2009 Spring - Wisconsin Writers Association

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Page 28Upper Lake St. Croix was a frozen mirror on December 9,2006. It was already 3 p.m. that sunny, cold day, and I knewthe light would fade soon. At this latitude in December, wehave usable sunlight for lake skating only until about 5 p.m.,depending on cloud cover. I finished my work for the day, anddecided a long-distance skate on our seven-mile lake would beperfect. The lake ice had frozen and firmed up a week before,and I checked it for safety earlier that day. No snow had fallenthat late autumn, so the lake surface was a brilliant sheet ofwide-open, clean ice; an old hockey player’s private paradise,something rarely seen now in yearsof warmer winters.From our garage hockey equipmentbox, I grabbed my Bauerskates, hockey gloves, and one ofmy old banged-up, ragged-tapedsticks. Hadn’t used them in a yearor more, and it sure felt good to beheading for a well-lit skate on theglassy lake. With the total lack ofsnow in our area that year, thewalk down to the lake bank wasquick. There, I sat on a big rock atthe edge, tied on my skates, andput on my gloves. I grabbed mystick, pushed off with my life-longskater’s legs, and power glided outon my smooth, personally reservedrink. There was no one else around.It felt sublime to stride strongly,and skim over the slick, bright surfacein the sun. I skated north about two miles in just a fewminutes, where the ice got rougher, then I turned around andheaded back south to explore around the Island at the otherend of the lake.In my rush to get out on the ice during sunlight, I forgot tobring a puck along to stick handle and pass as I skated up anddown the lake. Our puck bag, of many black, hard rubberdiscs and a few red-plastic street hockey balls, was underneathother gear in our box. I neglected to grab it when I left. Not aproblem for us old-time outdoor hockey guys; I just skatedaround any loose chunk of ice, small stick, or pine cone I sawon the ice, scooped it in with my curved stick, and passed it onahead to my imaginary team mates as I skated hard. What fun,and what pure joy, to move nearly silently, effortlessly on afast, friction-free surface. “Best skate ever,” I thought, eventhough I was alone on the lake. I skated along briskly, enjoyingthe wind from my speed, the endless blue sky, and theopen panorama of the lake and surrounding forests. I was lostin my own exceptional early winter world.Hey, up ahead, a dot on the ice. I skated up closer, andcould see it was a faded yellow round thing. A tennis ball? Orhad someone lost their street hockey ball or their drivewaypuck out here earlier? Curious, I charged up closer, neverguessing from a distance what it really was: a whole lemon,frozen solid. How random: a loose lemon lying on the ice,Ice Lemon by Thomas Wayne KingI am holding Sonja Socks and Debbi has Scotty Boots, bothpups are Sheltie/Border collie mix from up on Hawk Ridgefarm in Duluth, and both topics of several stories and manysongs in Red Pump series.hard as a rock, and faded from a bright grocery-store yellow.The story behind that was anyone’s guess. Maybe it fell out ofan ice fisherman’s cooler? Maybe animals got it out of garbagenear a lakeshore cabin?Who knows? Whatever its method of arrival on the lake,the lemon was exactly the missing “puck” I needed. I skatedfast now, in rapid bursts, and slapped it on ahead on thesmooth ice, then raced to catch up to it. I stick handled it forwardand backward, in tight turns and long loops; I tried crazybehind-the-back and between-the-skates passes. They allworked. I was so loose and relaxed.My team of one was lookinggood. If only I’d had a partnerto pass to or been in a game thatday, could I have shown them myold stuff. I didn’t even have toworry about hitting ruts or holesduring all my gyrations, becausethe surface was so clean and clear;almost like newly re-iced indoorskating.In awhile, I was tired from allmy tight turns, stops, and reversalsof directions with my new lemonpuck. It was my first skate of thewinter, so to slow it down a bit, Iskated directly north, around theeast side of Crownhart Island, thenturned south at the Island’s northernmosttip to skate along thesunny west shoreline in the windbreakof the tall pines on the Island. I cruised in a silent, pureworld now, sending my ice lemon way out ahead of me, thenchasing it, and shooting it out again, over and over.My attention had been fully occupied for the last hour, upand down the lake, back and forth. Now, suddenly, a movingshape came into peripheral view over my left shoulder, somethingmoving casually, at about shoulder height and maybejust 10 feet now to my left. It was a large bald eagle comingslowly to my level, in full-spread glide pattern with wings atleast 7 feet across, tip to tip. He, maybe she, floated in silently,about 5 feet off the ice, focused on the lemon out aheadof us about 50 feet. The eagle held his glide pattern over thelemon, dropping to about 3 feet above the ice, then tipped hishead down to look more closely at the yellow treasure as hepassed above. He gritted through a tight left banking powerturn, not unlike what I had been doing on the ice surface. Thenhe rose in the air, flew back around me, and came in againfrom north to south over the ice at about waist height, tryingto get a closer look at this mysterious object.I stopped and watched in amazement. My silent lake partnerrepeated his close airborne inspections of the randomthing on the ice at least three more times, trying to figure outwhat that wobbling, flopping, skidding, yellow object was:Food, fish, unusual prey? I can only wonder. Then he flew off,(continued on next page)
Page 29Ice Lemon (continued)disappearing into the endless blue over the distant forests.For a few moments, the Eagle and I were in a sunlit, clearworld of curiosity that day on the ice. We shared our joy ofmoving freely and effortlessly: him reveling in gliding,swooping, and turning in the air; me enjoying much the sameon my glassy two-dimensional medium of polished, once-in-alifetimelake ice.We both pursued a silly target that afternoon, and had somefun together. I will never forget us both, eagle and skater,chasing that random lemon during our shared St. Croix icemirror adventure. What an experience, and what a story. Icouldn’t make it up if I tried. And, by the way, our ice lemonis still in a plastic bag in our barn freezer near the Red Pumpto this day. It will stay there as a reminder of that cold afternoonof crystalline perfection, frozen fondly in my memory,forever.—————————-Excerpted from Tales from the Red Pump ~~130 years ofnorthland Wisconsin family adventures~~Pages 113-116. Copyright 2009 Thomas Wayne King. AllRights Reserved. Reprinted here with permission.Tales from the Red Pump is now available at these Northlandbusinesses:Solon Springs Mercantile www.solonmercantile.com andTheLittle Gift House http://www.littlegifthouseonline.com/Tales from the Red Pump recounts stories from over 130years of Northland Wisconsin family adventures, joys, andchallenges. These varied, wide-ranging Tales provideglimpses of human and natural history in our changing northernenvironment.Thomas Wayne King lives and writes in Solon Springs,Wisconsin. He and Debra, married 34 years, enjoy theirNorthland paradise everyday. Thomas, a prolific author andcomposer, is professor emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Some of his books, articles, and music are knowninternationally. Contact info: PO Box 98, Solon Springs, WI54873-0098. 715-378-2776 or writerrabbit77@yahoo.com2009 Spring Conference SpeakersMichael PerryMichael Perry is a humorist andauthor of the bestselling memoir"Population 485: Meeting YourNeighbors One Siren at a Time", andthe essay collection Off Main Street.Perry has written for Esquire, TheNew York Times Magazine, Outside,Backpacker, Orion, Salon.com, and isa contributing editor to Men's Health.His essays have been heard on NPR's All Things Consideredand he has performed and produced two live audience recordings(I Got It From the Cows, and Never Stand Behind aSneezing Cow). Perry lives in rural Wisconsin, where he remainsactive as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medicalresponder. He can be found online at www.sneezingcow.com.Raised on a small dairy farm, Perry equates his writingcareer to cleaning calf pens—just keep shoveling, and eventuallyyou've got a pile so big, someone will notice. Perry furtherprepared for the writing life by reading every LouisL’Amour cowboy book he could get his hands on—most ofthem twice. He then worked for five summers on a real ranchin Wyoming, a career cut short by his fear of horses and anincident in which he almost avoided a charging bull. Based ona series of informal conversations held around the ol’ brandingfire, Perry still holds the record for being the only cowboyin all of Wyoming who was simultaneously attending nursingschool, from which he graduated in 1987 after giving the commencementaddress in a hairdo combining mousse spikes ontop, a mullet in back, and a moustache up front—otherwiseknown as the bad hair trifecta. Recently Perry has begun tolose his hair, and although his current classification variesdepending on the lighting, he is definitely Bald Man Walking.Perry has run a forklift, operated a backhoe, driven truck,worked as a proofreader and physical therapy aide and hasdistinguished himself as a licensed cycle rider by careeninginto a concrete bridge completely unassisted. He has workedfor a surgeon, answered a suicide hotline, picked rock in therain with an alcoholic transvestite, was a country music roadiein Switzerland, and once worked as a roller-skating Snoopy.He can run a pitchfork, milk a cow in the dark, and say “Idon't understand” in French, Greek, and Norwegian. He hasnever been bucked off a horse, and contends that falling offdoesn't count. He is utterly unable to polka.Michael NormanMichael Norman is a writer and formercollege journalism professor whomakes his home in the Minneapolis/St.Paul region. He is the co-author with thelate Beth Scott of the popular “HauntedAmerica” series of true ghost storiesincluding, most recently, HauntedHomeland, released in 2006by ForgeBooks/Tom Doherty Associates, andnow available in a paperback edition. Norman and Scott’searlier collaborations include Haunted Heritage, HistoricHaunted America, Haunted America, Haunted Heartland, andHaunted Wisconsin.Michael is also the co-author with writer Carol Roeckleinof two vocabulary books written for ages twelve and up:(continued on next page)
Page 4: Page 42009 Board of Directors, Comm
Page 7 and 8: Page 7Sheboygan County Writer’s C
Page 9: Page 9Philosophyby Susan H. Litehis
Page 12 and 13: Page 12Craft Shop—Punctuation and
Page 16 and 17: Page 16Useful URLsA “URL” is a
Page 18: Page 18The Wisconsin Regional Write
Page 22 and 23: Page 22In Memorium—John “Milt
Page 24 and 25: Page 24More Writers’ Markets by S
Page 26 and 27: Page 26Life in the Manure Pile by M
Page 30 and 31: Page 302009 Spring Conference in Si
Page 32: Wisconsin Regional Writers’ Assoc

2009 Spring - Wisconsin Writers Association

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?