#6. Ice Fish & #43. Talk to strangers

So… I may have ice fished illegally. Actually I don’t have a fishing license, so I definitely did.

T decided over the weekend that he wanted an outdoor ice rink to skate on in our town. I (having sprained my back last week) could not skate but went along for company. First we drove to a rink that the town has put in a park but it hadn’t be cleared of snow yet, so we decided to drive by the river to see if it was frozen and if rinks had been created yet. Just as luck would have it a guy with a snow blower was down creating one good sized rink.

While I’m not so good at standing still while being unbelievably cold I wandered around until I saw a pair of foot prints leading away from the rink…. Curiosity and the dare devil inside of me decided I should follow the foot prints. Who knows if the ice was safe? Or if it had been tested where I was heading?, what if the foot prints went to a hole in the ice? A few pressure cracks in the ice that scared the crap out of me later, I found Bob. I Think I possibly scared the crap out of him too.

It was a beautiful winter Sunday afternoon and Bob was avoiding his wife. There were no sports on until the hockey all-star game at 4pm which he really didn’t care for. He preferred football on Sunday afternoons, but as it was the weekend before the Super bowl there were no games. He’s predicted a Green Bay Packers win.

He doesn’t live far as he walked over from his house. His fish bucket was empty as he was sitting on it and he said he wouldn’t keep anything he caught anyway. All the time I’m thinking poor poor fish. The water is probably cold enough as it is, and today they get a glimmer of light from all the sunshine and there is some guy there trying to catch them. I explain to him my dislike of fish but tell him I need to ice fish before I turn 30 and well that’s coming up quick. He smiles and laughs and hands me the rod. I having left my mittens in the car thinking I wouldn’t stray far from it freeze my hands.

I told him the story about how I attempted to scuba dive in Mexico earlier in the month and how I basically hyperventilated when I saw a fish and well that doesn’t do so well with the breathing tube and how I sucked in a lot of salt water. He told me he loved to scuba dive in his younger years in Costa Rica.

I handed him back his rod (after probably all of 2 minutes) and told him I’d put money on Green Bay next weekend, and wandered back to find my mittens and heated seats.

So there folks, I ice fished, it was cold, I caught nothing, I’m not sure if you can fish there as I believe it’s considered a conservation area, but I did meet Bob. And, if I ever see Bob in town and say hi, it’ll be a funny story as to how we met.

So even though a high school friend is kicking for the steelers....

GO PACKERS!!!