Writer's Block; The Walnut, The Squirrel, The Muskie And Me

After watching me agonize for weeks with the terrors of writer's block, my dear friends Jim and Linda Schantz stepped in to give a hand. Not without a few fish hooks strategically placed in the guise of, "Now might be a good time to get a job." I could never tell if Jim was jealous or just disgusted.

Whichever he was, he offered me the use of the Schantzs' pride. The Rebel is their 1938 thirty-six foot Berger motor yacht that is asea at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. The premise was that I could spend a weekend away from all sense of reality, wife, kids, dogs and the motorcycle. Ease my mind into writing something.

I figured, what the heck? It couldn't hurt, and I haven't been fishing for a while. So off I went on Thursday night (since I don't have a real job, my weekends can be anytime I want them). You know, I thought, maybe I'll see something along the way. I'll keep a good eye peeled for something, a hint, a taste that might kick start the old sludge machine.

The drive to the lake was pretty boring and very unproductive. Going through Cincinnati was such a drag (all my memories of ever going through Cincinnati are pretty much a drag). This trip through the usual traffic snarl seemed to be caused by a fender bender and the typical rubber necking motorists. As I crawled up onto the collision, I could see the involved drivers confronting each other. A blue haired old woman was swinging for the fences at the other driver who was a barefoot man of about forty-five. She was flailing at the man with a loaf of French bread, while the man who was only wearing checkered boxers was trying to defend himself with what looked like a stuffed pepper. Sheesh, why were we slowing down to look at that?

And then at about Georgetown, a rain shower exploded across the freeway. I was following a beat up old pick-up truck, when all of a sudden a dog sat up in the bed of the truck, The Blue Tick hound slowly turned to face me, and I saw that he was wearing goggles. The other drivers around me saw something hilarious in that scene that I didn't. All I saw was that the rain was making for a tense trip.

Pretty much a mundane four and a half hour trip that saw me ending up at the slip with no spark. Not a glimmer of an Idea.

Once I had everything aboard, a light on, a cold beer popped, notebook out, and my pencils ready, I stared at a blank page for an hour. Screw it, I thought. I squelched the light and hit the bunk for a night of refreshing tossing and turning. Running from the demons with bifurcated tails that ran amok in my head.

The next morning came like a long ghost. Groggily I awoke and stumbled into a pot of stove top coffee, or the coffee fell into me, I can't remember which. My eyes resisted, but the strong brew overpowered them, and for that I was thankful. The sun was beginning to peek over the tree lined rim of the bowl and I didn't want to miss the show.

Friday mornings are special at Lake Cumberland. The world is filled with weekend boaters who will grab a three day weekend from time to time and hit the lakes early on Friday. Lake Cumberland seems to be the one place that most of these boaters go, and with every ramp at Cumberland being a former mountain road, the show can be spectacular.

Fresh mug of strong java in hand, I set-up shop on the stern of the boat. The vantage point from the slip gave me an unobstructed view of the circus, and I wasn't a moment too soon. The first clown was already out of his truck and beginning to let his boat slide off of the trailer and into the lake. This guy's schtick was wearing street shoes and trying to navigate the algae covered landing. I wasn't too busy laughing at all the slipping and sliding he was doing as his boat was gingerly avoiding his control, to notice a terrific racket coming from beyond the other end of the Rebel.

The noise was nagging at me. So much so, I left my front row seat and gave up the chance to see if the land loving sailor wannabe was going to take a swim or not.

I crawled to the bow of the boat, which was facing the wooded shoreline of the lake. The shore only being about seventy-five feet away I could hear and see plainly what was going on. On the bank was a squirrel frantically chattering to himself while he ran mad figure eights. Quickly I saw what was stressing the bushy tailed rodent so.

The same reason that the landing had so much of its algae covered surface exposed had caused a stump to protrude about six inches from the water. The lake had been lowered, most likely to provide more hydro-electric power downstream of the dam. But, it wasn't just the three foot diameter stump that had the squirrel's feathers up. No, on that flat stump surface, eight feet from shore, rested a walnut. Breakfast was just out of reach.

Just before I was going to write off the squirrel's lost cause and go back to the circus, that little rodent got all quiet as he backed up the bank about five feet and tightened himself into a ball. No way , I thought. Just then an invisible cannon sprang the fur ball loose and four splendid strides later the squirrel was air born. Landing and clawing his way to a stop on the flat surface of the stump, the squirrel had made it .

Like a crack junkie, the animal grabbed the fruit and began gnawing and biting, vigorously chasing the meat of the walnut. After about five minutes of watching, a thought struck me about the same instant the same thought must've crept into the tiny brain of the rodent. Short of swimming, how the hell was he going to get back to the shore?

The rodent paced every inch of the three foot diameter, and once again decided to become a mammalian cannonball. Only this time he was precariously perched on the back edge of the stump. He uncoiled, bounced twice and began his flight path to the dry shore.

I'll never know if the critter would've made it to his desired destination because the most amazing event unfolded before my eyes. The monstrous jaws of a muskie violently exploded from beneath the water's surface and stopped the squirrel in mid-flight. Stopped? No. The fish made the rodent disappear. I'm sure there wasn't any smoke and mirrors involved. This was the naked, violent, beautiful honesty of nature at work. Brutally spectacular, and there was never a micro-second given to root for the underdog.

After a few moments soaking in what I just witnessed, I climbed back to the stern to grab some more coffee and to check on the circus clown's adventures with his boat. Again, right in the nick of time I arrived on the scene. The boat owning fool slipped on the algae as his boat was floating away. Grabbing the swim deck the man held on with what little energy he had left, apparently too tired to climb on, he just gripped the steel platform and let the boat tow him into the increasing depths of the lake.

A crowd had gathered near the landing, some shaking their heads in disgust, but most were laughing, and none were offering to help. However, a fisherman who was apparently done for the day and was trolling in to get his boat off of the lake did make his way over to the wayward boat and its pull behind passenger.

Just as the fisherman reached out to grab the runaway boat, there was yet another strange noise from beyond the other end of the Rebel.

Once again I crawled back to the bow. When I gained solid footing and looked towards that stump, I saw something that unnerved me. The noise that I was hearing was a bit of splashing of the water as that muskie was nudging another walnut onto the stump.

Shaking my head, I left that scene to scramble back to the stern. When I looked out towards the boats, all was safe. The soaking wet owner of the errant boat was now in control, the angler was on his way to the landing and the crowd had dispersed.

The show was over.

I grabbed a donut, refreshed the joe and sat down with my notepad. Four hours later and 23 pages of intricate doodling, I had zip. Nadda. Zilch. I was starting to feel that my mind was mush and my love affair with creative writing was over. My muse had kicked me to the curb. The slow motion punch to the gut of having to find another job was making its presence felt. I could feel the tailor fitting me with the ankle irons.

The remainder of the day was spent dismantling the fears of writer's block. Fishing did the trick, well not actually fishing because no fish near my bait wanted to play along. I think that fooling myself into thinking that creativity was gone forever made the task of erasing the fears almost too easy. I was blissfully whistling by nightfall as the exhaustion of doing nothing began to overtake me.

I stowed the fishing gear and went down through the cabin, past the notebook that used to hold hopeless dreams, and right to the bunk. Sleep came easy, but there was a dream. Not much of one really. Mostly an evil grin in the darkened fog. Not so much a menacing grin, but an evil I win gloating grin.

Seems like that was so long ago, but it was just this morning that I awoke from that dream. Puzzled at its meaning but in no real state of mind to considering what it held for me, I called Jeanie and told her my mission was complete. I let her know I was coming home today and should be there by noon. She asked and I let her know that I would explain when I got back.

Five hours ago I would never have had the slightest hint that I would be here right now about to run upstairs and explode creativity all over a printed page. Why now you ask? Jeanie had my favorite snack waiting for me when I got home, and just about two minutes ago, as I was taking a bite out of one of those delicious Rice Krispie Treats, a thought occurred to me. Snap, Crackle, Pop. Was there ever a fourth little chef? Snap, Crackle, Pop, and Bang? What happened to Bang? Did he succumb to substance abuse? Is there a cover-up?

As much as I'd like to sit here and continue this chat, I can't. I have a story to write!

Every purchase means you'll automatically be making a donation to Young Inventors International, supporting engineering and science students.

Doesn't that feel good?

Sometimes you get blocked, sometimes the writing flows like a raging fire through a dry forest. Check out the quickest lens I ever built at Willow And The Wonders. Pretty damn funny.

While you're at it, you can check out some funny as heck lens reviews at Joker Squid. Put plastic up, you'll be spewing coffee!