Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2012-33

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Pat Moore sends a fish story from a former bush pilot
• Mike Yeager writes about signs of advancing age
• Catherine Nesbitt forwards ponderisms for you to think about
• Carol Dilworth reminds us of how technology began
• Bruce Galway and Pat forward these hints for using lemons
• Don Henderson shares these thoughts about golf
• The editor reports on her tomato-growing efforts
• Sites are suggested by Carol Hansen, Catherine Nesbitt, Nevil Horsfall, and Pat Moore/p>

Pat Moore´s friend Jim, who used to be a bush pilot, writes about

FISHING AT DEAN RIVER

Dean River runs from Aniham Lake to Kimsquit on the Dean Channel. Kimsquit is about 50 miles north of Bella Coola, BC.

Four American fishermen chartered one of our planes to fly them down to the Dean River to fish for spring salmon. They had all their gear to camp and fish and feed themselves for four days. I would fly them to the mouth of the Dean River to an old logging airstrip at a place called Kimsquit and pick them up as late as possible on the fourth day.

I loaded all their gear into the belly pod of the plane, as well as using some of the cargo space in the cabin. They knew what the fishing regulations were. They could take out only two fish each, but I told them I would not take any fish that were not fresh caught, and they were only allowed to take one fish per day.

The fishing down there is excellent and I had little doubt they would each catch and bring out a fish weighing in the vicinity of 50 pounds. No problem. The 206 plane is a real workhorse and will fly with anything you can squeeze into it.

Well, I flew back in as scheduled and they were waiting there for me. Now some Americans are not the smartest people I have ever run into, but these guys were brighter than the average bear. Anyway, figuring that they would get full value for their money, they all decided they would not kill any fish until the fourth day, and then I wouldn´t or couldn´t refuse to take any of their fish. Since they didn´t see any fisheries officers while they were there on the river, they all decided to kill two fish each on the final day.

A deal is a deal, I guess, so we loaded all the fish into the pod. None of them had the foresight to bring any plastic bags with them, and neither did their experienced pilot. We did get airborn, but with eight loose fish each weighing in excess of 40 pounds, they all shifted around constantly from takeoff to touchdown. I can tell you that with over 300 pounds of shifting cargo, the centre of gravity did not stay in one place for more than a minute at a time.

It was definitely my lucky day, though. None of those guys got sick.

Mike Yeager, whose blog is at http://www.aretiredboomer.blogspot.ca/, writes about a condition with which most of us are familiar:

CONTENT WITH LATTE AND AN OCCASIONAL OLDIE

I can remember hiking with my dad. He was probably close to the age I am right now. We would be steadily working our way up the side of some mountain in Oregon and periodically I would realize I no longer heard him trudging along behind me. Looking back down the trail, there he´d be stopped, pretending to be interested in some unknown specimen of flora. I knew he had no interest in plants whatsoever. If I said anything like, "Are you resting again?" he would reply, with a voice handicapped by gasps for breath, "You´ll get old some day."

I was at the barber a few years ago having my hair cut. It was going along fine until he lifted up the few thin strands of hair on the top of my head and asked, "What do you want me to do with these stringers?" He must have been from the south, because he pronounced stringers, "strangers" rhyming with "hangers". There is a time when one is going bald where you can fool yourself into thinking that you have more hair on top of your head than you actually do. This delusion is perpetuated by only looking at yourself in the mirror straight on. From this angle, there appears to be somewhat of a lush growth of hair on top. The truth reveals itself if you use an additional mirror and view your reflection from any other angle.

I nurtured this delusion for years. Recently I told the 14-year-old beautician at Super Cuts to just cut the off the "strangers". She did it immediately and without comment. In an instant my delusion evaporated and I turned into a bald guy. When I got home, Katie, my wife, hardly noticed the change. When I pointed it out, she said I looked fine and there really wasn´t that much of a difference. My delusion ran deep. And to think I´ve been less than kind in my thoughts all these years toward men who sported comb-overs. And now I embarrassingly realize that I was guilty of a version of this desperate attempt to remain young and attractive.

I am writing this blog in a coffee shop in Boulder, Colorado. The young college students all around me are working on their computers. Most avoid eye contact with me, but every once in a while, one of them catches my eye and smiles. It doesn´t seem that long ago when I was a young college student like them. I know none of them has the same perspective that I do. What´s that saying, "youth is wasted on the young"? In the blink of an eye they will be where I am now. My dad realized it and tried to tell me, but like these young people around me, I didn´t get it at the time. I really have no interest in going back in time, but I don´t want to go forward either.

This coffee shop´s name is The Laughing Pig. They make a hell of a good latte. The attractive young barista instantly created an intricate design on the top of the foam. It was a fern leaf that wrapped around the inner edge of the cup. When she handed it to me, she gave me a warm smile. I don´t recognize and don´t like most of the music that´s played on their sound system, but they just played an early Leonard Cohen song that I hadn´t heard for a long time. I´m tuning the music out for now and waiting for the next oldie. I guess I will continue my practice of being content with where I am right now, even if I am an aging bald guy.

Catherine Nesbitt shares these

PONDERISMS

1. I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

2. There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.

3. Life is sexually transmitted.

4. Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

5. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

6. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

7. Have you noticed since most people have a camcorder these days no-one is talking about seeing UFOs like they used to?

8. Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

9. All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

10. In the ´60s, people "dropped acid" to make the world look weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

11. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

12. Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I´ll squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out."?

13. If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

14. Women - why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

15. If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

16. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

17. Do illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?

18. Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

19. Why doesn´t glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

20. Do you ever wonder why you gave me your email address?

For those who have forgotten how it all began, Carol Dilworth sends this reminder:

IN THE BEGINNING...

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dorothy.

And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear?"

And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah´s Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent.

To prevent neighbouring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew. It was known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures - Hebrew To The People (HTTP).

And the young men did take to Dot Com´s trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. And indeed did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates´ drumheads and drumsticks.

And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others."

And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known.

He said, "We need a name that reflects what we are."

And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."

"YAHOO," said Abraham.

And because it was Dot´s idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.

Abraham´s cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot´s drums to locate things around the countryside.

It soon became known as God´s Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE).

That is how it all began.

Bruce Galway sends these suggestions for using

LEMONS

Many professionals in restaurants and eateries are using or consuming the entire lemon and nothing is wasted.

How can you use the whole lemon without waste?

Simple: place the lemon in the freezer section of your refrigerator. Once the lemon is frozen, get your grater, and shred the whole lemon (no need to peel it) and sprinkle it on top of your foods.

Sprinkle it into your whisky, wine, vegetable salad, ice cream, soup, noodles, spaghetti sauce, rice, sushi, fish dishes. All of the foods will unexpectedly have a wonderful taste, something that you may have never tasted before.

Most likely, you only think of lemon juice and vitamin C. Not anymore. Now that you´ve learned this lemon secret, you can use lemon even in instant cup noodles.

What´s the major advantage of using the whole lemon other than preventing waste and adding new taste to your dishes?

Well, lemon peels contain as much as five to 10 times more vitamins than the lemon juice itself. And yes, that´s what you´ve been wasting. But from now on, by following this simple procedure of freezing the whole lemon, then grating it on top of your dishes, you can consume all of those nutrients and get even healthier. It´s also good that lemon peels are health rejuvenators in eradicating toxic elements in the body.

So place your lemon in your freezer, and then grate it on your meal every day. It is a key to make your foods tastier and you get to live healthier and longer! That´s the lemon secret!

ED. NOTE: Remember to wash that lemon really well before freezing it.

Don Henderson forwards these

GOLF TRUISMS

* Golf balls are like eggs: they´re white, they´re sold by the dozen - and a week later you have to buy more.

* A pro-shop gets its name from the fact that you have to have the income of a professional golfer to buy anything in there.

* It´s amazing how a golfer who never helps out around the house will replace his divots, repair his ball marks, and rake his sand traps.

* When you stop to think about it, did you ever notice that it´s a lot easier to get up at 6:00 a.m. to play golf than at 10:00 to mow the yard or go to church?

* Golf is by far the ultimate love/hate relationship. Sometimes it seems as though your cup runneth and moveth over.

* It takes longer to learn good golf than it does brain surgery. On the other hand, you seldom get to ride around on a cart, drink beer and eat hot dogs while performing brain surgery.

* A good drive on the 18th hole has stopped many a golfer from giving up the game.

* Water hazards are no walk in the park for fish, turtles, frogs, or gators either.

* Golf is the perfect thing to do on Sunday because you always end up praying a lot.

* A good golf partner is one who´s always slightly worse than you.

* That rake by the sand trap is there for golfers who feel guilty about skipping out on lawn work.

* If there´s a storm rolling in, you´ll be having the game of your life.

* You probably wouldn´t look good in a Green Jacket anyway! A sweatshirt will do just fine!

* Golf appeals to the child in all of us. This is proven by our frequent inability to count past the number five.

* It´s a simple matter to keep your ball in the fairway if you´re not choosy about which fairway.

* If profanity had any influence on the flight of a ball, most everyone would play better.

* The greatest sound in golf is the Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh! of your opponent´s club as he hurls it across the fairway.

* A recent survey shows that of all jobs, caddies live the longest. They get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and if there´s ever a medical emergency, a doctor is always nearby.

FROM THE EDITOR´S DESK

You may remember when I ventured into growing tomatoes in the indoor greenhouse my kids sent me.

I started out with six small plants which I bought in the belief that they were "compact" and would not grow very high. I planted them and put them on the middle shelf of the greenhouse under the top lights, and sat back to watch them grow.

They grew all right - up into the overhead lights! So I lowered the shelf, giving them room to stretch. But still they grew, and eventually they ended up on the lower shelf with the top lights removed and the middle lights moved as high as they would go.

Not too long after, the plants reached the lights and started to grow around them, so I cut off the tops, hoping to discourage them. They paid no attention and again reached the lights, so I moved the tops of the four outside plants out from under the light canopy and let them go. I again clipped the two on the inside.

With all this growing, the plants had little time for blossoming, but a few showed up here and there. I took a small paintbrush and tried to duplicate the actions of the bees, brushing the pollen from one onto the stamens of others. Eventually some tiny tomatoes made their appearance. but they are growing much more slowly than the plants, and are not much larger than a half inch across.

I am no longer trying to stunt the growth of the plants growing up outside the greenhouse because I am curious to see how far they will go. I expect someday to get enough tomatoes for a sandwich or two, but the whole experiment has turned into a learning experience and is good for a lot of laughs.

SUGGESTED WEBSITES

Carol Hansen sends the URL for a video of an otter pup getting a swimming lesson:

Catherine Nesbitt forwards this link to a video of a cat zoning out on catnip:

Catherine also sends this link to another episode with Simon´s Cat:

Nevil Horsfall sends the URL for a video of a miniature airport:

Pat Moore sends a link to this site for a show by a woman using hula hoops:

Pat also recommends this site for live search maps:

A number of researchers, as well as energy companies, think biofuel made from algae could one day help power the world. Whether it´s created in a lab or grown organically in water, algae can be turned into fuel to power cars, trucks, and even jets:

Melinda Gates believes that many of the world´s social change issues depend on ensuring that women are able to control their rate of having kids. In this significant talk, she makes the case for the world to re-examine an issue she intends to lend her voice to for the next decade:

To check out the features of the "freedictionary", which changes daily, go to