Dan's Essay 2: Ice Fishing

Dan Williams
Essay 2
Feb. 18, 2009


Ice Fishing Anyone?

Son Martin needs a fishing license. That means the first stop is the Village Sports Shop in Lyndonville. He lives in Boston, but says he’ll come to Vermont often enough to justify an annual licence. Cost: $41.
The temperature is in the teens but the forecast promises a warm day with highs in the 30s. It’s quite a trek to Island Pond, but enjoyable. Head out Route 114 toward East Burke and keep going past East Haven and a tiny place called Lost Nation. Take a right at Route 105; Island Pond is just down the road a piece. There is always the chance for a moose-sighting, but not this day.
Martin talks about his new job in Boston at a company that makes medical sensors. He is thinking about going overseas for the United Nations or some other organization and working with disadvantaged communities. Younger son Jimmy, 15, sleeps in the back seat. He doesn’t quite snore, but his head is thrown back and his mouth gapes. This is very early for him to get under way on a Saturday.
Island Pond is a small town huddled on the shore of the lake by the same name. The note from Ross Stevens with the NorthWoods Stewardship Center (sponsor of today’s ice-fishing lesson) said to meet in front of the town hall. Google Maps put the building on Main Street. Just turn right off Cross Street and the town hall should be on the right.
But Main Street dead-ends at a retirement home, so the car has to turn around. That’s when the town hall becomes visible – the entrance is on the side of a block of buildings. People coming from the other direction probably miss it all the time.
But nobody is there. A short distance away, men are getting ready to play broomball. Martin tells a story about a student playing intramural broomball at Boston University who impaled himself on his stick – it went right through his side, but didn’t hit any important organs. He was back out on the ice later that day.
Ross arrives a short time later with a Fish and Wildlife ranger. A couple of other people show up and Ross leads the group out onto the ice. Snowmobiles zoom onto the lake from a nearby gas station. They sport all kinds of colors. The riders all wear helmets. Smart.
The wind picks up as the group heads for the ice-fishing spot Ross has picked out. The chill and the wind turn tears to painful needles. Ross heads toward a pickup truck parked on the ice. Two men join the group. One has no gloves. The other does, but he looks like an outdoor type who has done his share of ice fishing. It’s not clear if he’s there to learn or teach.

Ross asks, “Does everybody have a fishing license? I don’t care, but I’ve got to ask.” Everyone nods. He starts dragging things out of the back of the truck: a pail with shiners for bait, tip-ups, short rods, an ice skimmer, and a big auger. He loads the gear on a large plastic sled and drags it to a spot about 100 feet from shore. In this general area, he says, is an inflow from a river – or outflow, depending on how full the lake is – and it should be a good fishing spot.
Ross starts yanking the crank of the auger. “This is the hardest part of ice fishing,” he says, “getting the engine started.”
The bit is four feet long and the blade is a good eight inches wide. He starts it up, controlling the speed with a lever he operates with his thumb while holding the two handles. The auger bites into the ice and quickly chews its way down toward the water – one foot, two feet – how thick is this ice? – three feet. No wonder it can support a truck. The bit churns up a mound of ice around the hole, which Ross kicks away with his feet.
He strikes water, which gushes up a good foot out of the hole and soaks his pants and boots. He cleans slush from the edge of the hole and prepares a tip-up. The device is hard to describe. Two lengths of wood form an X that lies flat on the ice over the hole. A line attaches to a reel on another length of wood rising up from the X. A hook and leader are on the line. Ross baits the contraption by hooking a shiner under its dorsal fin—to keep it alive. He tells the group that baitfish must now come from the lake in which they are used, to prevent the spread of disease. A flexible metal whip is attached to the vertical length of wood. Ross folds it over and snaps it into place. It is designed to pop up when a fish takes the hook.
Another hole is drilled, this time closer to shore. By now a group of dorm students from Lyndon Institute have arrived. Most of them are from Taiwan, and it is clear that none of them has ever gone ice fishing before. They huddle together on the ice. Some are dressed in sweatpants, hopping up and down in the cold. They smile a lot and talk among themselves. Two girls wander off toward an ice shanty, looking for warmth. The owner of one shanty yells from the shore that they can go inside.
Jimmy and Martin briefly try their luck ice fishing. They use a short rod, but the line tangles as it is lowered into the water. The hooked shiner sinks just out of sight. It is probably about three feet down. “Bob it up and down a bit,” Ross says. After he leaves to cut another hole, Jimmy and Martin say their feet are cold. They had not dressed for the teens. A thin coat of ice forms over the water in the hole. By stirring with the end of the rod, they can break it up. But it keeps forming.
Where is the 30-degree weather promised in the forecast? It is cold and no fish are biting. Pancakes and omelettes sound better and better as the minutes pass. Finally, Jimmy and Martin can stand it no longer. They return the rod to Ross and apologize for tangling the line.
“Giving up already?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Martin says, thinking of the nice hot cup of coffee he plans to order at the diner up the street.

Nava-Postrel Smackdown!

Based solely on the descriptions in "Gardenland" and "In Praise of Chain Stores," where would you rather live -- the colorful but poor part of Sacramento where Michael Nava grew up or Chandler, Arizona, the town at the center of Virginia Postrel's story? Cite something from the stories to help you explain why.
I'm going with Nava because of his description of his meals: "beans, lettuce and tomato salad, stewed or fried meat, tortillas, salsa." I got a quesadilla machine for Christmas and love it.

Links to Hughes, Hurston

In case you don't have the book...
Here's a link to the Langston Hughes piece.
And here is "How it Feels to Be Colored Me."

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes writes in "Theme for English B":
"I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem."
Compare his short piece to Zora Neale Hurston's "How it Feels to Be Colored Me."
How do Hughes and Hurston differ in their approaches to their own racial identity?

Amitai Etzioni blogs, too!

The guy who wrote "The Monochrome Society" is just as hip as you.
Here's the link.

Hornets' Nest Observed

Here's my write-up of the Hornets' Nest observation. Note there's nothing like a "normal" introduction or conclusion. It just starts at one point and ends at another. It doesn't include everything I observed, either.
(Please upload your own observations to Blackboard rather than the blog -- thanks)

Dan Williams
Feb. 6, 2009
ENG 1051
Hornets’ Nest observation

Sammy is finishing something that left small yellow crumbs on the paper towel in front of her, along with a grease stain. She is in the Hornets’ Nest, the snack bar at Lyndon State College, sitting at a round table near the food-service area.
Sammy is wearing a yellow T-shirt with a tassled scarf. The dominant color is turquoise but it is shot through with gold designs. She has a lemonade.
She falls into conversation with Jim and Lindsey. All three talk about a vacation spot in Maine, Old Orchard Beach.
“Were you there when the whale washed up on shore?” Sammy asks. Lindsey says she wasn’t there but her parents were.
Sammy says, “It smelled wicked bad. They took if offshore and weighted it and sank it but it washed up again. It was raunchy.”
Jim is eating tater tots and a breakfast sandwich and washing them down with orange juice. A bottle of water stands in front of him in the booth as well. He is wearing a dark v-neck sweatshirt with a gray stripe down the sides. Underneath, he has on a gray T-shirt. His khakis are light, almost white. He’s wearing sneakers.
He tells a story about fishing at Old Orchard Beach, at the north end. He reeled in a mackerel but it weighed too much to be a mackerel. When he pulled it out of the water, he saw why: a lobster was attached.
Sammy, Lindsey and Jim share stories about rip currents and piers and wall-to-wall tourists, many from Quebec – “Quebeckians,” Sammy calls them.
Half of the students sit in the Hornets’ Nest and the other half in the Student Center. The Hornets’ Nest, with its booths and tables, encourages people to sit in groups. Most of the students in the Student Center sit separately. Mike and Ashley are in a booth – Mike checking his phone while talking to a friend in an orange knitted hat and Ashley writing – but Shelby is across the room sprawled on the couch, talking on the phone while writing notes on the Unit 2 handout.
Brittany is in another cushioned chair, checking something on her phone or perhaps texting.
A low rumble of conversation fills the room. The television is tuned to SportsCenter. Brian, Neil and Jimmy sit, apart, watching.
Brian describes a fight he saw – one kid threw something and the other guy pushed him. He’s talking to Neil, who sits in front of him.
Back in the Hornets’ Nest, Moriah, Heather and Ashley sit together.
Elaine and Mary sit at a booth across from one another. Elaine gets up four times to walk around and make observations. Mary gets up, too, and walks around.
Treg sits in a booth by himself, writing observations. He gets up and soon returns with a Pepsi Max. He twists off the cap, takes a gulp, and returns to writing.

Blixie

Read Tyina Steptoe's "Ode to Country Music from a Black Dixie Chick" in "Presence" and describe a situation in which you took on an identity that was at odds with what others expected of you.
For instance...
I am not a very good singer, but I get a rush from doing the vocals in "Rock Band."
Imagine me screaming the lyrics to "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World:
"It just takes some time, little girl you're in the middle of the ride, everything, everything will be all right, everything everything will be all right, all right"!
Dude.
P.S. Can you find music by Blixie?
What do you think of it?

Goatblog travels

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One way to skin a cat, or introduce an essay

Dan’s Essay 1 introduction draft:
Possible outline:
Reason 1:
The weather.
Reason 2:
The landscape
Reason 3:
The house.
Reason 4:
The job

I am a displaced person. As the years pass and I become more and more used to New England and Vermont, I become less and less displaced. However, I often still feel like a stranger here. The weather is much colder than the weather I left behind in Georgia three years ago. The landscape is much more rustic and wild than the carefully tended neighborhood we lived in outside Atlanta. Our “new” house is more than a century old, and I am finding it more of a challenge than I thought it would be when we moved here. And teaching in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is far different than teaching in the South.