Letter from a friend

This is a note that I recently got from a good highschool fishing buddy. He is the Joe mentioned in the blog regarding fishing at the Kinzua reservoir, not to be confused with my father Joe or my son Joe! Too many Joe's! Enjoy

JM



Well it was about this time of year during the first oil embargo 74-75 that almost 33 years ago my friend when you and I headed out up the northeast extension of the Pennsylvania turnpike on a cold Sunday morning to do some Ice fishing in the Pocono mountains.. Well if my memory serves we had two military gas cans filled with petrol in the back seat and you had a pint or so of blackberry brandy and a few sixers in the trunk. Well we were almost alone on the highway that weekend as I remember because nobody in their right mind would be out burning precious fuel when no stations were open in the whole state..Well we cruised without stopping all the way to the lake..Needless to say you could count the number of cars we passed on one of Gums hands. We were riding in the mustang with the 289 cobra that was known in some circles to have once been equipped with a high performance resonator. I remember getting to the lake chopping a few holes in the Ice but finding it just too cold and windy to stand out on the Ice and ply our craft¦.I don't think that we even caught a perch ,¦maybe we did but I just don't remember..I don'tthink that we thought it better to hit the beer and brandy back at the car then to freeze out culdunes off out on the windswept ice. Well you polished off the brandy in classic Manduka style and I drank what was unfrozen in the beer cans which turned out to be mostly alcohol.With a good buzz-on we regaled ourselves with stories of trout streams and Delaware river smallmouths until the inevitable Yellow Breeches opening day stories kicked in¦Who could not laugh at Kevin and Fullcolly flopping around in the dank canvass tent. Or the campfire with pots boiling with beans, potatoes and trout sizzling filled the air with the scent of what I recognize today as the smell of true freedom. I suppose that the freedom we experienced during those special times could have only been fully understood by people our age and alas we were at the same time to young to understand the significance and importance of those moments. Ah youth is wasted on the young. To this day the smell of damp canvass brings a rush of memories so thick that I have to brush them away before I can regain any degree in clarity of thought. Of course how can you forget the time that we went from Yellow breeches to that little stream in Buckingham and you remember the one that the state put a few hapless trout in..Was it willow creek?...I don't remember but it was out toward Lahaska. Anyoooooo we walked the banks with huge breeches lunkers strapped to our sides just to taunt and freak out the locals. And we did, as I remember, telling a few passers by that we missed even bigger ones just downstream. What a scream. And do you remember the drive home from that Pocono outing¦...We ran out of gas on a lonely back road where you proceeded to put gas in the tank using some flimsy flashlight to warn oncoming traffic that you were stopped in the middle of the lane. No sooner then you started toward the back of the car when a tractor trailer came rumbling down the road baring down on your position and there you were waving that tiny light to warn him that the your car was directly in its path. Well by that time I was on some locals front lawn screaming at the top of my lungs for you to get the hell out of the way and forget about the car..But there you were ass against the trunk waving that tiny light. The car had ten gallons of gas in the back seat and for all practical purposes you were sitting on a time bomb waiting for the semi to slam you into oblivion. Of course as luck would have it the truck swerved with little room to spare and missed you without ever slowing down….you were nuts- only a lunatic would have held his ground but you did and lived to talk about it. And your only comment was come on It's a cobra. These are some of the stories of your life ..celebrate.