Thursday, July 16, 2009

I Could Have Been A Surgeon

I Could Have Been A Surgeon

I could have been a surgeon
I have small hands for a man 6 feet one inch tall
But I decided to play sports instead
Baseball, Basketball, Football
I broke every finger on each hand
The ring finger on my left hand has been broken three times
The knuckles on my index and middle fingers on my right hand have been broken
I even managed to break the back of my right hand
I’ve had so many cuts on each hand I can’t even begin to count them
More than fifty stitches criss cross my two hands
I could have been a surgeon

July 16, 2009 -- At Leech Lake

According to the online weather reports I saw yesterday the wind was supposed to subside after midnight and be no more than 5-8 mph this morning. Well, the reports were wrong.

At 10:00 a.m., the wind is out of the WNW at 20-25 mph, with gusts as strong as 30+ mph, there are white caps on the lake, the sky is gray and the temperature is 49 degrees! Is this really mid-July? I had to shut all of the windows in the house and turn on the furnace because the temperature inside the house was down to 60 degrees. At least the furnace worked, thank God.

As of now, there is no way I'd go fishing. I may even need to get a fire going in the fireplace. Yesterday when I visited the Malays they had a fire going in their fireplace. We laughed that it was another perfect summer day in Northern Minnesota.

I told the Malays that in California earlier in the week the temperature was in the 90s. It just doesn't seem possible it could be that hot anywhere when the temperature is so cool here at Leech Lake.

Throughout the day the wind refused to die down. Finally at 7:00 p.m. the wind did slow down. But as a long-time observer of the third biggest lake in Minnesota, I knew that a lull in the wind often means that the wind is simply changing direction.

Sure enough, by 8:00 p.m. the wind had shifted to the NW and was blowing at least 20 mph, with gusts pushing 30 mph.

There was no way I was going out fishing tonight, and with the temperature dropping to near 50 degrees, I decided to light the fire in the fireplace that Rick had built way back during his stay at the end of May. And Rick, in your honor, I decided to play nothing but Canterbury music tonight. Here’s the play list from this evening:

Caravan – In The Land of Grey and Pink
Matching Mole – Matching Mole
Hatfield And The North – Hatfield And The North
Gong – Radio Gnome Invisible Part 1, The Flying Teapot
Daevid Allen – Banana Moon
Steve Hillage – Fish Rising
Robert Wyatt -- Rock Bottom

Until tomorrow, good night from Leech Lake.