Manweekend

“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.