I am tired and stare at the sun.

Behind thin brown and yellow clouds above the mountain edge it hung looking stagnant, indifferent, cold.

The wind had been increasing all afternoon and we leaned against it. Ladders and men paralleling the shore, following the edge of deeper water like pylons of a missing dock. The breaking waves cause a great din; words were carried away on the air and rolled between the swells so we threw line mostly without speaking but gave the occasional nod or sideways glance to affirm each other’s fortitude.

I am hungry and lick my lips and taste corn dogs.

Corn dogs are a ritual at Pyramid. There is a thing called “fry sauce” which consists of one part ketchup and two parts mayonnaise. Someone said they thought the original recipe had sweet relish, or maybe bbq sauce, but they didn’t know for sure and figured it had something to do with which part of Utah a person came from. Some people mix their fry sauce while others layer it in the little plastic condiment containers like a colored-sand-in-a-bottle grade school project on which you glued a fuzzy little red wig and googly eyes and set on a shelf in your room. Regardless of the method of preparation the mixture was tasty on corn dogs and when the lunch-getters returned with their booty we came down from our ladder and gathered, dipping and chewing like addicts. There is an absent-mindedness to lunch on the water.

Shallots would be a good addition to fry sauce, I think. A little oniony crunch would complement the sweet fried cornmeal batter. Some might feel a high-class item such as a diced shallot has no place among stick-wielded food-stuffs, but I am no snob about that kind of thing. Delicious is delicious, regardless of one’s culinary prejudices.

The majority of corn dogs on the Paiute Reservation are handled by Val, the over-worked and ever-present counter attendant at Crosby’s who is best known by her ability to give very accurate yet amazingly vague fishing reports, take somewhat correct booking reservations, and occasionally give the right people the wrong keys to the wrong trailer, leaving the renters to fend for themselves like the participants in The Hunger Games but where contestants are released onto the grounds to fend for themselves among the maze of trailers and single-wides, hoping that the chosen contestants from neighboring districts realize they are in the wrong bathroom before they sully the toilet.

Lunch seemed a distant memory now. A wave broke against my shins, sending up a cold palm of water between my thighs, slapping my man-parts. I thought about karma.

Can karma be real? Destiny? Fate? Can ones past actions, feelings, and thoughts dictate the outcome of seemingly unrelated future events? Can thinking you will catch a fish actually create success? I suppose it can. The actions of the faith-filled angler are more precise, his mind centered and focused, his time on the water utilized more efficiently. But for how long can one maintain? How many empty casts and unmolested drifts can faith sustain?

Akin to the rise and fall of a wave, the high and low movement of the tide, sways the optimism of an angler.

The sun is gone and I want tacos and a shower. I stare at my sinking line writhing like a snake as it makes its way through the chop. I haven’t touched a fish since before noon. My back is sore. My face and eyes wind-burnt and weary. Landon stood on his ladder to my left, then Ben further down. We moved quickly, almost frantic in the chaos. One more cast. One more cast. One more cast.

I climbed down and uprooted my ladder. As I pushed out for the last time that day thinking about a cocktail and dry socks. Somewhere to my left a camouflage Nomad boat net slowly floated away to the west.

I want to sit by a fire with whiskey and listen to the wind and the water and the voices of my friends.
I need a place to go.
A tall man with thin white hair stands in front of me. There is a problem with the barcode and the clerk is having trouble. I wait in line and stare at the pink flashlights and yellow double-ended screwdrivers and key rings and doo-dads and knick-knacks.
A cashier is at the next register.
She waves in my direction and says,
I’ll take the next in line.
Across the store a woman struggles to remove a forty-pound bag of sunflower seeds from a display claiming Red Hot Buys.
The sun is out and it’s windy and in the parking lot a woman has locked her keys in her car. I can tell by the way she shakes around and repeatedly pulls the door handle and looks through the window. She has a brown paper grocery bag cradled in her left arm and a pale-yellow shirt.
I am the next in line.
The man behind me steps around and walks quickly over. He is short and wearing a brown leather jacket.
I want to drive North. I wouldn’t mind seeing some snow. Maybe I should buy some chains. They probably sell chains here.
Sir?
I look.
Weren’t you the next in line?
I shrug. The man in the brown leather jacket doesn’t look up from his items.
In a few days it will be 2015. I like the number fifteen. Half of thirty. Thirty is a good number, too. I am not sure about forty-five, though. I have no relationship with that number.
The tall man with the thin white hair lifts a plastic bag from the counter and turns away. He takes small careful steps and pulls his collar up. The doors swoosh and a few leaves tumble in as he walks out.
The clerk smiles at me. She has very pale skin and light blue-green eyes and is very pretty but not Hot. I imagine she has a dog. Maybe a yellow lab. I look for hair on her blue sweater and see none.
I step forward and place on the counter two Hillman 3/8in X 5in wedge anchors, two 3/8in flat washers, a 3/8in masonry bit and a small brown envelop on which is written the cost of the anchors and washers.
She pulls the items toward her.
I feel the need to call someone. There is nobody at my house. I am struck by loneliness but it passes. I am hungry. What’s in my fridge? I wonder what time her shift ends. She looks like she is in college. Too young. When did that happen?
The woman with the sunflower seeds is now behind me. She pushes the bag forward along the laminate floor with her foot and types on her phone. Something smells like lemons.
The clerk picks up the envelop and types into the computer.
Did you find everything you needed today?
That’s a hell of a question. Everything? I don’t think so. And needed? Past tense? It’s not even noon.
I need food. I need a place to go. I need to call someone. I need to drive and split wood and pour a drink in a place that smells like pine and dirt and wet. I need a connection. I need movement. I need to hurry. I need to slow down. I need things I have never heard of and will never know. I need everything and nothing all at once.
The doors swoosh and the leaves dance and the woman with the brown paper grocery bag and pale-yellow shirt walks in. She looks around as she walks and her eyes fall on the short man with the brown leather jacket and she angles toward him. She stops at his shoulder and says he is never going to believe what she just did. He doesn’t look up.
I smile at the clerk.
Yes, I have everything. Thank you.

It’s amazing (but completely understandable) how a lake without water — which in this particular case holds for me almost two decades of memories; a summer refuge and place of childhood discovery that I will always hold dear to my heart and has shaped a great deal of the man who I am today — just looks like a dirty, muddy dent.

They are draining it to fix the spillway, which I suppose is important. The lake is normally 280 acres, and the are supposedly taking it down under 30.

There are some upsides, though, as I now had the ability to casually wander the lake-bottom around some of my favorite fishing spots and give the finger to each and every rock, stump, and stick ever responsible for snagging my flies.

Silver linings, and all.

-Alex who may or may not have marked a few GPS spots, also.

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

The Men float
In their boats
Past creosotes¹ with totes and songs in their throats,
To the fishes
Their attention devotes,
To destinations remote
Better than any word wrote
Is the man in person taking note,
For the blues
It is a kick-ass antidote.
-Alex Landeen, Just Now On My Blog

¹I think creosote exist in Glenn Canyon.

Mr. Ben Smith also recounts these and other events.

-Alex who like Rapper Ice Cold pushes rhymes like weight.

Ben Smith, Scott Hotchkiss, Jason Jones, Marvin Chappman, Alex Landeen

AKA Blue Button-Ups and Cut-off Sleeve Awareness Week.

More to come on this…

-Alex who has to leave you again for a few days, (hence the preview) but will be back before you know it.