Dad's Story

One day when U-Gene and I were considerably younger, we elected to go walleye fishing on Stowe Lake. I inquired what we would use for a boat and U-Gene replied, "We will take my fishing boat tied to the dock.

Joan had at this time spent a lot of sweat and money landscaping the front yard at their cabin, and the dirt was wet and very soft with a crop of new grass coming up. I reminded U-Gene of this but he directed me, "Mr. Saum, get over there by that ash tree and direct the car and I back to the boat trailer."

Doing as ordered, I watched U-Gene with his head hanging out the open door back the big yellow open door up against another tree springing the door hinges so the door would not close. At the same time the big yellow car was digging 6 inch ruts in Joan's landscaping project.

Joan was out of the screen porch by this time stating orders and adjectives at U=Gene. His response was to get out, hook up the boat trailer and order me, "Get in, we have to get out of here"

I indicated that we couldn't do this since his door would not close. A mean streak in my personality made me say, "I can fix the door. I will run get a wonder bar." This I did while U-Gene as taking a verbal whipping from Joan. I got the door to close and managed to get in as we roared off to Stowe Lake.

Not one word was spoken during the 20 mile ride or during putting the boat in the water. I was secretly amused because of the punishment he had absorbed while the door was being worked on after being on the water for about an hour , he broke the silence by addressing me with an adjective I had never heard before.

I have to state that while I was tickled by the event, U-Gene got even. He caught 11 walleyes and I caught none. The boat was always positioned so that I was where the fish were not. By the time we left the lake, U-Gene felt vindicated and we resumed our close personal relationship as if the events of that morning had never occurred.

It is my personal belief that a part of U-Gene still resides at Lake Miltona even though he is not actually there with us. Consistent with this belief I would like to close by paraphrasing a paragraph spoken by the author Ernest Hemingway upon the occasion of the untimely death of a young friend in a hunting accident. This paragraph is correct, fitting, and suitable of my friend U-Gene.

Now he has come home to the lake. He has come back now to rest well on the lake that he loved through all the seasons. He will be here in the winter and in the spring and in the summer and the fall. In all the seasons there will ever be. He has come back to the lake he loved and now he will be a part of it forever.

Estle Saum