eat it and if I ate it, I’d run the risk of getting another taste treat like the one I suffered through at that motel on the banks of the Madison River.
Once upon a time, in a kingdom located on a great trout stream far beyond the Tomorrow River, there lived a king with a real beaut for a daughter. Her name was Rapunzel. The king, remembering how he used to save maidens in distress when he was a young prince, made sure she was well chaperoned when she was outside of the castle. He kept her on a short leash. She spent most of her time in her room on the upper floor of the castle’s southwest tower.
Rapunzel knew she was a stunning beauty and she had a pretty high opinion of herself. She enjoyed the appreciative glances of the local lads when they watched her long golden tresses and things bouncing as she walked down the street. She played it real cool and never gave any of them the time of day.
The fellows used to hang around the southwest tower and yell: “Hey, Rapy. Why don’t you let your hair down? Yeah, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair.” But she’d merely look superior, raise her nose a half inch or so and walk away from the window. Rapunzel had her heart set on espousing Prince Charming.
The Prince was a good looking cuss. He was tall, self assured and had dark curly hair. He wasn’t interested in princesses. He hunted and fished and kept dogs. He knew if he married he would spend his weekends doing the chores his bride had dreamed up - like re-chinking the castle or enlarging the moat so it would be bigger than Queen Guenevere’s. He knew his hunting and fishing time would be substantially reduced, so he decided princesses were dangerous and he stayed away from them.
Well, one day Charming was walking along a path next to the castle. When Rapunzel saw him, she stuck her head out of the tower window and let her golden hair flow down to the ground. Then she softly and coyly called out “Chaarrming. Chaaaarrrming. You could climb up my long hair and get up here with me if you wanted to.” Then she winked at him.
Now Prince Charming was no fool. He wasn’t going to get caught by such a transparent trick. Then he thought some other poor fellow might be trapped by Rapunzel’s ploy. He wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone so he reached inside his tunic, pulled out his fishing knife and cut off eight feet of Rapunzel’s golden hair.
That evening the prince went to Ye Olde 400 Bar for a glass or two of mead with his fishing buddies – Porky, the wisest of the Three Little Pigs (he was the one who built his house of brick) and an ugly gnome called Rumpelstilskin. Everyone referred to him as “Rump” because they couldn’t remember his real name.
Rump and Porky usually came in after dinner and the three of them would swap fishing stories and discuss the cares of the day and the troubles of the world. The wise little pig, a Technical Advisor working at Uncle Ed’s Pork Rind Fishing Lure Company, was the last to arrive. He refused the chicharones the Prince offered him and bought drinks for the house. It was a small “house” - consisting of himself, Prince Charming and Rumpelstilskin. Porky wouldn’t have made the offer if Snow White and the seven dwarfs had been there. Like I said, he was a wise little pig.
“Well,” said Rump, “you seem pleased with yourself. What are you celebrating?”
“You know the Big Bad Wolf?” Porky answered.
“You mean the one who huffed and puffed and blew down the straw and stick houses of your two brothers?” Rump asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one”, said Porky. “I just fixed his clock. And I solved another problem at the same time. After he huffed and puffed and destroyed their homes, both brothers moved in with me. They’re not nearly as neat as I am. The three of us sharing a one bedroom brick home is not exactly what you might call a wondrous joy. They turned the place into a pig pen.
“And to make matters worse, early every Friday evening, Big Bad comes over and knocks on my door. When I refuse to let him in, he really raises hell. He huffs and he puffs for a while and then goes back to his den. The neighbors are beginning to complain. They call the cops, but by the time they get there, Big Bad is long gone. Those problems are now in the past and I’m celebrating.”
Porky looked around to be sure no one else had entered the bar and ordered another round for the house. “Yesterday evening when the knock came,” he continued, “I said ‘come in’ and swung the door open. As soon as Big Bad stuck his head into the room, I beaned him with that 14 inch iron skillet I use to fry smelt. I’ve got his hide outside in the back of the pickup. You want to see it?
“Having removed the threat of the wolf as an excuse for staying with me, I gave my brothers their walking papers and they are now on their way down the road.”
Porky looked at the Prince and said: “Charmy, you look like the cat that swallowed the canary. That self satisfied smirk must mean you’re up to something. I’ll bet you’ve been visiting Cinderella again.”
Charming turned a bit pink, but quickly recovered and said: No“, but I sure showed that stuck-up Rapunzel,” and he told the boys about cutting off part of her long hair. He gave each of them a handful of the golden locks.
When Rump looked at his watch and said he had to go, Porky and Charming asked why he had to leave so early. The ugly gnome merely looked mysterious and refused to give a direct answer. He said he’d explain everything when they met at the bridge over the Main South Branch of the Oconto for their usual Sunday morning fish.
“And if that bridge Troll gives you any trouble,” he said as he left the tavern, “tell him to back off or I’ll have aunt Wicked-From-The-West cast a spell on him and turn him into a U. S. Representative and send his to Washington D C. That’ll scare the hell out of him”.
The next morning, Porky and Prince Charming were waiting at the bridge when Rump drove up. He confessed to stealing Porky’s wolf skin and he also confessed to having a second job - trying to teach the king’s new wife to spin gold from straw.
“She’s not too bright”, Rump told his friends. “She can spin very well and her fingers are nimble, but she just can’t manage that special knack needed to turn the straw into gold. I made a deal with her last night. I’ll spin the gold for her if she’ll tie flies and spin fishing line for me. Just take a look at these.”
Rump opened a pocket in his fishing vest and took out some #6 weight forward, gold colored fly line and a handful of wonderful Wolf Hair Wing Adams flies. “Take a couple of them,” he said. “They look like they might be a perfect match of this morning’s hatch. Charmy, do you think you could get some more of Rapunzel’s golden hair? I’ve already got a good supply of wolf hair.”
And the three friends went trout fishing and lived happily ever after.
A million or so years ago, one of our ancestors with opposable thumbs climbed down from a tree. As he wandered out onto a savannah in search of something to eat, he came across a gnawed thighbone of a baboon. He picked it up. Though he couldn’t find any meat on it, he thought: “What the hell, maybe it will make good soup.” At that very moment, a Saber Toothed tiger came charging at him.
Unable to run back into the forest and scurry up a tree for protection, our ancestor had to stand his ground and fight. He clunked the tiger over the head with the soup bone. This came as a surprise to the tiger. It had been accustomed to being the hunter
