There are only the two of us out fishing today. The wind is blowing about ten miles an hour, and the ice fishing hole won’t stay clear for more than twenty or thirty seconds before it is so frozen over I can not tell if I have a bite of not. My hand is cold immediately when I remove my mitten. The water burns my hand when I clean the ice out of the hole.
The old man is retired he tells me. His wife died a few years back and he has nothing better to do than spend his days fishing. He say’s he used to hunt, but he is to old to wander around the woods any more. The shore is only a few hundred yards a way and he can still make that he says.
I do not know the old man, but as we are the only two out ice fishing. It is only natural that we talk with each other. At any other time he would probably ignore me as I am just a kid to him, even though I am the ripe old age of eighteen. The old man asks me what I am doing out here? I tell him that the college is closed today and I would rather be outside here ice fishing than be stuck in my room with my books.
The old man asks me what I am studying and what do I plan to be when I graduate? I tell him I am in my first year, but I plan on going into forestry. He asks me what kind of classes I need to be a Forest ranger, and I am quiet for a few seconds, because I have no clue what the correct answer is. I tell him I am taking some biology classes and then the regular reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The old man say’s he never got past the third grade. He worked as a Rail Roader all his working life, and you did not need much education to do that. He said he made a good wage while he worked, and he is doing okay in retirement. I mention that I had Rail Roaders in my family too. He asks what lines they worked for, and I tell him. He said that he worked for a local line that no longer was in existence. I didn’t recognize the name.
The old man asked me how long I was going to be fishing? I said I was close to being done, it was just no fun today. He looked at his watch and told me we had been on the lake for about fifty-two minutes. He said he was going to call it quits at an hour. Then making conversation he said his car tires were squared from the cold and they would probably stay that way until the cold snap broke. I remembered driving on tires like that. Ten miles of driving and you are still feel the whump, whump, whump of four flat spots where each tire touched the ground, and froze into that shape. You did not go anywhere fast.
I asked him if his car would start, and he said yes, it should. He told me he was getting a little cold and his hands were starting to hurt. I admitted that I had on just about every warm piece of clothing I owned and my knees were getting a little stiff and cold. I would probably have chilblains when I got back to my room and warmed up. He reckoned we were quite the fools for being out on the lake, but it beat anything else there was to do in this small town in the morning. I agreed. Then he asked why wasn’t I in class? I said they closed the campus this morning. There we were two strangers with no common sense. Out ice fishing on a frigid Lake Superior on a fifty degree below zero before the wind chill morning. We both knew one thing for certain. We were alive, and more than a little cold!
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