Mason July 29

I messed up last week and failed to attach my story to my message to the Citizen! That story has been overtaken by time. I do have an amusing story I neglected to include in my fishing trip story of last month.

As we headed northward, Dicky, Gary and Arthur wanted to stop at Dicky’s camp near Kokajo to pick up his boat, a 14-foot open aluminum boat with a small cowling covering the bow and housing the instruments. The boat was on a small trailer outside Dicky’s camp, bow end down. Dicky asked Gary to hook the boat trailer to his pickup while he (Dicky) went into a shed to get the motor, oars and cans of gas. Gary bent down to pick up the trailer tongue and groaned, “Dicky! Is this sucker tied down? I can’t budge it!” “You weakling! Get Arthur to help pick it up!” Why is this (expletive) boat so heavy?

Finally, three or of us were able to pick up the bow of the boat, and it became obvious why it was so heavy. The open boat had been left bow down on the trailer, and the spring rains had filled it with about 50 gallons of water, all sitting in the bow end, hidden by the boat cowling. With the boat finally resting stern down, it took about 15 or 20 minutes to drain the water through the drain plug hole in the stern before it could be hitched to the truck.

We (Mona) got to keep great-grandson Noah overnight last Saturday. Carrie and Neal needed a babysitter while they went to a concert in Massachusetts that night. We found Noah a joy and a well-behaved boy on his first overnight away from home, at age 16 months. He went with us to the church supper at the West Bethel Union Church, where he ate a good supper, with no fussing. He was cheerful all evening and went to bed with minimal fussing about 8 p.m. and slept until nearly 7 a.m. We even took him to church and Sunday school that morning, where he played well with the other kids. He was really happy to see his parents after church!

Mona and I spent three days camping at Lily Bay on Moosehead Lake last week. Weather was hot and enjoyable, except for a few showers on Monday and again after dark on Wednesday night. We drove to Rockwood and took the ferry to Mt. Kineo Island on Tuesday. There, Mona surprised me by saying she wanted to hike to the top of the 1,800-foot “rock,” despite the description of the trail as rugged. All three of us made it to the top and safely back down. Then we celebrated with big ice cream cones on the way back to camp, one with a dog biscuit in it for Snuffy! When we got back home on Thursday afternoon, Vernon Davis and crew were painting our house. Busy week!