OLE'S FISHING BOAT

THIS STORY HAS BEEN CIRCULATED ON THE INTERNET -- CAPTURED HERE TO SHARE: Ole won a fishing boat in a raffle drawing in a small upstate Minnesota town. He brought it home and Lena looks at him and says, "Vot da heck you gonna do vit dat. Dere ain't no water deep enough ta float a boat widin 50 miles uv here." Ole says, "I vun it and I'ma gonna keep it." Sven came over to visit several days later. He sees Lena and asks where Ole is. She says, "He's out dere in his fishin boat," pointing to the field behind the house. Sven heads out behind the house and sees his brother sitting in a fishing boat with a fishing rod in his hand down in the middle of a big field. He yells out to him, "Vot da heck are you doing out dere?" Ole replies, "I'ma fishin'. Vot da heck duz it look like I'ma doing?" Sven yells back, "It'sa people lika you that give people from Norvay a bad name; make everybody tink we are stoopid. If I cud svim, I'd come out dere and kick yor ass."

A Pelagic Geezer Tale

Yeah, I built a metal boat, a sailboat. Didn’t put an engine in it.  Me and another guy sailed it to Hawaii.  Liked it so well we stayed there a while.  Sat at anchor long enough that coral and other stuff grew thick as brush on the bottom of the boat.  When we attempted to sail out of the cove through the gap in the reef, the boat sailed so poorly that we were blown on top of the reef.  We sat there like a teeter-totter.  Being ingenious sorts, we both ran forward to the bow at the same time and the boat slid off the reef into deep water on the other side of the cove.  This scraped all the growees and coral leeches off the bottom and the boat sailed just fine after that.  Didn’t hurt the boat at all.

The Osprey and the Fishing License

The following geezer story from Powder Monkey Tales was selected to be performed at the Idaho Centennial Play, 1989, at Pocatello, Idaho:

One day I went down across the road here, perch fishing in the Pend O'Reille. I fished for a while and caught a few. Just down the river on the bank sat an osprey. One wing was hanging down. Looked like he was pretty weak. Must a flew into the telephone line or something, hurt himself.

So I took a couple fish down there, close as I could get. I tossed him one. He ate it. I tossed him another. He ate that one, too. I went back to where I was fishing, and he follered me. I gave him another fish when he got there. Oh, I fished a while longer and headed home. And he follered me again. When I got home it was starting to get a little dark. 'Bout time to go to roost anyway, so I took the osprey out to the shed and set him on the back of an old chair.

Went out in the morning, took him some more fish and a pan of water for a drink. He hung around here for a few days. I kept feeding him. Finally he got so he could fly. He'd fly around a little, and finally got used to flying again. Two or three days went by and he finally took off.
After that, about every few days he'd bring me some fish. Dropped 'em off on the porch. Kept that up. Brought me a mess of fish every two or three days.

One day the game warden caught him at it and said, “Wes, you’re gonna have to buy that osprey a fishing license.”

Excerpt from POWDER MONKEY TALES - A Portrait in Stories by Wesley Moore, alias Post Hole Augerson.

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