Manweekend

The Frank Martin Tackle Box Award

Official Rules and Guidelines

1. This award is in honor of Camp Randolph Legend Frank Martin. He was a renowned landscape architect, quality craftsman, master of profanity and expert fisherman.
2. It is to be awarded beginning ManWeekend VIII (June 10, 2006, then anuualy thereafter at each official ManWeekend.
3. The Tournament officially begins at 12:01 AM ManWeekend Friday and ends at 7:00 PM ManWeekend Saturday. The winner will be announced ManWeekend Saturday at the official Man Meal.
4. All participants in the tournamnent must be ManWeekend attendees in good standing and have their names officially recorded on the tournament entry form prior to the start time of the tournament.
5. By having their names officially recorded on the tournament entry form, all participants agree to the rules and guidelines set forth in this document
6. The award will go to the participant who catches the “BIGGEST” fish as determined by weight. In the event of a tie, the next determining factor will be length. In the even of yet another tie, the winner will be determined by Rock-Scissors-Paper. Best two out of three.
7. All tournament participants must conduct themselves with the utmost good faith, fairness and sportsmanship.
8. Each participating fishing boat must be equipped with a scale, ruler, camera and official tournament form in order to properly document and record all catches.
9. All species of fish are eligible for entry into the competition. So, if the fishing sucks, be sure to record that tiny Perch you so arrogantly thought you could use as bait! Also, fish must be caught live; no picking up dead ones.
10. All types of bait (jail, live or otherwise) and all fishing techniques are approved for use during the tournament.
11. There will be a winner each year as long as at least one fish is caught and it is properly documented and recorded. If no fish are caught, we will think of something.
12. There will be no money. The Frank Martin Tackle Box Award is ManWeekend’s highest (and only) honor. The trophy, official rules and list of recipients will be on permanent display at the Tobey Cottage for all to see and admire. A certificate, suitable for posting on your refrigerator, will be mailed to the winner.

GOOD LUCK AND GOOD FISHING!

“Neither rain, nor more rain, nor rain all !@#$% day long will keep these Men from their Weekend.”¹

Tom and Ty set a new record for Man Weekend by arriving on Tuesday which, unfortunately, was the only really nice day of the event. Everyone else showed up a few hours earlier than usual² on Thursday, except for Charles:

“We’re the Man Weekend Editorial Board, and we approve the following message:”

Charles’ [censored] boss [redacted], one hour before Charles was supposed to [censored] leave on Thursday, [censored] informed him that he had to [censored] stay for the rest of the [censored] week, despite his heroic effort to successfully met a [censored] Tuesday deadline, to clean up a few [censored] last minute [censored] details. All because their [censored] [censored] client [redacted] insisted on an impossible schedule and Charles’ [censored] [censored] [censored] company [redacted] agreed to it. [Censored] [redacted] did fly Charles up to Burlington on Friday but on a [censored] airline without a [censored] first-class section. We think that this is a huge pile of [censored] [censored] and if it ever happens again we’re all going to go down to to [censored] [censored] [redacted] and stuff some [censored] [censored] up some [censored] [censored] [censored].³

Spirits were further dampened by the inoperability of the Ty-tanic, the main engine seal of which disintegrated over the winter. Ty considered trying to buy a new boat⁴ but in the end decided that he’d rather continue to stay both alive and married.

This year Man Weekend was graced⁵ with the presence of Tobey cottage affiliate Adam who put up with the weather and being called “Copper Pin” with good humor. He even expressed an interest in returning! Talk about a sucker for punishment. It was the unanimous opinion of the other Men that next time Adam should bring his Hummer.

Undaunted by the prospect of getting really wet, the Aqua Pimp, HAM, and Ned & Co.’s fleet of kayaks⁶ ventured forth Friday morning and stayed out nearly all day. The fishing wasn’t great, probably because the lake was too high, but fish were caught and the fact that everyone seemed to have gotten a camera cell phone in the last year means there’s lots of proof.

And proof is good because Ty spent the interleaving year creating rules, entry forms, and log sheets⁷ for the prestigious Frank Martin Tackle Box Award awarded to the Man who catches the largest fish during the weekend, be it ever so humble. The whole thing would have been a lot more effective if Ty actually found Frank Martin’s tackle box, but maybe it’ll show up next year.

One thing that bad weather can’t change is Man Weekend food. Damn those hot Italian sausages are good! I think Patrick and Allen got those good unsliced rolls just to keep the consumption rate closer to Patrick’s production rate. It was Patrick and Allen who brought the sticky rolls that vastly improved the morning coffee set-up.

The Saturday washout meant that instead sitting on their asses, drinking beer, and cultivating sunburn in a healthy outdoors environment; the Men sat on their asses, drank beer, and advanced their pasty white complexions in a smoky indoors environment. The wind made even the Tobey cottage porch uninhabitable so, unusually, the Men congregated in Edgewood⁸. Tom and Ty still can’t agree on what happened to their TV so Richard got out his subminiature notebook computer and queued up Animal House, Blazing Saddles, and the Blues Brothers. Never before have so many watched so much on so little a screen.

The gosh-darn weather actually started to clear up a little Sunday morning, and there was the usual talk of a pre-departure fishing trip, but most Men seemed to want to get this weekend behind them ASAP. But never fear! The weather next year couldn’t possibly be worse! So prepare yourselves for:

Footnotes:

¹A low pressure system stuck over Massachusetts and rotating counter clockwise was pumping moist Atlantic air up into Quebec, through the St. Lawrence River valley, and down to the Green Mountains which forced it up to cooler elevations and caused it to condense into rain. Northeastern Vermont was basically the butt of a 500 mile long rain machine all weekend long.

²Leadfoots! The lot of you!

³[Censored] [censored] [redacted] [censored] [censored] [anatomically unlikely] [censored].

⁴Tom did come up with the perfect successor name however: the Ty-conderoga!

⁵To the extent that anything at Man Weekend can be considered graceful.

⁶One of which is pimped up with a combination GPS receiver/fish finder! See the pictures.

⁷Soon to be available in convenient PDF form at a website near you!

⁸The fact that Edgewood has a wood fueled heater that doesn’t suck probably had something to do with this.

Announcement

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!¹

Know now by these presents² that all Men are hereby
summoned to Highgate Springs to attend Man Weekend 2005 on the
weekend of June 11-12. Be ye noble³ or mobile⁴,
quality⁵ or common⁶, Man Weekend is a time when
Men of all stations gather together in joyous celebration of those
interests⁷ that all Men share regardless of class or
distinction.

The date for Man Weekend is chosen in a solemn ceremony when the
Senior Men⁹ retreat to a remote Indian lodge, strip off
their clothes, and spend the next several hours practicing smoking and
drinking rituals. Then, when everyone’s about to pass out, one of the
Men unveils his Oracle of the Gods¹⁰ and calls the Vermont
Fish and Game Department to find out when Free Fishing Day is.

Treasurer’s Report

I am pleased to announce that the financial situation of Man Weekend’s
corporate arm, ManWeeCo, is better than ever! Income from the
sale of Man Weekend 2004 movie rights and product licensing, and the
fees received for the stress testing of high-temperature mortar totaled
$172,500.00. Under the direction of Gilbert and Scott over the winter
our assets nearly doubled to $331,250.00 and after the last of Man
Weekend 2004′s beer bills were paid our account contained $9.35 which
is 200% increase from the $3.12 of a year ago! Gilbert and Scott are
looking into creating a subsidiary, ManWeeCayman, to shield our
hard-earned profits from confiscatory taxes. We are soliciting
volunteers willing to take a investigatory business trip.

Attendance Policy

The Pinhead¹¹ would like to reiterate the attendance star
policy. If you bring your official Man Weekend Hat to Man Weekend it
will be updated to reflect the total number of years you’ve attended
Man Weekend. Or, to put it another way, if you forget your hat one
year, you’ll get two stars the next year. Attendance is defined to be
setting foot on Camp Randolph property sometime between Thursday and
Sunday of Man Weekend inclusive and, since no records are kept, we
rely on your honor¹² to keep count of your years.

During Man Weekend 2005 the returning Founders will be sporting a
silver five-year star and two copper one-year stars.

Footnotes

1. This is for you illiterates who are having this read to you.
2. No, not gifts, you greedy bastard.
3. Your name appears on a Camp Randolph stock certificate.
4. Beggars and wannabes.
5. A Man Weekend Founder.
6. Johnny-come-lately’s.
7. Beer, fishing, and classic movies.⁸
8. I swear, I think more time was spent last year watching classic
   movies than out on the lake. 
9. Those of Noble Quality.
10. Cell phone.
11. Richard would really rather be known as The Mad Hatter but
    realizes the total futility of that. 
12. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Kudos to Glenn and Gilbert for this year’s motto.

More Men than usual succumbed to The Skirt and sent their regrets this year. This pitiful display of total wimpiness was offset by the fine performance of Ty Tobey who left a critical wedding (not his own) immediately after the second “I, do” and flew up to Burlington in time to get some serious fishing time in. It would be to the advantage of others to learn from his example.

Another fine example was set by Ned Atwater and some of his contingent who showed up Wednesday and had a proper Man Fire Wednesday night! Tom Tobey and Richard Heurtley, who appeared early Thursday, both expecting to garner the prestige of being the First Arrival, now know better what it takes.

Richard regrets to inform his fellow Men that the gorgeous woman who carted him from Richford to Highgate, Jill Lacroix, is Mrs. Vermont 2003. Jill’s husband Marc was invited but couldn’t make Man Weekend this year.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky the entire time. Temperatures ranged from a comfortable (with a decent sleeping bag) 40 to a really comfortable 70. The lake was a few feet lower than usual and ranged from perfectly calm to mildly rippled. Smaller boats could be beached down at the dock, which those of us with bigger boats thought was an entirely unfair advantage.

The fishing was good. Ned Atwater et al. put in Wes Dunham’s old boat, found a hot spot at the mouth of the creek, and sampled nearly the entire lake’s bass population. The Edgewood crowd caught a bunch of juvenile pike and bass and one nice 5lb northern while anchored “off the dock”. Ty and Richard both caught clams while casting with spinners. Gilbert and Scott, once again, did the best with several fine pike and bass, and have the pictures to prove it.

Chris cooked up a MiniMan Dinner of burgers, dogs, and corn on the cob Friday night with contributions of fries from Glenn and deviled eggs from Allen. For the Saturday Man Meal Allen brought 60 dozen clams and steaks provided by Patrick (who, being skirted, didn’t show up in person but after dinner we forgave him provided he shows up next year and brings more steaks). The surf and turf combination was very well received but a few Men observed that pigging out on clams before the steaks were done was, in retrospect, not such a good idea.

Man Weekend Mechanization took a quantum leap forward when Richard bought a timer module for the coffee urn. Now coffee starts brewing at 6:00am even if no one is in any condition to get up that early.

Combustibles at Camp were getting in short supply (note to Ned: Don’t burn all the wood on Wednesday), but while on a beer run Gilbert, Scott, and Glenn came across the end game of a garage sale and, inspired by the “Everything Free!” sign, loaded up Gilbert’s van with crappy pseudo-wood furniture and other odd and sundry items to fuel Saturday’s fire which was of epic proportions. Even Uncle Arthur (wearing a skirt) would have been impressed.

Early on it seemed like there would be a shortage of boats. Ty was coming late and the AquaPimp was imprisoned behind the Ty-tanic in the Tobey garage. Dennis, who usually hauls the Red Rocket and the HAM out of storage, was out on a medical due to an eye operation. The prospect of being limited to the Lamson’s Cadillac and Uncle Arthur’s 5HP outboard spurred the Men into action and eventually all known boats saw the light of day although the HAM and the Ty-tanic didn’t make it into the water. The Men of Grow Cottage were immune to the near boat crisis because they brought the usual array of superb kayaks.

Man Weekend gained yet another tradition, as yet unexercised. Man Weekend hats and pins were first distributed last year at Man Weekend 2003. The question of lost hats was considered during the intervening year and the result was the bright red Man Weekend Garment of Perpetual Regret, or the Man Thong. A lost Man Weekend Hat will be replaced for free with all appropriate pins provided the Man desirous of such a replacement agrees to being photographed wearing just the hat and the Man Weekend Garment of Perpetual Regret, with the image being posted to the Man Weekend web site and to be taken down only if the original hat is recovered. You have been warned. (The first Man to undergo the ordeal has an advantage. The Man Thong is clean now and will never be washed.)

The issue of lost and/or stolen pins hasn’t been resolved. There are a finite number of Man Weekend pins and since the institution of Man Weekend is expected to last for several generations, at least, there is a reluctance to freely issue replacements. Possibilities being considered are:

1. Charging a high price for replacement pins, with the proceeds going to commission the next series of pins.
2. Replacing lost pins on the loser’s fifth or tenth year anniversary.
3. Requiring the Garment of Perpetual Regret ordeal.

The attendance pin policy needs clarification. Attendance pins are accrued for each year of attendance, but are not awarded if the Man Weekend Hat is not present. All this means is that if you forget your hat one year (a not uncommon occurrence) you’ll get two pins next year.

All Men are cautioned to keep Allen Heurtley apprised of their e-mail address so that future announcements (Man Weekend 2005!) will be received. Please send Man Weekend 2004 pictures to Charles so they can be posted on the web site.

HIGHGATE SPRINGS – Man Weekend, a physical and psychological experiment that annually tests the limits of Man’s endurance for alcohol posioning, sleep deprivation, and sunburn; was another incredible success in 2003 with 23 Men representing six cottages.

Many of you will be familiar with the term “schedule creep”. Man Weekend is experiencing a unique form of schedule creep in that eager Men are showing up earler and earlier with some Men arriving Wednesday this year! At this rate it’ll only take some 360 years before Man Weekend transforms into Wife and Kids Weekend when we all go home to see them for a few days.

All the classic elements were well represented this year: boats, beer, fishing, beer, manly food, beer, golf, beer, pipes and cigars, beer, fire, and some more beer. More time was spent this year in front of the TV watching, er, hockey! Gosh weren’t those Stanley Cup prelims exciting?

Last year’s sacrifice to the Boat Gods seemed to have worked because there were no major problems with boats this year. A small armada went forth Friday morning into fine weather that lasted all day. Not much was caught on Friday. Gilbert’s prize-winning 1.6 pound bass was the best catch that day. There were some pike and other bass. Richard’s mudfish was just a warning of the deluge that was to follow.

There were no safari trips this year (please correct me if I’m wrong) but there was some gratuitous fun with speedboats. We’ve come a long way from 5HP outboards baby!

The fishing on Saturday was better with more pike caught including Mike’s prize-winning (photo proof pending) 29″ 5 pounder caught on a Mepps. Is the State of Vermont stocking the bay with mudfish or something? Richard was so sure that he’d won the exotic fish prize on Friday but then on Saturday so many mudfish were brought up that the exotic prize was canceled.

Future fistfights over fish pool rules have been averted by an emergency executive committee meeting (of whoever happened to be around) that decided that the pool will be forever abandoned and instead Frank Martin’s (a handyman that took care of Camp Randolph’s infrastructure for about 100 years) tackle box will be cleaned up and mounted on a board to be given as a trophy to the Man who catches the biggest fish each year. All men are charged to bring something to stock it with.

Instead of his ATV this year Richard brought an 18′ diameter dome tent (Shelter Systems) to house the overflow of Men he was certain would be pouring out of Edgewood. He was wrong, wrong, wrong about Edgewood but the tent (named “The Tit”) was fun anyway. (Dennis, who got stung by a wasp twice in the tent, might say otherwise.) It was furnished with cots, tables, chairs, rugs, a huge cooler, and fine literature and proved to be comfortable if a bit hot in the sun.

The coolest thing at Man Weekend this year was Patrick’s remote control four wheeler. You’re going to have to wait for Patrick to write about about it because I don’t know a thing. The nicest thing was Ned’s beautiful hand made wood kayak.

Instead of tee shirts this year all Men in attendance were presented with cheap baseball caps adorned with Man Weekend pins. One was designed by Charles and is of the “Drink up, boys!” guy from the Man Weekend web site. The others were designed by Richard and are attendance stars as follows: copper = 1 year, silver = 5 years, gold = 10 years. Additional stars will be awarded for subsequent years of attendance. The Man Weekend cap is the perfect fashion accessory for a long drive to Highgate.

Except for the Man Dinner meals are not very organized. Richard makes coffee in the Man Urn every morning he’s there. (Sorry you guys who arrived before Thursday.) Fred grilled up some sausage Friday night. Glenn was frying stuff all weekend long. Patrick took charge of the Man Dinner and worked magic on 40 pounds of steak and some shrimp and mushrooms. That’s one hell of a meal to try to top! If the evening fires get any hotter we may have the material to try lava baked chicken.

And speaking of the evening fire, Arthur outdid himself collecting (with some help from some other guys) driftwood and bucking it up and splitting it. He was caught sawing up wood at midnight on Saturday to keep the fire going. Ned brought more fine dry hardwood carpentry scraps. There was some discussion about What To Burn but eventually another boat was brought out to appease the Boat Gods. Despite the appearance of pyromania the Men prepared a garden hose and brought out a fire extinguisher in case things got out of hand.

Some Men went out fishing Sunday morning but didn’t catch much. Most of the Men have a long drive home and are eager to make an early start so they can start the wife appeasing process and get some sleep.