Old

I guess the rub comes when you finally realize that...Being a 100 % guy I've always been a mind over body kind of guy and as the years go on I've  kinda been in denial about what I  can physically do and what I can't or shouldn't...as least as much of. I spent 4- 3 hour shifts this last week shoveling off the unusual amount of silt build up on the boat launch surface. Then it was up and down on my knees while I installed our habitat approved aluminum grated walkway and....my entire body ached for days. My knees were painfully throbbing, couldn't bend them hardly...I told Chris that I never should have taken that first shovel load and got a Bobcat or a loader down there. But you know me, frugal and bullet proof I felt committed after that first shovel load...to end the parable, the day comes when your shoveling career is over, embrace it Jeff, you've done ENOUGH of that *&#@.

In a fish bum's life you can collect a lot of cool stuff. I generally like new stuff but some of the past is kinda connects you to it all again.  Going  through my stuff as I get ready to break camp I'm finding stuff I had long ago forgotten. The coolest of all is this Ronco presents kind of fishing slide rule I guess you'd a call it. You look at the top and slide it to the fish you hope to catch and it tells you what kind of lures, line and locations etc. What kinda fish bum wouldn't need one of  these...mmmm....well it sat in archives for 45 years.

Someday I'll have a  guy cave with all my mementos . I know collectors like the product in it's original packaging so here's a small sample of the plugs and goodies that were never used...the pile of used ones is pretty impressive as well. Notice the cool packaged Kwikfish, the lure that turned the throttle up on salmon harvest on the world famous. I love the name of the ' Witch Doctor' and the hand carved Martin plugs are soooo cool.

Maybe we oughta get Team X northern division to do a 'retro ' fishing trip, We got all the lures we need so we'll just throw some monofilament on these guys and off we go. We'll go fish the ol Stump hole where I caught my first Kenai Salmon in 1971 and have a few Black Laber beers... we can even pull a spark plug wire off the motor so it runs like the old 18 horse we had. We'll use Borax cured eggs.

On the retro trip I'll get into my Beer can collection and we'll salt the  garbage so it looks like it's in real time. My collection are mostly pre aluminum cans from my youth and earlier. Do you guys remember those first generation pop top cans that could almost rip your thumb off trying to open  ?

My favorite beer can is this Oly  that was found in my Aunt Mary Jane's roof framing when her house was remodeled 30 years ago in Oroville California. Although I have much older cans this guy is special...it speaks. It's a pre pop top welded can that has been opened by what I assume was a framing ax and then discarded into the rafters. I can see it....it's Friday afternoon, the weeks over, it's quiting time and you've been framing in 90 degree weather for 8 hours. You buddy tosses you a cold one as you wind up your hoses and you take your ax and give er a couple perfectly placed whacks and walla....life is good.

The big news here at Mile 14 is that this coming Weds. morning my running partner is finally going to get her knee fixed, a total replacement. MP has been all over this deal and tolerated so much pain and adaption for her active lifestyle that it's time. She's has arthroscopic surgery, she's tried shoe orthotics, cortisone shots and even a guy in Mexico who wanted to do blood platelet treatment. So I'll update you all on her progress, it's a big deal but she'll do just fine , she's strong.

So I'll be helping her recovery while I work through springtime in Alaska. I'm like every fish bum in the area, we're waiting for fish to arrive, something'd gotta come floating by REAL soon. Hope you come back to Mile 14 to see what it is and when...