Technical Difficulties

       "Guys on Ice," by Fred Alley and James Kaplan, is billed as "The Ice-Fishing Musical," and is set in my home state of Wisconsin. I haven't seen it, since I have a long-standing aversion to theatrical productions not involving showgirls. But I understand dancing is involved.

     I think I speak for ice-fishermen from the Finger Lakes of New York State to the Sandhills of Nebraska when I say that anyone performing a dance in an ice shanty should be shoved outside, and then pelted with dead smelt.

     Well, wait. I suppose a little impromptu jig if you've caught more fish than me is entirely appropriate. But any sort of choreographed number is completely unacceptable.

     As an aside related to dance, I will say that after I graduated from college I obtained work as a forester in Michigan. While in Michigan I maintained a dalliance with a gorgeous young woman whose name escapes me now. And by "dalliance" I mean that I pursued her ardently, and she was dimly aware that I existed.

     Anyway, she was heavily involved in flag team competitions, where groups of girls performed dance moves to music while waving brightly-colored pieces of cloth. To impress my intended, I attended one of her competitions in some Detroit suburb. I took my seat in the gymnasium bleachers, and the first number began to pulsating beats. After it ended, I admitted to myself that it was really good, in much the same way that the moment when you stop hitting yourself in the head with a hammer is really good.

     After a couple more such exhibitions, I surmised the entertainment was pretty close to an end. I thought the same thing after the next number, and the next, and the next. On it went, for six hours, until finally the whole god-awful mess came to a halt. I scrambled out of the gym, knocking over contestants and coaches and proud grandparents, and sprinted to my truck.

     Back to Guys on Ice. My general impression after reading press releases and critical reviews is that the musical portrays we of the hard-water clan as good-natured, if a little dim, and maybe a bit behind the times.

     Good-natured but dim perfectly describes my fishing buddy, John. But behind the times? Many ice-fishermen, John included, use technically-advanced equipment which would have left our jigstick-wielding forebearers slackjawed. Locators. Lightweight, mobile shelters. Global positioning system units. And underwater cameras. We're practically ready for a trip to Mars.

     Of course, I do not own an underwater camera-- out of concern for the fish. Just as I don't want a recorder in my living room, catching me sitting in my boxer shorts eating hot dogs from the package while watching professional wrestling, so I want to spare a bluegill the embarrassment of me catching it doing the piscine equivalent of picking its nose.

     The truth is, you could say I have a somewhat adversarial relationship with technology. A month or so ago, I called my wife, Lori, out to the driveway for our annual trailer-light inspection ritual. The results are always the same, no matter how well the lights worked the previous year. This year was no different as I looked in my truck's rearview mirror while Lori stood behind the trailer:

     "Brake lights?"

     "Good."

     "Right turn signal?"

     "Good."

     "Left turn signal?...Left turn signal?...(Expletive!)"

     It has now gotten to the point where the collective wads of electrical tape attached to the trailer's wiring weigh more than the trailer itself, and I have a more extensive collection of wire nuts than most hardware stores.

     John has no such adversarial relationship with technology. In fact, he never met a piece of technology he didn't like (or buy), especially when it pertains to ice-fishing.

     He not only has an underwater camera and a locator, he also has two ice shelters and a bucket full of graphite jigging rods, along with a dozen state-of-the-art tip-ups and a backpack to carry them all in. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the fact that John has obsessive-compulsive disorder and is compelled to buy every new piece of gear he finds.

     I guess that's better than, say, having to turn a light switch on and off 20 times before he enters a room. But if John ever misses a credit card payment all of us will be on street corners selling apples from carts...which John will happily buy.

     On our ice-fishing forays, I trudge behind John and his team of Sherpas, bearing a five-gallon bucket which contains my meager assortment of gear: one jigging rod, a tip-up, and a prescription bottle containing a few ice jigs.

     I usually get cold pretty early in our trips, because while John sports the most advanced apparel, mine hasn't advanced significantly since the days of my grandmother's hand-knitted yarn mittens-- which had the insulating qualities of, well, wet yarn.

     I wore a pair of those mittens one day long ago, during a fisharee on Wisconsin's Little Lake Butte des Morts.

     "Butte des Morts" is French for "Hill of the Dead," and in retrospect I should have considered that an omen.

     It was a very cold day, and to combat the cold I did what any kid would do, which was drink massive quantities of hot chocolate. Now, the human body requires a certain amount of liquid for its own needs, but the excess has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, my hands-- encased in a mixture of frozen snot and yarn-- were so cold that I was unable to unbutton my fly.

     Well, I fidgeted and danced and jiggled for an agonizing hour or so until I realized that I had to make a choice: Give in and let nature take its course, or have one of my warmer buddies unbutton my fly for me.

     You're right. Not much of a choice.

     Later, my friend's mother came to pick us up, and as she drove to drop me off at home the scent of urine filled the car.

     These days, I'm a little jealous of John's mastery of technology. Because of his gear and ability to use it to adapt to changing conditions on the ice, he regularly outfishes me. And because he pays attention to dressing for the cold, his truck doesn't smell like urine. Well, no more so than usual.

     Yet, I'm a sunny soul, and take solace in the fact that, after our trips, while he's no more than halfway through with putting away his stuff and has yet to clean his fish, I'm having a hot toddy in front of my fireplace.