Happy Thanksgiving to all!

 

Okay, so this photo of a happy Barb Ding, Dennis Kelsey and Norm Englebrecht was taken back at Douglas Reservoir on the second day of the New Year in 2015, when it was clearly a bit cooler than it's been around here lately. Still, if they're out this warm Thanksgiving Day, they'll still be wishing everyone a Happy Holiday. 

Stay warm, friends, and stay safe. 

New Way to contact the club!

 We know. Put your e-mail out in public these days and you'll start hearing about the police wanting to confiscate your Microsoft account, or asking about your social security number. Makes it hard for us to communicate. You should have a copy of the club directory, maintained by Barbara Ding. But you can now send a note to the club using the following new e-mail account: 

fishingclubloveland@gmail.com 

Click on it and try it now, so I can see how it works. And tuck it away in your address book. 

If you're not writing from your Mama's basement, and don't talk about something besides fishing, we'll get back to you as soon as possible. Fish pictures and reasonaby truthful fishing reports encouraged; nothing too dirty and nothing political. 

Just remember we're retired, nap a lot, and may be out fishing. 

Flatiron Fishing Friday! After breakfast

 Bring your poles to breakfast at Perkins, and we’ll head afterward to flatiron reservoir. There’s an entry fee, so if you don’t have an annual pass we can ride over together. Should be there about 9 a.m.

A tolerant curmudgeon recalls Halloween in the '50s

If you insist that a posting like this be somehow related to fishing, maybe I will tell you at breakfast how we caught those carp. I would also like to say that, Halloween excepted, I was a pretty good kid.  Bill 

The "NextDoor" internet groups here in Colorado have been awash with complaints that rotten 21st Century kids took all the Halloween candy left untended in bowls on  porches. This semi-alarming news forces an admission from this 73-year-old retired trick or treater:  a concession that I - and my future minister brother Paulie - were pretty darned rotten during the Halloween seasons of the ‘50s. (I say seasons because the holiday in Granite City, IL back then wasn’t limited to a single night. You hit up neighbors a day or two before Halloween to get a proper sugar high, then returned to ones that gave the best treats.

Anyway, tired of youthful homeowners berating today’s youth (and secure in my knowledge that statutes of limitations have long passed), I cheerfully concede the following:

1. Did you steal some of little Denny Walk’s candy, and pilfer the Halloween bags of the Blanton girls looking for Snickers bars? 

A. Well yeah, but we left them all the Milky Ways.

2. Did you soap the inside of Larry Jackson’s car windows, while the two of you were on your way to apply festive red paint to the porch lights at St. Elizabeth School nunnery? 

A. Well yeah. Never did admit that to Larry, though, until just now.

3. Did you soap windows all up and down Warnock Avenue, then sit on the roof of your own home with a garden hose and spray other kids trying to do the same thing? 

A. Yeah, that was me all right. But I think Paulie and Jim Parker were up there with me.

4. Will you finally 'fess up to helping Jim and the future Rev. Paul hide those freshly dead carp in mail boxes and under porches up and down Warnock?

A. Yeah. Heh Heh. That was a warm autumn, too.

5. And finally, did you guys really set fire to bags of fresh dog poop on neighbors’ porches? 

A. Oh yeah, that was us all right. That Halloween trick just never got old, watching the neighbors cuss the flames.  In fairness, we always made sure to knock on the door or ring the doorbell, and watch from the shadows to make sure someone safely stomped out that stuff.

Point is, sheesh, leave today’s kids alone. As penance for my own youthful tricks, for years as a young adult I left pumpkins unguarded on the front porch. I eventually gave up after they rotted before ever being smashed. And I concede that most kids these days are generally not nearly as rotten as we were in the '50s. I doubt they even know what soaping a windows means.