Cool Guys weekend

I offer this post with some disappointment as I had spent half a day composing it, only to find that I lost it somewhere in the blogisphere. What I lack in writing skills, I make up in technical incompetence. So what you see is what I recall.

BROTHERS ALL

I couldn’t help think of this poem as I reflected back on this year’s “Cool Guys” weekend. The “Cool Guys” weekend is made up of 10 to 15 middle age men who get away to spend a time together in the North woods of Wisconsin each year. We are fortunate to have access to a very comfortable North Woods cottage in a typical North Woods setting – lake and all. Needless to say the men, including three 10-12 year old sons and one 75 year old grandfather (thank you), took over the cottage like it was built for them. What made me think of this is that this collection of men consist of some who started the group 15 years ago and others who were newly invited and there for the first time.

Along with the guitar playing, sunning and swimming in the lake, telling stories around the fire and preparing and sharing fantastic meals at the large table, I marveled at the ongoing process of making friends and getting to know each other.

Here is an Edgar A. Guest poem from a different era:

BROTHERS ALL

Under the toiler’s grimy shirt,
Under the sweat and the grease and dirt,
Under the rough outside you view,
Is a man who thinks and feels as you.

Go talk with him,
Go walk with him,
Sit down with him by a running stream,
Away from the things that are hissing steam,
Away from his bench,
His hammer and wrench,
And the grind of need,
And the sordid deed
And this you’ll find
As he bares his mind:
In the things that count when this life is through
He’s as tender and big and as good as you.


The other poem that came to me, because the weekend included three young boys and their fathers, was: A BOY AND HIS DAD

A good number of fishing trips and fish stories were mixed in with waffle ball games and flying frisbees.

Here it is:

A BOY AND HIS DAD

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip ---
There is a glorious fellowship!
Father and son and the open sky
And the white clouds lazily drifting by,
And the laughing stream as it runs along
With the clicking reel like a martial song,
And the father teaching the youngster gay
How to land a fish in the sportsman’s way.

I fancy I hear them talking there
In an open boat, and the speech is fair;
And the boy is learning the ways of men
From the finest man in his youthful ken.
Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare
With the gentle father who’s with him there.
And the greatest mind of the human race
Not for one minute could take his place.

Which is happier, man or boy?
The soul of the father is steeped in joy,
For he’s finding out, to his heart’s delight,
That his son is fit for the future fight.
He is learning the glorious depths of him,
And the thoughts he thinks and his every whim,
And he shall discover, when night comes on,
How close he has grown to his little son.

A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip ---
Oh, I envy them, as I see them there
Under the sky in the open air,
For out of the old, old long-ago
Come the summer day that I used to know,
When I learned life’s truths from my father’s lips
As I shared the joy of his fishing-trips ---
Builders of life’s companionships!

This is another example of Edgar’s sensitivity to the personal things that are important. I’m sure the fathers will enjoy this. I recall when one of my sons were the age of these three boys he pulled in his line and stopped fishing. When I asked him why, he said that he would wait until we got in closer to shore where the fish weren’t so big.

Until next time ----