Single Male - SM3

The trip to the lake went well with only the usual few “old married” arguments between your parents.  It has taken you a long time to realize they enjoy it.  You spent too many years wondering how they ever got together and now you have to admit that maybe that is just the way it is.  Who was it that said, “Men marry hoping she will never change.  Women marry hoping they can change him,  Conflict is baked into the cake,” you think as they are now discussing which socks he brought.

After four hours of driving you stop for lunch and in two more hours you are at the family vacation home.  It takes an hour to get in, make the beds, stock the kitchen, build a fire and open some beers.  You see that your dad is slowing down. He’s had a long, full life, more than you’re going to get, “but that’s the way it works,” you think.

Your mother starts preparing dinner in the little kitchen after evicting a family of mice in one of the cabinets.  From the commotion you would think they were dangerous animals and whole nest of them could not have weighed a quarter-pound.  “Yeah,” you think, “I’m home,” and you start to break down, but pull it together before anyone notices.

The evening goes well as you tell them of the wonders of working with the President of the United States.  They want to know what  you are planning to do after his term is over as he is “termed out,” and you almost tell them, but decide not to.  “I’ll do it later,” you decide.

The next morning you and your father get the boat out, fire up the motor and head out on the lake, “To catch dinner!” as you dad loved to say on leaving the dock.  You go up to the north end of the lake and kill the motor after turning across the wind.  Your father puts out the windward side oar to act as rudder control for keeping the boat across the gentle breeze.  You are going to troll for “Wall Eyed Pike, best eating fish in the lake,” your father announces for the 200^th time in your life.  You thought of beating him to it, but that wouldn’t be right.

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