Camping at McDonald Lake

My dad loved to fish. He would often spend the day working in the fields until just before sunset and head to the river to catch a walleye or northern. I never did enjoy the fishing as much as my dad. I suppose no one could. The mold was broken when he was born.
I said I did not enjoy fishing as much as my dad. That does not mean I had less fun on a fishing trip. Some of my antics probably disappointed my dad. I know he loved to tell the stories of his conquests to family and friends. I rarely stayed at my fishing post and caught as many as expected. Dad would flail the water until there was total darkness. Not me.
Nonetheless, I was often part of his fishing adventures. I would eagerly help load the car with our supplies. I would help get the boat into the water. One trip did not include the rest of our family. And, it was overnight. My dad and I were joined in our fishing camping trip by a family friend of my dad's. I think it was Leonard White.
This trip was really fun. Dad had made arrangements to camp next to McDonald Lake in a pasture. We were within walking distance of a regular campground about a quarter mile away. But, the campground probably cost more than we could afford. So, here we were, camped where you had to be careful where you stepped or your shoe would smell for a long time. The place had what I wanted. I could go for a stroll up into the trees and return with an armful of firewood. The lush green grass was a guarantee that a fire would not spread.
Dad went out fishing many times and left me at the campsite. Perfect with me be cause I could move about. Sitting in a boat was way to restrictive for me. I remember the pots and pans from moms kitchen. I remember the jars of produce from our pantry. This is the likely place that I learned to appreciate a personal fire. If you built a large fire, it was of little use for anything except warming one side of your body at a time. But, if you controlled your fire, you could move the fire aside enough to expose the coals. Then you could rest a pan on these coals.
I am sure dad caught many fish on this trip. I started figuring out some of life's important truths. The chief lesson was "More is not necessarily better".
KB

Coffee

How did I acquire a taste for coffee? It makes me stop and think. You know I am thinking when the steam comes out my ears. Steam is pouring from my ears enough to make the windows in my home fog up. I am thinking.
I remember my first taste of coffee. It was unique. It was black coffee. My thought was how can I make this tolerable? I knew there were at least four ways to drink coffee. As I say, my first taste was black. That was one option, albeit rejected.
Another coffee choice was with sugar. I was aware that with enough sugar, almost anything started to taste good. Tempting choice.
Still another choice was to use cream. You see, cream was like sugar. If you wanted something to taste really good, you poured the cream to it. My childhood is full of examples of making something especially good with copious amounts of cream. Take for example, peaches or cereal. "Peaches and cream, ah ah ah ah ah" comes to mind. So, I had to try cream.
If, sugar was great and cream was also great, how about both in the coffee?
I tried these different ways to make my coffee good. I really wanted to be a part of the big people world. If I used bot cream and sugar it was way, way too rich. I just did not like it that way. Interestingly, the sugar failed to make the coffee much better. But, a little bit of real cream into a cup of coffee was very good. It turned coffee from something to tolerate to something to cherish and savor.
The choice of coffee, or not, was now an easy choice. I was a coffee drinker.
The choice to include cream in the coffee was a little more complicated. At the time I started drinking coffee, there was no problem getting the coffee or whatever condiment to drink with it. Coffee, yes or no. Cream, yes or no. So it was , Yes please, yes please.
Well, as I grew older, the World changed. Some yahoo invented hydrogenation. They would take totally crappy oils and hydrogenate them until they had a hint of the taste of cream. Hence, coffee creamer. The advertisements even suggested it tasted as good as cream. I am here to say it was nowhere near to as good as cream. It was a substitute. It was an impostor. It was NOT cream.
So why make such a big deal about something with so little impact? It was not a little impact. It was a huge problem. They changed the rules in the middle of the game. You see, some people bought into the push to use fake cream. With each new convert, the demand for real cream went drastically down. So, at a restaurant, for example, the fresh cream did not get used as much.
Not getting used as much meant the cream in the little cream container was not as fresh as in the old days. If you went to your favorite restaurant as they opened for the morning, you could expect the cream would be fresh. But, what if you showed up at say 11:00? If you mindlessly poured from the cream container, you often discovered the cream had curdled. Or worse, it looked just fine, but with a sip, you noticed the cream had actually soured. Oh, my gosh. Soured cream in coffee is not good.
What to do? The quandary was huge. I began thinking about whether the cream would be good or not before I committed to the coffee and cream. Other times it was not worth the risk so I would tolerate coffee without cream to avoid a bad taste of soured cream I remember a day when I was about thirty that I decided the struggle to get fresh, rich cream was not worth it. Coffee was still important. So I made the rational choice to drink my coffee black. It was a great choice. I soon learned to really like the coffee this way.
That does not say that I lost my appreciation of excellent coffee with some fresh, rich cream. When I get such coffee, I will almost always cradle the cup in my hands and think to myself, Heaven!