NICE WEEKEND & FISHING TOO

I sincerely hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend and that you did get to witness one of the many village parades! The parade in Norwood was truly wonderful and man, what a turn out – thousands of people were more than willing to sit, stand, stroll and visit as we all waited for the parade to start and then, cheered, clapped and showed respect to our Flag when various “units” passed by. Yeah, you all have read about this but it is worth repeating, it was a great parade!

I’m thinking the 4th of July is like a Thanksgiving pig out – man, we fix a lot of food and we consume a lot of food too. The big difference is, we use grills for cooking, which makes clean up bloody damn easy! And of course you can’t consume food and have family and friends around and not have refreshing drinks available too. The good thing is people stay put once they start to drink or have a designated driver, which makes this a very responsible act – hurrah!

Saturday was our day to go fishing. Headed over to Waddington and drove past the beach and then, looked for a spot to set up and settled in for a fishing adventure. But first we decided to drive to the top of the hill, look around and see if we couldn’t find a better fishing spot. While on this drive someone in the car noticed a road or path, I prefer to think this was nothing more than a damn goat path, filled with wildflowers, two tire tracks and didn't look all that great a road in my simple mind. However, come hell or high water, the passengers were determined we'd check out this damn cow path. Holy shit!

The further I drove the worse it got – now keep in mind I was driving slowly, not sure what was in front of me, hidden in the grass or even if my jeep would clear some hidden boulder. And at times I could see standing water and mud. The passengers (names withheld to protect their identities) just keep encouraging me to keep driving, stop being a wimp and damn woman, you got a jeep, drive like a real jeep owner! When I first bought this jeep (ten years ago) I was much braver and willing to test the infamous "we drive thru mud" claim. As I got older, I seemingly lost my nerve!

I gotta admit I was getting a tad nervous – if we get stuck here, how in hell do we get help – there probably isn’t even a damn phone signal in this tall grass path? However I was constantly cheered on to keep going, maybe we’d find a nice spot and stop worrying, this is gonna be fine. Well after a few minutes my common sense kicked in and I said, “enuff, I’m turning around and going back, this is not a road, it’s a damn goat path and I don’t care to get stuck back here.” Needless to say the passengers were roaring with laughter and all ready claiming this the best part of the fishing trip and we hadn’t dropped one line in any water yet!

We finally find a spot and begin sitting up, I think I had my line in the water and had my first bite when this black SUV pulls up and this man gets out. I mean, we all thought this was "the law" and wanted to see our fishing licenses (which we had) but no, this guy informs us;"spotted some catnip here and need to pull some." He collects this item and says, "how's the fishing?" Damn, we just got here and we don't need an audience and you ain't scoring any points with us fella, so please move on before we get loud and start screaming! He left, thank goodness -- probably a nice man but it was just flipping weird that he wanted to pick catnip in the spot we were fishing -- weird man, just weird.

Yes we did fish, caught “babies” and tossed them back. We spent more time picking up other people's trash and pissed that some just have no common decency and just toss things away and think the place will be nice the next time they stop by -- well it is, because people like us pick it up. And before we do this act, "items" have attracted flies, insects and a smell that nearly sees your eyes watering and your gut ready to heave. After a bit, someone said, this place smells too much, let's leave and then we'll set up the grill and cook our hot dogs!

“Hey, let’s go to Wilson Hill,” someone said and we packed everything up and took off. I could not remember how to get to Wilson Hill from Waddington Beach and should have turned left, heading back toward Massena but went across Route 37 and eventually ended up in Madrid…ya, don’t even go there – I took enough flack for this stupidity,[Now I know, if I had turned left and headed toward Massena I would have ended up at Wilson Hill and been a hero -- and yes damnit, women can be a hero - not on this day but we can be heroes]

So we came home and fired up the BIG grill and cooked our hot dogs [the ones we planned to cook at the river on this portable gas grill] and claimed them the best ever. And we have this lovely fish story to tell people -- what a hoot!

I’m O.C.D. – old, cranky and demented.