Some miscellany · Crowduck

You asked for the best, and you got the best! Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to transcribe journal entries from Crowduck into the blog! Metallica! I mean, no!

First, I’m going to write down this one thing I thought of the other night. See, since I decided TV was bad, I’ve been plagued by a nagging feeling: Well, it’s just a mass medium; why is my mass medium of choice (books) so inherently superior to it? So I was sitting in bed, just having finished Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (tremendous book, by the way, and by that I mostly don’t mean “long” because it is very good). And it struck me – a good book is an invention. It’s not just a command on how to live your life. It’s helping you along on figuring out how to do it. Walden, for example. Thoreau, obviously, had lived longer than I had when he wrote it, and had more time to think about the best way of living a life. He put all that experience into a book. Because of that, I don’t have to spend all my life figuring out the same stuff he did: I already have it, and now I can continue from that point. Without computers we wouldn’t be able to get these sorts of complex mathematical and scientific discoveries that we get every day. Likewise, without certain books our whole culture (our knowledge of ourselves and of other people and of what to do with this whole “life” thing) would be set back decades or centuries, and we would be way less edified in general. Next I have to figure out what’s the point of edification. Because why would everyone want to be named Ed? Okay, on to Crowduck. I’ll leave out travel this year. Note that Micah and I were traveling with Grandma and Grandpa so we could visit some colleges (Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester) beforehand, and everyone else came separately.


We got Mom up to go shopping [at the Kenora Safeway] at about 0730, though she kept going back to bed until 0830. The shoppers [Mom, Grandma, and Tracy, I believe] came back at 0930 or so, and we left. An earlier start than ever, it happens! While we were on 17, it started raining, and it kept raining off and on, mostly on, all the way to the drop-off point, causing me to get the song “It’s Coming Down” [by Cake] lodged in my head. Both vans (Dan, Tracy, Mom, Dad, and Erin were using a rented van) arrived concurrently, and we called Bill and waited and he got there on the boats. It was still sprinkling, and kept sprinkling all the way across Big Whiteshell. I didn’t care. I’m cool. Someone, one of the dockhands, broke the news that there’s a [governmental] “backwoods ban” because the summer’s been so dry and they want to know where everyone is in case of a forest fire: So, we can’t go to Ritchie this year unless there are at least 40 mm of rain. It didn’t rain but maybe a half inch today, but it’s raiing tomorrow, so who knows?

[…]

Ah, the pickup trucks, the Limos. When we pulled into camp, the sky was a lot clearer. We unpacked and assembled poles and that kind of stuff. After a while, Dad and I even went fishing, with Micah. I drove to Darkwater Bay. Micah caught the first fish at 1620, a pike. They said pike are slow this year, but we caught one. Then, trolling, Dad caught another pike. We threw them both pack because you can’t keep any the first day I had zero luck. However, there are practically no bugs this year, because it’s been so dry. It’s great.

At the cabins again, I played in the water with Sierra and Jazmin [Uncle Dave’s nanny Maria’s daughter], who arrived at 1900 or so. Oh yes, dinner (soup) first, then water fun. It was cold, but we got used to it, sort of. Jazmin seems impervious to cold. I swam a couple times to where I couldn’t touch bottom. It was cool. We must’ve been out there an hour and a half. Vigorous fun.

Then, poker. At first I played well. Then I ended up sucking. Micah played absolutely every hand to the end, and he had some luch for a while that way. I tried to bluff him out once, but he just kept on going and took the pot. I got out with $6 of debt, but I stuck around to watch Micah lose all his money too. His strategy turned sour. Mine never was much good, though it did win me some hands.

Afterwards Dan and Dave and I checked out the skes, and I went to bed. I’d write in more detail, like I usually do, but I want to fish early tomorrow

File under: reading, family · Places: Crowduck


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