April 19 2008
Last week our good friend Marcel had arranged for a weekend of fishing with his new friend Bodine. Been planning for a month.
Only thing was, his wife decided to go see her mother for a couple of days, and felt that Marcel would be only too happy to take care of Bruno, the family dog. An English Mastiff.
Now the dog, Bruno, liked living with Marcel and his wife, and if left for long periods of time, he would express his dissatisfaction by destroying things. Like maybe an overstuffed chair, or perhaps the living room couch, or maybe, both.
Some how, some way, Marcel was going on a fishing trip. Marcel would work something out.
Saturday morning Marcel put a couple of rods in the back of his pick-up, and the Igloo on the passenger seat, and let the tailgate of the pick-up down. Bruno jumped right into the truck bed, no coaxing necessary. Besides eating and sleeping, riding in the back of a pick-up was about as good as life got for Bruno.
When Marcel drove up to the boat dock, Bodine was sitting on a piling, a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
As Marcel set the hand brake, Bodine stood up and stared at the big dog.
"What in the hell is that?" he said. Eyes squinting like as if the dog was a half a mile away.
"That," said Marcel, "is an English Mastiff."
"An English Massive what?" asked Bodine.
"No, No, not massive. Mas- tiff" explained Marcel. "His name’s Bruno."
"How many hands at the shoulder?" asked Bodine.
"Don’t know," said Marcel, "but he weighs about two hundred and thirty pounds."
"Is that all?" Bodine seemed suspicious.
"That’s all." Said Marcel. "He’s coming with us. I brought some ground meat for him in the Igloo."
"Yeah, well I just remembered that I promised the misses that I’d mow the lawn today. Guess I can’t make it. Maybe next time." Bodine headed for his car.
Some how, Marcel got Bruno onto the boat, and Bruno seemed to like boats as much as he liked pick-up trucks. The breeze on the water was a whole lot different than the breeze on land.
The fishing was good, but the highlight of the day, was when the Coast Guard came along side, took one look at Bruno, and decided not to come on board to check things out.
"If it’s all the same to you, we’ll just take your word for it." Said the Coasty with a grin.
So…it seems that Marcel found himself a good fishing buddy, and maybe lost one on the same day.
He was better off without Bodine though. Something wrong with a man that would rather mow a lawn, than go fishing…. don’t you think?

Till next week
Helga Biermeister
Secretary