Miss Emma atop the car this past week but if toting a kayak is all I have to worry about, fine.

Speaking of Charleston, I’m pretty much nixing that from the list of possible moves. Every time I’m down there, the traffic is just awful. Hideous. It really is. It’s an area that’s just growing so fast. It’s attracted a lot of new businesses and with those businesses come people. At 6:30 a.m. last Thursday, I-26 into town was wall-to-wall stalled traffic for roughly 7 – 8 miles. Same when I hit the road after 5:30 – another 5 – 6 miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic at a crawl. A snail’s pace would have been faster. I love the area and the water, but my gosh, the congestion stinks.

Ellen, you’re right about staging the main room before the sale.

Yeah, man: Keep on keeping on …

Those in my age range might have to sift through cannibis influenced memories to recall an old 1960s poster that showed some hippie striding along with the cheery admonition to Keep on keeping on.

Yeah, brother, that’s the best we can do. Keep on keeping on. Ellen and Reid counsel me to do that same thing but they use today’s lingo.

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September 21, 2015

Ellen/Reid: The face is back to it’s old self – emphasis on old – and the swelling is down to nothing. With luck I can jettison bandages for good sometime in the next couple of days. The scar isn’t going to be very pronounced. Got a good post surgery report on Friday at the surgeon’s office so I’m off and running (and covered in sunscreen).

Finally have two offers on the Harley – sort of. One guy wanted to do an even swap out for his front end loader. Now what in the hell would I do with a front end loader? The other guy put down a $500 deposit and will try to scrape up the rest in short order. Not holding my breath, but at least he didn’t offer a piece of construction equipment. If Craigs List doesn’t work I’ll opt for Plan B, which might be eBay. I might plug something into the Charlotte Observer, too.

Ellen, there is a lot of upheaval at Caldwell. John has been unmercifully pummeled by folks who don’t have the full set of facts on the dismissal of an associate pastor. For some reason a gigantic accusatory email went out by one of the dissatisfied folks. It was filled with utterly groundless assertions so I, in completely uncharacteristic mode, opened up with both barrels in response to the full nearly 100 name email list. I was so hot. John has worked his ass off to build the right sort of church, welcomed blacks and gays, built a seven-day-a-week homeless shelter for 50 black women, started a Latino preschool and most recently, stood silently and by himself, in front of loud and mean-spirited anti-gay protesters on our sidewalk as his way of shielding his Sunday flock. And that’s the best he gets: vitriol which is totally baseless. He called Friday to say he was going to step away as part of a six week sabbatical. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t come back. He’s such a good man. I’m shelving the church newsletter until this all gets sorted out. I’m rapidly loosing what enthusiasm I have left for it.

In somewhat good news, the bank is insistent that I take all my vacation days this year. You literally have to be off the clock for every one of those days “per standard procedure.” There are roughly two full weeks left to be taken so therefore will have a mishmash of mid week days off plus a couple of three day weekends.

It’s been months since the Miss Emma has seen the water. That’s about to change.

Looks like I’ll use a few of those days to lug the kayak down to Charleston for the day. I asked to cede some of my days to those with young families or who are all out of days but was told bluntly that such largesse was not allowable. Not even a ‘thank you’ for the offer. I didn’t know a business could spend so much time and mental juice on something as benign as vacation.

My Central Piedmont Community College class on writing got scrubbed since it fell a few students shy of the required number. That’s okay and frees up my Monday nights for the next six weeks. There is a letter writing class coming up in October and hopefully there will be a few more students signing up since that is the course I really look forward to teaching.

Alright, old scarface will sign out for today. Be good, kiss the girls, say hi to Liz, and keep on keeping on.

Love, Dad

‘Deep fried on a stick’ and time for Charleston …

It’s time to visit the girls (Emma and Georgia) and the Minnesota State Fair where the most popular booth is the one where they stretch your belt a few notches to accommodate the unique Midwestern style of state fair foods. Hopefully things won’t come to that.

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August 25, 2015

Ellen/Reid: Nice job by the stock market the past few days. Can you say ‘tanked?’ Holy smokes. Talk about putting a dent in retirement plans. I guess it’s only money, but man. How the markets operate and the international influences that drag it down are beyond me.

Can’t wait to get to St. Paul with you guys. I wonder what the new “deep fried on a stick” thing is this year. It can’t be much more fattening than whatever they’ve had before; butter, candy bars, etc. Actually I’ve never had anything deep fried on a stick and am not about to start now. I volunteer to push the stroller(s) and watch everyone on rides. Reid, you and Liz ought to go with us. If nothing else there will be incredible people watching.

Had my physical yesterday. Short of blood test results, everything appears to be in good working order; weight, blood pressure, lungs, that sort of thing. Talked to the doc about the sore left knee, but he basically said surgery has its own complications beyond any surgery itself. His advice boiled down to ‘live with it’ unless it’s debilitating. Played tennis last night and it’s sore but not debilitating this morning so that’s a good sign. Ellen, the story of Tim pulling out your stitches sounds hilarious. How come you didn’t go back to the doctor for that even though it’s a simple process?

Not too nervous about the Sept. 14 surgery. I’ve been forewarned it might be a tad disfiguring, at least for the near term, since it’s on the cheek close to the left eye. I’ll keep a low profile until the swelling is down and the bandages are off. It won’t bother me to miss golf for a little while, a week or so, maybe longer. All that matters right now is what the results are. A good friend in my golf group just had similar surgery a week or so ago and I’ll check in on him at Macs tomorrow night to see how he’s doing. He’s a veteran of multiple skin surgeries, too. Ah, that damned sun.

Loved Tim’s photo of your garden produce, Ellen. Hopefully all the raspberries won’t be consumed by Emma by the time I arrive. You sure have good dirt for growing healthy things. Gardening is just such a good thing in terms of produce and relaxation. What I wouldn’t give for a little plot of land to do the same thing. The pots out back are a good substitute but it’s not quite like working the good earth with your hands.

Reid, last Friday’s reunion with our Wyoming crew was fun. You should see the photos Vince took.

Our band of Wyoming hikers (Rebecca, Katy, Vince, Tom and me) cleaned up pretty well. We had our reunion (minus Reid) at Birdsong Brewery south of Noda.

He put together a little show that ran on his laptop. There were a lot of nice shots of you in there. Speaking of photos, be sure to send me a few. Rebecca sent me such a nice ‘thank you’ note. We got to meet her partner, Anna. She’s well along with her pregnancy and she made the right decision to skip the trip. It would have been really hard, especially some of the more taxing stretches on the inward half of the trip.

Went to a meeting of folks who have walked, or intend to walk, the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The momentum is building for that jaunt. My expired passport is sitting on the kitchen counter and I need to get off the snide and turn that beast in for a renewal. Looks like a new photo will be needed but not much else. Tom speaks so very highly of the trek. It would be fun to mix in another little taste of Europe during the visit to Spain. Reid, you can give me your impressions of places that are worth visiting.

It’s time for another visit to Charleston. The weather is moderating and I’m a little miffed that a couple of months has slipped by without a visit to Bowens Island. Reid, wish you could go. And that goes for Tim, too.

Love, Dad

Three things I love …

This post features three of the things I love (the first of whom I’ll meet this week in St. Paul): tiny little Georgia, Reid, and inland fishing from my kayak. If there was a photo or other mention of Ellen tucked in here, then you could round it up to four.

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May 11, 2015

Ellen/Reid: Well, Reid, it looks like you’re going to have two adoring little nieces. But you’ve got to work on this infant holding thing. You didn’t look entirely comfortable. That’ll come with practice. Not that there’s a hint there.

Georgia looks comfortable with her uncle Reid, but his grip looks like it needs some work.

I changed out the heavy brown comforter for a warm weather version last week and that’s when it dawned on me that I have no – zero – sense of style/decor. The lightweight one is robin egg blue and it clashes, to put it mildly, with the brown tones of the cherrywood bed and carpet. I need some guidance on such things. It kind of goes hand in hand with the utter lack of style in the first floor living room, and probably extends to my jeans and tees, too. But at this point what the hell. It is what it is.

I’m still sore this morning from a tough down-and-back day trip on Friday to fish near Charleston. I hit the road about 4 a.m. for the three hour-plus drive. The intent was to put in about 8 a.m. but got caught in some dead-stop traffic just north of Charleston which cost me most of an hour. A tropical storm loomed offshore and it pushed a heavy counterclockwise wind inland. It was very hard to paddle against, and a strong tide exacerbated things. It was everything I could do to make headway.

It seems there’s a little more gear each time I set out. But if it means catching fish, yeah, bring on the stuff.

The guys at the put in point said the fishing would be slow, and they were right. Had a few bites early but then nothing for a few hours. So I roamed over to a huge grass flat that looked promising but didn’t see any tailing in a foot of water or so. Reid, I hit the barge about 2:30 and wasn’t there too long before a guy pulled up in his boat and anchored roughly where you sat when your big spot hit. Both of us were using cut mullet. His name was Jim, and he’s there with some frequency since he only lives a mile or so away and he had three lines in the water. He predicted we’d hit the fish quickly. But for the better part of another 60 minutes neither of us got anything other than a few nibbles, sheepshead most likely. He thought the pressure of the storm had an impact. When he learned I had some mud minnows, he suggested I ditch the mullet and hook the minnow through the upper lip about two feet below a bobber I had already rigged with a DOA shrimp and flip it toward shore in about a foot of water. Sure enough, the bobber went under and the line just stripped from the reel. What a sound/sensation that is. It felt like a spot from the get-go. About a 16 incher, just inside the slot. Onto the stringer it went although to be honest, there was a pang about letting it live. It was such a pretty fish. There were another couple strong strikes but nothing more came of it other than a minnow sacrificed for the sport. It wasn’t much later when a strong squall moved in and it rained like hell. It was a wrath of God rain and wind. Jim took off after offering to pull me in to the dock, but I declined to instead wait out the deluge. About 30 minutes later it stopped but there were no more fish. So I labored back to the marina, my fish in tow about 5 yards behind the boat. It takes about an hour to get the kayak back atop the car and everything hosed down with fresh water and stowed. The stringer was tied off to a rock as I prepped the boat for the car ride. The debate about a free/non-free fish didn’t last very long.

The Bowens Island restaurant is a must-visit deal near Folly Beach. Not high cuisine, but a funky place with good views and great beer. My fishing spot is on the horizon just above the diners.

Since I’ve paid some pretty heavy dues on this and past trips, the red was hurriedly filleted it and frankly I didn’t do a very good job. But it went on ice and that was it. The little seedy restaurant next to the put in was open, and I changed clothes in the car and went up for a beer and some fried shrimp. The joint was packed with locals and was a lot of fun with good views of the waterway. If you guys ever come down this way, we’ll visit it. If you wear anything other than the aforementioned jeans and tees, you’ll be overdressed. But it made for a long, long day. I pulled into the garage about 12:45 a.m. and it took 30 minutes to unpack everything and stow the boat. I told myself this was the last time for such a jaunt. But the itch will return soon enough.

Love, Dad