By
Ada Brownell
Melodious
laughter and the buzz of conversation halted. My brothers' dogs shot out of
camp like horses at the starting line. Snarling at the barking animals was a grizzly.
Joe and Everette
jumped out of their lawn chairs and shot after their dogs.
.
"Tippy Get
back here!" Everette shouted
"Patches!"
Joe yelled.
Joe and Everette,
back from catching and cleaning fish, never thought about a hungry bear picking
up the scent from their catch.
The hearts of
women in camp shot to their throats, fearing one of the men would be attacked. Prayers
shot upward between the wives urgent screams calling their husbands back, even
louder than the men called the dogs.
Joe picked up a
big tree branch, intending to fight the bear. He neared the animal, which was
growling, mouth wide open, teeth shining, but the animal suddenly turned and
ambled away.
"The bear
had better sense than we did," said Everette later. "But with one
swipe, that bear would have finished the dogs."
Fishing always
was a large part of our reunions.
Joan and I
decided we'd like to go fishing and hopped into one of the boats with the guys
so they could bait our hooks. Not long afterward, Joan got one. She's sort of
like me. Being the youngest of eight, I never had a pet in my life, so I was
afraid of anything that wiggled. Well, Joan obviously was frightened of
touching her catch, and she swung the end of her pole toward me. The fish
flipped back and forth nearly slapping me on one side and then the other. I
leaned backward and almost fell out of the boat.
Everette tried to
teach me how to cast on the Yellowstone River.
"It's
simple. Just do it like this," he said, throwing my line into the tumbling
water. "Oh, I already got a fish," he added. "Reel it in."
He kept
demonstrating casting, and each time a fish caught the bait. I became proficient
at reeling trout in, but never did learn to cast correctly.
During some
reunions we swam in lakes, pools, and enjoyed the water, but not in
Yellowstone. Some years we were fortunate the snow melted in the park before we
gathered near Father's Day.
We played
volleyball, Frisbee, table games, hiked and went sightseeing.
Kids painted
rocks, played hide and seek, shared their toys and imagination with their
cousins and other relatives. They also participated in many things adults did.
A few could catch fish better than you know who.
At one reunion, I
decided to let our youngest son, Jaron, fish in one of those ponds where you
pay by the inch for the fish you catch. He had never been fishing and since I couldn't
coach, I figured it would be a miracle if he caught one.
I stood by the
lake talking with relatives and turned around.
He had a whole pile of trout that were about 18 inches long. When I got
my eyes back my head, I discovered my brother-in-law helped him.
I gulped, paid
for the fish, but didn't know what to do with them. That reunion my husband
couldn't get off work. I didn't know how to clean them. So, I gave the trout to
my stepmother, who was delighted at the gift. Didn't take her long to get them
in the little freezer she had in her camper.
Oh, what good
times! What great memories.
©Copyright Ada Brownell June 17, 2014
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