White Iron Lake

Business is brisk. By evening, I’m at Dennis and Roxanne Korman’s house on White Iron Lake to the east of Ely, standing on the dock admiring the scenery. The couple and their daughter, Katrina (a cute kid who’s smarter than all of us put together) are across a narrow bay fishing on their pontoon boat. They see me, wave, and pull up anchor to pick me up with the boat.

Not bad. Sold some books and now I get taxi service.

Saturday is traditionally the best day of any three-day arts and crafts event. But with rain threatening (though it never comes), my sales on Saturday are less than Friday’s. After a long day of smiling and talking to strangers, the first Moose Drool goes down fast. I pop a second as the Kormans and Roxanne’s mom, Marge, and I fish for elusive walleye on Garden Lake. We catch oodles of little sunfish which Denny saves in the boat’s live well to transplant into White Iron Lake.

“Kids can catch them under the dock,” he says as we head across the bucolic waters of the Canadian Shield.

Sunday is filled with the sounds of Pat Surface and the Boundary Waters Boys performing on the Blueberry festival stage. Rene’ and our friends, the Salvesons, drive up, meet me at my tent, and the four of us wander over to the Lion’s Club pavilion for blueberry pancakes; one of only three blueberry items you can actually buy at the festival (the others being blueberry soda and blueberry pie.) My guests leave. I return to studying Mormonism. Few folks stop by my booth. Fewer still buy books. It’s likely the worst Blueberry Festival I’ve ever done.

Tear down time. I begin consolidating my booth at 3:30. By 4:00, I am ready to start loading the Pacifica. I pull the van into a parking space a few hundred yards from my booth. I leave plenty of space, so the vendor ahead of me can load her panel truck, and behind me, so I can access my own vehicle.

When I wander back to the Pacifica with a folding table under each arm, I discover some idiot has pulled his or her pickup truck up in tight to the Pacifica. I’m not kidding: the Wisconsin license plate on the truck is actually squashed into the plastic of the Pacifica’s rear bumper. I have no room to load my stuff. I put the tables down and stare at the truck in exasperation. A woman approaches me and smiles.

“Is there a problem?”

“I left plenty of space ahead of me for the other vendor to load and would have expected whoever owns this truck to do the same.”

She looks at me with disdain.

“Well, it’s all the space there was.”

I realize it’s her truck I’m scrutinizing.

“I think you need to back your truck up.”

The woman doesn’t flinch.

“There’s no problem. All you have to do is pull ahead.”

I wince. I’m hot, tired, and disappointed.

I don’t need this shit.

“No,” I say firmly, “I think you need to back up. You caused the problem.”

“All you have to do is move ahead,” she repeats. “There’s no reason to get snippy.”

I take a deep breath. I open the hatch to my van, reach over the bumper of the offending truck, and load the tables.

“You don’t need to be difficult.”

I turn and walk away.

When I come back, the lady, rather than admit she caused the whole chain reaction, has convinced everyone parked ahead of me to move ahead. I load two additional tables and hold my tongue.

“You know, it wouldn’t kill you to move your car forward,” the woman observes as she’s loading boxes into the rear of her truck.

I ignore her and retreat for another load. When I return, I have a change of heart.

No need to get into a rumble with a Cheesehead. Move the car.

I pull my van forward.

‘See, it’s easy to get along with people when you try,” the woman exclaims in triumph.

I keep my powder dry. I cast no pithy retort towards my adversary as I retrieve the last of my stuff.

Peace.

Mark