Fish Camp

Charlotte and I drove down to East Texas, the Piney Woods, to stay at a fish camp on Lake Fork.  Lake Fork is known as a major bass fishing lake.  I spent time talking with a guide who knows the lake…the places where the bass and rich guys from Dallas congregate or where you can find all the croppies you could eat that evening even though 18 people were living in your house. Times are hard.  Families have to double up. 

Janice, mother of Halie (Tom’s wife), turned 60.  From Washington, Halie orchestrated a surprise party for her mother…over 40 (almost all local folk) attended…Halie and Tom flew in from DC…Halie’s brother Drew and wife Stephanie from Chicago, Roger's brother Willey was up from Houston with a huge amount of fresh seafood…and we drove down.  Held at the Lake Fork Marina.  We held the party in the upper balcony of the maria’s dining room and dance floor.  Karioke (like really, really good singers) pros sang country songs; people showed their pleasure by getting up and dancing (the two step).  

And East Texas, well, kind of hard to figure out.  Flat…piney woods… it has its own culture…like the more well-known Cajun culture of southern Louisian.  In some ways, the piney woods represents an extension of that Lousiana west-ward movement.  It is a place of small houses, lots of trailers, and, then, every once in a while, you see a castle, a huge private residence, down a long, dirt driveway.  But mostly it is low-lying pine scrub land...good for some patch farming...and lakes for fishing.  

Like popular Cajun culture, much of life is enjoyed in the company of food.  Mostly fried.  Breaded oysters…OMG…just the right amount of spice to make you reach for a glass of brew…  Breaded fish.  Breaded mushrooms.  Breaded bread.  All good.  Lots of peppers on the side (grilled peppers).  Red skinned potatoes, yellow corn on the cob, small onions.  And cooking.   Timing is critical in the art of the boil…timing when you put the potatoes, the shrimp, the onions into the boil.  And sensing when it all is ready.  And having the tools to make it all come together.  

On the way home, back onto 287 that stretches from Port Arthur, Texas to some obscure town in Montana, the landscape is elemental.  As you head north toward Oklahoma, though, the flat plains (pancakes) give way to canyonlands where seasonal streams have cut deep canyons. Small low hills appear…scattered at first…sometimes in the form of a spire, sometimes a long tableland…then it breaks up even further.  Underneath lies one of the earth’s largest fields of natural gas …first exploited in 1917.   

So the landscape exists on parallel lines…the scape that we see and then the one underneath where the geologists map out hidden ridges and pools.  Then a long patch of dry (but not quite desert) lands before hitting I-70, 79, 52,I-25 and the more populated higher plains.  Small low hills appear…scattered at first…sometimes in the form of a spire, sometimes a long tableland…then it breaks up even further.  Underneath lies one of the earth’s largest fields of natural gas …first exploited in 1917.  So the landscape exists on parallel lines…the scape that we see and then the one underneath where the geologists map out hidden ridges and pools. 

And then 2149 miles later, home.  

Jul

Ok.  I have decided to write again after way-too-long away.  About Jule.  Because I used to be into Christmas, this one day spiritual focus on birth (of all of us, of god, of God, or all in the past) that took place At One Moment In Time, after which all time was changed.   You know.  And, then, we get all this stuff.  Amazing amount of stuff.  Made mostly in China.   I mean, has anyone noticed the mixed message. 

But Yule (or Jul in Norwegian, the pronunciation is the same) is a pre-Christian concept.  Jul is the period of celebration that the Germanic peoples held when the sun began to return north...having reached the furthest place away...but it was a somewhat unbounded period.  A Danish Jule song goes: "Now we have Jul again...Jul goes until Easter."  But the second verse states: "Not true.  First comes the fast." (meaning Lent).  So there is this ethic ambivalence.  During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Church (ruled from Rome by the Pope) tried to change the name of the holiday from Jul to "Kristmaas" or something like that.  But it never took. 

So Jul is an extended season of being with family and friends...it goes on and on as long as the relationships last.  People come, people go, people remain.  Our cousin, Sally, came for a few days before joining her daughter Erica's fiance's family in Denver.  Sally lightens our life. 

We held a few parties...our friends from the Key of Joy (Mason and Lauren) did their jazz for an early audience.  Then the DJ arrived and a Latin Dance Party emerged and took over space.  Dancers formed a circle...then took turns letting their stuff show in the middle.  And (what was his name?) in his turn, he came to the center, estimated the radius of the encircling dancers, jumped in the air, and did a complete back flip.  Twice. No picture. It was that kind of party. 

But the season is also the time to go to the mountains, to find snow to play in, to watch that incredible interplay of snow and sun that form Colorado's winter.  So there is celebration out of doors also...I mean, after all, it is the sun that is returning north.   It takes a while to get back.  And a good part of that while is Jul. Enjoy.