Trout to Dream About

[Music] [Music] oh Robbie hustle along in there where you go okay [Music] [Music] Daddy [Music] well good morning bright eyes hi [Music] dear what's all this picture book layout on The Breakfast Table are you expecting guests I thought it might just start our day off brightly what's uh with the pajamas well to be frank with you I still hungry I already to get down here as soon as possible tell pour me some scalding coffee would you I'm freezing I've been halfway up to the North Pole all night North Pole I could swear I saw you in your half of our identical twin in bed last night oh yes in the flesh maybe but good but I was off on a dream boat away on a fishing trip like no fishing trip in this world hey you've got a raggedy little piece of burned toast there m help yourself oh how about a couple of uh burned eggs they go pretty well with burn toast Aha and a hoe where was I something about a dream oh oh oh a map oh well in this dream there was a big map painted that's the matter with a cereal there was a big map painted on the wall and a step ladder what goes on I said and in walks Robbie out of bed in his pajamas and carrying a can of paint and a brush he showed us where we were going hold it I'm lost already it's pretty fuzzy but I'll start over we got in a plane we dipped a Silver Wing over New York we zoomed up to Toronto we changed planes and landed at Windsor cross the River from Detroit mhm welcome to Canada anything to declare I can't describe the map to you dear it was just a little crazy anyway we arrived at Winnipeg Robbie just uh painted us right to the spot there was nothing to it the way he did it and at Winnipeg we changed planes again it seems to me you went shopping and almost missed the flight I couldn't have been that lucky H from Winnipeg we flew North way up into Manitoba lots of lakes and Islands very fishy looking country I asked the steward is to open a window and slow the plane down so I could troll for trout and guess what she said I know no trolling permitted below 20,000 ft how did you know that I S A lot we sat down at Lake Lynn Manitoba and there was a big old pby waiting to pick us up job only way we could get where we were going Robbie painted us a red line Northwest across reindeer Lake and started down the ladder for bed and we moved out of Lin Lake Full Throttle the pilot just seemed to head for a big trout and that's how we got to Waterberry Lake obviously you were reading the National Geographic in bed again no dear that was a couple of nights ago well anyway Our Big Tub sat down on some Sky Blue Water it was an eye full we got a mixed reception on the shorel line I heard a duck complaining something like let's clear out of here girls this place isn't big enough for that bird and us and a grumpy old seagull gave us a cold fishy eye but the real gripe seemed to come from a black bear a guy can't take a little nap out after dinner around here without a lot of bracket falling out of the sky that sort of stuff going ashore reminded me just a little bit of Washington Crossing the Delaware a fellow named Jackson owned the place quiet friendly and his wife helped run it funny thing about it I could hear a public address horn in the background telling Jackson's story of how he came to the very top of Saskatchewan and found this little Paradise in the wilderness he flew over this country with a canoe lashed to a pontoon of the plane and he liked what he saw so down he came he paddled all over the sparkling lakes and bobbed his way along the Swift waterer rivers that tie the Lakes together he liked it more than ever when the fishing turned out to be better than Fiction Big Fish willing fish and lots of them and there were almost hidden passages between some of the Lakes Lakes fringed with lovely forests and there was crisp climate too this was for him I must have arrived in Waiters carrying a fly rod because right off the bat I was fishing for Arctic gring in a beautiful stretch of fast water between two Lakes let the dog out before he breaks down the door will you yeah just a second hey here boy come on easy there your paws are all muddy oh he was born with Muddy Paws by the way what's an Arctic gring to tell you the truth I don't know much about it it's a cousin of the Trap family and hangs around the MacKenzie River system Alaska around up there I read about gring but never saw one alive before but I caught a barrel full of them last night great Scrappers they took a dry fly every time I put one in the water do you know something in this dream I was 20 years younger I wore an old red sweatshirt I used to own and I had all my hair blonde H the boy I married h i was a pretty good fly cter in this dream very relaxed had a small audience you know how fishermen are always saying they want to be alone but they really don't mind having a witness around when they're taking fish on every cast I can still see those gring purple gray and silver sides a big dorsal fin like the sail on a toy boat and ventral fins with necktie Stripes oh speaking neck ties can Jimmy brow one of your neck ties for the senior prom tonight I guess so tell him to take the knot out before he throws it back in my closet oh that gring fishing I have all kinds of memories of that dream if you can have memories about a dream but it just got more and more hectic cast float the fly bang fish in the net show it off lose one take another one hook out land another one little nature study and then I posed for Sports Illustrated Field and Stream Sports of field and outdoor life they were bidding against each other for my biography oh yes there was a lady anger in this story but not the kind that catches bigger and better fish than all the men she actually made sounds like um yeah that's what I mean was I the lady no no you turned into a rainbow as soon as we got there not a rainbow trout a real rainbow I get it something distant dazzling and uh out of your way I can see your subconscious mind working work in this dream what did you turn into well they served up a baked ham no no remarks please and I turned into a glutton the next morning a crew of lumberjacks chopped our cabin down sounded like it anyway and there was some bird under my [Music] pillow somebody dropped rocks in a box outside the window it turned out to be beef and turkey and all kinds of good stuff going into the freezer you should have seen the breakfast I dreamed up cooked it myself over a fire hot enough for well my old scoutm wouldn't have passed it for a merit badge one minute I was drooling over breakfast and the next minute I was connected to a lake trout longer than my arm the bear didn't like it hey that's my fish maybe so maybe so but I had it come to think of it it was as long as my leg how long well put it back the bear said I figured what did I have to lose I went along with the bear I put it back then it was time to eat again you know you you know how you can do something in a dream you can't do when you're awake well I knew how to Fil A a trout no kidding I never did it in my life I whacked it up into hunks the size of paperback books and sliced an onion over a whole frying pan full of it delicious how about cooking dinner tonight wait wait I started to eat the trout and it turned to fried eggs I bet the yolks were too runny you already said that Zing right after lunch another Lake trap nothing to it I just threw a spoon out of the boat and this big Laker retrieved it oh we didn't want to bring it right back understand I had to put a little pressure on it were you still wearing your red perspiration shirt never took it off well somebody cracked an outboard motor and we hit the riffle into the next Lake this voice came at me from the trees say Buster have you ever been attacked by a school of Great Northern Pike I couldn't remember but I didn't want to sound chicken so I Shrugged like an old marine sergeant I said plenty of times boy plenty of times and right away the pike attacked I just threw them a spoon and hung on the second one I Tangled with grabbed a lure that looked like something a witch doctor made up to cure the heie jeebies there seemed to be some company in the boat with me and the hardware was flying wild and flashing in the water my boat mate hooked one and we had a brother act going then I posed for all those outdoor magazines again they were watching my every move and telling me how to hold the fish Etc I went along with it of course my usual modesty mhm later on I gave the photographers the slip and demonstrated a few secret techniques in the art of pike fishing naturally I caught the B biggest pike of the day I played it for a while emphasizing the proper use of the rod tip in wearing down a large game Fish Elementary stuff you understand D nothing to it eventually one of my students slipped a net under this monster and I agreed modestly to pose with it I remembered too late that there were no photographers present and I thought how unfortunate that this Pike will not be recorded for angling history you were still a rainbow dear of course suddenly everything became very peaceful before you could spell Saskatchewan backwards a hush settled over the lake and I broke into music you had your trombone along with you no a guitar well you can't play a guitar I know but you should have heard [Music] me way up in can a day grow in a lake there's a trout they say that's too big to take it's bigger than my little boy is they say it's bigger than my little boy is don't you worry boy your daddy's going to hook it keep the far crack CU your mommy's going to cook it bigger than my little boy is they it's bigger my littley when I'm back from Canada driving that trout take it on your plate and eat it inside out it's bigger than my little for is they say it's big than my little boy and when you clean your plate boy and lie down on the floor I'll put away my fishing rod for good and ever there be no drout bigger than my little boy no trout bigger than my [Music] little the odd thing was the audience consisted of a bird one oversized Sandpiper with yellow legs I thought it was pretty decent of this bird to be quiet and listen to high class music and I was just about to step out of the boat and introduce myself when the bird went into a ballet you've heard of the dance of the mayflies haven't you of course know they soar over the water dipping and Rising it's sort of a celebration of Boy Meets Girl well this yellow legs had its own version of the mayfly dance it was making sure that there wouldn't be enough mayflies to start a wal in a phone booth all around it the Flies were hatching on the water and struggling to dry their wings and take off and this hungry bird was gobbling them up as fast as they appeared on the water or in midair really y even in my wireless dreams I never dreamed I could dream up anything like that you've lost me with that last remark yeah I guess it was a little uh fuzzy I think maybe you could use another cup of coffee this morning honey after that dream no all right I do want to be wide awake today you know something spouse you said you would not do any girl Scott cooking on this trip okay said I we'll fly your gas stove and your sauce pans up there and build you a modern little kitchen right in the bush imagine a rainbow doing any cooking oh yeah I forgot you were a rainbow with nothing to cook in except a pot filled with gold just like in real life yeah it's awfully early in the morning for biting satire now after all dear have I ever deprived you of anything in the 15 years we've been married uh 16 why can't you remember that 16 is it 16 oh hey I never do do I uh where where was I on this dream now um I now it's your dream oh food food that's it oh what food we had there every day it was the chef special on the beach Mrs Jackson not only caught her own lake trout she dragged it ashore and went to town beside the fire what's that aluminum foil you sling around the kitchen a car RB yeah that's the step she put the trout in that and poured the butter to it it seems that in the dream she drowned it in butter that she melted in a little homemade aluminum pan she made a whole kitchen out of aluminum handy that way mhm didn't she use any seasoning now wait I'm not finished sure seasoning onion sliced up and down the trout from head to tail and then I think yes A Touch of salt and pepper and well that was it you might say she rolled her own didn't she fix any side dishes uh side dishes oh sure side dishes uh she built a reflector oven right there on the ground with the fire's heat bouncing into a little lean to a sort of half tent and in there she baked a Shortcake and heated up some biscuits she brought from the lodge oh it was The Real McCoy all right I'll get it hello oh hi Pete H that's tough luck sure sure right to your door yeah yeah about 15 minutes okay that was Pete Jane ran him out of gas and he wants a ride to the station see I forgot where I left off I leave off uh Shortcake and biscuits oh yeah well while they were baking the fish was baking and when Mrs Jackson unwrapped that lake trout the butter and onion smell floated out and around like a colored mist and the violins began to play softly in the background and I thought any second a waiter in a red velvet vest is going to bring a plateful of that to me the music soared on on the wings of the Gypsy violin Gypsies and Saskatchewan yeah dreams can get pretty far out in left field remember well it all ran together then everybody [Music] eating suddenly there was a float plane offshore and a pair of game wardens I heard somebody say they were looking for a fish hog in a red sweatshirt m I wonder if I would have pointed you out if I had been there probably anyway I became invisible and the warden shoved off without me and then it occurred to me that I wasn't guilty of anything oh I kept a string of grailing but only a couple of lake trout I yelled at the wardens to come back and prove I was a Fishhawk but they kept on going and after that everything got a little wild you know the way it happens in a dream just before the end a lot of people turned up the woods were full of marching trout Hunters they even came out of airplanes and established a beach head piling out of small landing craft the fishing just turned into a string of Impressions scraps of movement trout eating spoons and getting the net rubba dubdub three men in a streamline tub and one of them was me patting a Laker on the back and saying saying go home boy but he wouldn't go he took the same spoon fought the same battle all over and came in close to the boat and said um uh what did you just tell me to do you know that kind of funny business there were trout all over the place some of them just Torpedoes of color underwater some of them suspended in midair between water and boat trout trout trout I remember two boats with four lake trout fighting between them a rod bent in the shape of a fish hook under the weight and power of a big fish rod took a little and the trout took it back the rod won a yard of line and the trout won a foot that's the way it went just full of fish color water splashing I never had such a lovely dream and there was one trout I remember with the light of sunset on it very dark and wet with kind of a gold wash touching the curved line of its shape when I'm back from Canada dragging that trout take it on your plate boy and eat it inside out there'll be no trout bigger than my little boy is no trout bigger than my little [Music] boy and that was just a out the wind up we drifted down the lake for the last time all of our duffel started down for the shore reluctantly in slow motion the air was filled with a regret you could feel it oh we send goodbye of course quickly goodbye goodbye then we taxied away from Shore a little piece and moved along toward some Open [Music] Water we paused for a moment to take one last look at a lovely stretch of charlon sun dappled trembling in the breeze and then we gunned the engines and took [Music] off [Music] n