Junior Year Box Set

Outside the Circle—Top Half: What are situations where I can just be me? Parties put on by friends? Whenever I’m in school?

Outside the Circle—Bottom Half: Bodycam / Boundaries in place / Guard not up, but ready.

People I have bad feelings about: Trust my instincts / Boundaries up / Guard up / Alert Security

Under-The-Bus People: Be polite but keep my boundaries in place and the bodycam on. Don’t give them access to confidential or sensitive stuff. Don’t give them any ammunition.

People With Malice: Keep them far away from me and the people I care about / Know where they are at all times.

I looked the list over and got up to stretch. Well, that last part was fun!

◊◊◊

When Uncle John got up from his nap, I sat down with him, and we looked at my list.

“How come you put him there?” he asked, pointing at Phil’s name in the Circle of Friends who weren’t Close Friends.

“I’m just getting to know him.”

Then he pointed at Angie, in the ‘Under-the-Bus’ Circle.

“I love her, but these circles are about trust. She tried to sabotage Tami and me last summer. She made some comments to reporters that essentially unveiled that Dad was Phil’s father. Before that, she tricked Greg into marrying her. And finally, she tried to make money off my son’s birth. Angie has broken my trust on several occasions.”

“What about Tami?” he asked.

I just rolled my eyes at him.

“I wish I knew. She’s now dating Tim. I think she’s right where I need her to be on this list.”

“Did this help you?” Uncle John asked.

“It did, actually. It forced me to consider everyone and where they fit and showed me who I can really count on. I see that it’ll be hard to expand the circle without wondering what their intentions are. I got mad at Teddy Wesleyan for assuming that I was playing on his niece’s affection for monetary gain. While I hope I never get that jaded, I can see why he was so cautious.”

John looked it over one more time.

“I’d suggest strongly that you share this with Paul and with Fritz once we’re home and settled down. They may have some thoughts for you on the ‘how to deal with it’ side.”

Uncle John had a point. I agreed immediately.

◊◊◊

We decided to try for some trout. We talked to one of the men who worked at the resort, and he told us where a good spot was. He suggested that we troll for them in deeper water with a 3-way swivel, a 10-ounce weight, and a flashy silver spoon. I was impressed that Devin had the swivels in our tackle box. I wasn’t sure what they were for.

What you did was cut off two lengths of line and tied the swivel to your line. You tied a short line with the 10-ounce weight to the bottom and then tied the line with the lure to the other end of the swivel. The idea was the weight would help pull the lure into deeper water. It was far enough from the lure that it wouldn’t spook the fish.

He also told us that trout were sensitive to sound. He suggested that instead of letting our lure follow the boat, that we should cast sixty to ninety degrees to the side as far as we could. When the lure finally would get straight behind us for a few minutes, we should reel it in and repeat the process. He said that the sound of the boat would scare them off to the sides.

We quickly found out that fishing for lake trout wasn’t as exciting as the pike had been. It was a leisurely way to kick back and drink beer.

“Whoa, hang on. I think I snagged on something,” I shouted to Paul to get him to stop.

The rod tip was bent down, and then it jiggled.

“It looks like you have a fish on,” Uncle John said.

“Trout are just little fish. We caught them fly-fishing,” I said, confused, remembering a trip we took fishing in a river out west.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t a trout. Paul and Uncle John just laughed at me. Maybe I was wrong. About that time, I guess it got pissed off and made a big run. My reel began to scream as it ripped off line.

“Let it run, and when it slows down, begin to reel it in,” Paul said.

Dad, Phil, and Greg had pulled within about ten feet of our boat since we hadn’t gone that far from the resort.

“David hooked a monster,” Uncle John shared.

“You should video this,” Dad suggested.

Paul got my camera out and turned on the video. About ten minutes later, Uncle John got excited.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

The water was clear, so we could see about eight to ten feet down. In the murky depths, there was a huge fish. There was no way a trout could be that big. I eventually got it to the side of the boat, and Uncle John got it into the net. He hauled it into the boat so I could grab it around the tail and lift it up under its huge belly.

“That’s the biggest lake trout I’ve ever seen,” Paul admitted.