The sweet little child, Anne Caroline, looked up and said, “Poppie, what did you do during the great pandemic?”
“We had this deal called social distancing--we had to ride in our own golf carts alone when we played golf,” said Poppie. “What a bummer.”
So Friday afternoon we went to the country club and played in the golf scramble. Of local businesses I think the country club may have done better than most. Every time we go it is crowded. Members are, in fact, social distancing and playing in small groups of four to six people. The club has probably done more business this year than they have in many years, primarily because everything else is closed.
The good thing would be to be able to convert some of these new visiting players into club members, and we understand that there are some new memberships. Good deal, Country Club.
Keeping social distancing in mind Saturday morning I convinced my wife to go over to the family cabin in Newton. First I tell her we can go over and lay out on the pier and get some sun. This eventually changes to the fact that I wanted to go fly fishing. Before it was over I convinced her that we could take our pup, Fisher, with us. Reluctantly, she agreed, that was, until I told her she would have to hold Fish while I was in the boat fishing.
Well, I paddled off and a couple of minutes of my floating around was all Fish could take. About that time I got a strike and caught a small bass as I inched towards the bream bed. I positioned my canoe (it was a canoe, not a boat) and landed my fly in just the right spot.
All of a sudden there was an explosion in the water. Fish could take no more. When he spied that bug on the water he had to have it. He leaped right in. I got my line back and he decided that he too would like to ride in the canoe. So much for that fishing spot.
Fish swam alongside and threw a paw over the side, which was just enough to throw me into the lake. So there we were, splashing in the water. By this time Nancy is chortling across the lake at us. Fish put a damper on my fishing trip.
I finally made it to the bank, Fisher sheepishly got in the front of the canoe and we started back to the pier.
Because I had not planned on swimming I was in the only clothes I had brought.
I was able to get Nancy to watch him a while longer and I went out and caught a few more fish so my trip was not a complete bust. When Fish decided he needed to play in the muck and duck weed along the bank, he developed quite the funk, so I had to get him out on the spillway and do a little retrieving before we headed home. He would jump in the water, and when he came out a stream of mud trailed from him.
On Sunday a small group of us, fewer than ten, met outside at a friend’s house and had our Sunday School lesson. We then adjourned and went home to watch Big Church on the cell phone, which was blue toothed to my Bose speaker.
That afternoon it was time for a little more social distancing so I went to the river and ran the bush hog for a while, then dragged off some of the sand from recent floods.
I think we pretty much followed the rules by not getting too close to anyone.
So Poppie looked back down to his granddaughter and said, “That is my story of how I spent the pandemic, and I sticking to it!”
