From our kayak, we monitor a man fishing, seemingly without success, from a pontoon boat on the north side of the lake. He is at the ramp packing up his gear when we arrive. It seems the two of us are alone when he asks, “What catches ‘em here?”
“Worms!” The emphatic answer rattles the side of a Porta-Potty set back in the trees. We look about, puzzled. No third vehicle. No fishing gear laying around. No one stepping forth. Do our ears deceive us?
The Porta-Potty extrudes a young man, early- mid-twenties, wearing baggy black clothes, hitching his belt. Walked a mile-plus from his grandma’ and grandpa’s where he’s been making jam, pickling cucumbers, and canning fruit. Come to check his crawdad trap sunk in the pool at the base of the little dam.
Ride home? We fit him in amongst the kayak and gear pushed into the back of our vehicle. In his grandparents’ driveway, he tells us, wait, and returns with a half-gallon Ball jar filled with long, oddly twisted dill pickles. None better. Grape leaves, he says, keeps ‘em crunchy.