Hey Entertainer,
I know I don’t have to tell you this, but the countdown is sure ticking away. I imagine that it feels like it’s about as slow as molasses in January at this point and only getting slower. But keep hanging in there. The days are surely passing and before you know it, we’ll be off and going fishing.
It’s a shame you missed this last trip. You know, I don’t always go when your dad and The Mud Runner go fishing these days. They’ve gotten into a terrible habit of not getting back until the crack of dawn and I need a bit more sleep than that before church, if you know what I mean. But this week I decided to tag along. I just had a feeling that I would regret it if I didn’t go and that would have been the truth right there. We got out there on the bay that night, must have been around 9 o’clock. We found a good looking spot, got our lines loaded and in the water, before settling in for a quiet night of fishing. I use the term quite loosely here, as The Mud Runner doesn’t seem to believe in silence. But that’s ok. Your dad and I can be quiet enough all by ourselves, so it’s nice to have something to listen to beyond the sounds of the crickets chirping in the background.
We hadn’t sat there for very long when I noticed this little bit of a flash down the river a ways. Then I saw it again and again. Dusk was quickly falling and I just couldn’t quite tell what I was seeing. I said something to the guys and they looked over that way as well. It was your dad who figured out what it was we were seeing. “Kayak paddles.” he said. So a couple of kayaks were headed our way, no big deal. We returned to fishing, expecting to see the kayaks going by before too long. After a while, your dad commented, asking if he had missed them passing. Which he hadn’t. We looked down the way again and we could still see the faint sheen of light on the moving paddles. That seemed kind of odd, but we just shrugged it off and returned to our fishing. Must have been over an hour later that the flashing kayak paddles made it all the way up to the boat. I say kayak paddles, because there was no kayak with them. Instead, what we had was two guys… with kayak paddles… paddling up the river… on a log. Yes, you heard me right. A log.
Apparently, these guys were on their way to see fireworks. They had decided that the MOST American way that they could possibly arrive to see the fireworks would be by paddling a log up the river. By the time they got to us, they were absolutely wiped out. Because, they had been paddling at this point, for over six hours trying to reach the marina where the fireworks were being set off at. They were still five miles away from the marina and had less than twenty minutes before the fireworks were due to begin.
I was so proud of your dad. He offered these guys a ride to the marina and managed to hold in the bulk of his laughter over the whole thing until after he had dropped them off on one of the docks. All in all it was a pretty nice gesture on his part because you know he prefers not to get that close to civilization when he is out in the boat. Let alone when there are loud exploding things going off over top of his head. We didn’t make it back out of the marina until after the fireworks were done and over. Boy was it a madhouse around there. Fire trucks and police cars all over the place. I don’t know if it always is like that when they are doing fireworks or if something actually happened, but it was pretty crazy.
It’s been a long time since I saw fireworks that close up. The last several years, you know, we all just hang out at The Whispering Inkwell and just enjoy the random fireworks that get sent up in the surrounding area. I had kind of forgotten just how loud they are when you are practically right underneath of them. But boy, are they purdy. They were pretty big, too. They had some of those real sparkly ones that slowly fade away that your Ma here loves. I’m sorry she missed out. But she’s talking about the crew loading up and maybe checking out some fireworks nearby next weekend. Says it’s been too long since we all went out and seen them. And she’s probably right. I know Mabel’s eyes lit up just hearing about them. I didn’t realize until just then how fond of them she was.
For me, I don’t think I will have to watch the fireworks. I think I am just going to enjoy watching the looks on everyone else’s faces as they watch those beautiful explosions in the sky.
Keeping a seat at the table for you,
Zeke
Image created by Mel Seeley in collaboration with Google Gemini
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