It Happened One Night in Winton

It happened one night in Winton, when Joe Maki came to town
A carousing, drinking Finn man who’d let no one laugh him down.
He strolled into a Winton bar and he ordered up a brew,
And as he sipped his gaze roamed round for something fun to do.
A man was playing piano, a loud and jumpy ragtime tune,
While another man stirred coffee with a rusty worn out spoon.
Some fellows smoking cigarettes spoke loudly from a haze,
At a table in the back a Stranger dealing cards looked up and met Joe’s gaze.

The stranger he was Swedish, or maybe he was Dutch,
It was kind of hard to tell and, anyway, Joe didn’t care too much.
As it happened, like all good Finns, Joe loved to gamble too,
So he joined the stranger at the back and cut the deck in two.
Joe watched closely as the stranger began to shuffle and deal the cards
The game began, the table shook as each thumped down his discards.
“I’ll take two.” Said Joe Maki, and the stranger doled them out,
Joe looked rather disappointed and his lips began to pout.
The stranger kind of smiled and he shifted in his seat,
With three Jacks and two Aces he just knew he had Joe beat.
But Joe Maki he was shifty and as he laid down his hand
It was clear four Queens beat three Jacks, and that pout had all been planned.

The stranger he was furious and he leapt up to his feet,
All heads turned in their direction as the stranger shouted “Cheat!”
The man playing at the piano stopped so he could listen in,
Nobody spoke and it was clear a fight would soon begin.
Joe Maki hadn’t cheated, and even if he had,
He couldn’t back down now because the stranger made him mad.
“I’m not a cheat!” Joe Maki cried as he reached for his gun,
But the stranger he was quicker and he would not be outdone.
A shot rang out and people stared, both men were still upright!
Joe Maki stared down at his shirt, now red, no longer white.
He toppled over backwards to lie stretched out on the floor,
As the stranger stared down shocked at the sight of all the gore.
The tension in the room was so thick you could have cut it with a knife,
Then the music started up again as the bar returned to life.

I couldn’t say what happened next, I wasn’t there you see,
But this story really happened, and that’s a guarantee.

Chicken Soup (Inspired by White Fox's Fish Soup story)

Tick tock, chicken feet
This is what I like to eat
Drag the chicken from the coop
Hatchet, water, chicken soup!

Secret

Oh, how I wish I could tell you
The things that are ripping me apart
The way I think
The way I feel
The way I dream
All the things that include you in my life
The things I know
The things I think I know
The things I wish you knew
And the ones I hope you do
Every day it grows harder for me
Living with this secret
I hope to share with you
I have told my friends
And I have almost told you
When you hold me tight
I hope you never let me go
When you kiss me with that passion
The fire burns bigger
When you look me in the eyes
I think I can see your soul
Which makes me want to scream
From the bottom of my heart
Those three important words
I just can't blurt out
I wish I could reveal my secret
Especially to you
The way I feel
Oh how I wish I could say
That I love you
But if I did I would fear
That you did not
Love me too

Fish Soup Part III

I forgot to set my alarm. I woke up around eleven o’clock and was too lazy to cook anything myself. My mom was home, being a teacher she had the summer off like I did. I found her upstairs folding laundry in the living room. There was some kind of soap opera playing on T.V.

“Mom, I’m hungry.” I whined, placing emphasis on the wavering hungry tone I had been working on since I was three, “Mom, cook me something.”

“You’re old enough to feed yourself,” she said without looking up from her laundry, “There’s plenty of food in the kitchen. What do you want? There’s cereal, bagels, hot pockets, soup, sandwich meat…”

“But that’s all boring stuff. It’s lunch time, why don’t you make some Kalla Mojakka? Bud and Hannah would probably eat some.”

“Kalla Mojakka is your dad’s thing,” She said, “Besides, your brother and sister both went out earlier when you were sleeping.”

I let out an exasperated sigh and went to make myself a sandwich. I noticed the metal bowl in the fridge with a plastic bag of fish fillets inside. It was probably being saved for dinner. I grabbed what was left of the deli turkey, about two slices, and made a sandwich with a slice of white bread folded in half. I took it with me downstairs and munched on it while I chilled on the couch. There was an Andromeda marathon on the Sci Fi channel and it kept me occupied until my dad got home from work at around four o’clock.

While I waited I tried to avoid thinking about the swift approach of the school year. In only two more weeks I would be going away to college for the first time. It had been ages since I had last eaten Kalla Mojakka, almost a year, and I was determined to have some before I left. Only my dad really knew how to make it. It was a family recipe he had learned from his grandma Hannah, daughter of a finish immigrant and my sister’s namesake. I doubted if my mother even knew how to make it. Every time I asked her to cook some she would say “that’s your dad’s thing,” and she was never in the kitchen when he cooked it. I don’t really know why I wanted to have some before I left so badly. Sure it was tasty, but I wasn’t sure that was the real reason.

I heard the slamming of the front door that announced my dad’s arrival home from work.

“Hey Hel,” he called, “get up here!”

I always wondered what would happen if he used the shortened version of my name in public. Would it give people the wrong impression of me? I’ve never had to find out so I guess it doesn’t really matter. I always forgot to mention it to my dad anyway.

“What do you want?” I said as I entered the kitchen where my dad was busy pulling potatoes out of the lower cupboard.

“I need you to grab some newspaper and lay it out on the table,” he said, “Then grab a knife and help me peel these potatoes.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I said so that’s why. How else do you expect to learn the fine art of Kalla Mojakka?”

“Wait, you mean I get to help make it?” My dad had never let anyone help him make Kalla Mojakka before.

“Not if you just stand around doing nothing,” he said, “go grab some newspaper.”

Shaking my head in disbelief I went into the living room and grabbed some papers from the bottom of the coffee table stack. After spreading them out on the kitchen table I took a seat opposite my dad. He handed me a paring knife and I took a potato from the pile and began to peel. I soon remembered why I hated peeling potatoes. I just wasn’t any good at it. By the time I finished my first one, my dad had already peeled two and started on his third. Each peeled potato was cut into pieces and placed in a large cooking pot he’d placed in the middle on the table.

When all the potatoes were peeled I took the pot over to the sink and under my dad’s instructions filled it with enough water to cover the potatoes by two inches. While we waited for the potatoes to boil my dad told me about Grandma Hannah and her husband Nillo.

“I remember this one time when I went over there, Nillo sent me over to his neighbor Ed’s cabin to learn a new fish cleaning technique. Because they were getting old, Grandpa and Grandma were having trouble chewing fish with all the bones still in it. Ed taught me how to fillet fish and take out the bones. I was so excited I ran back to the dock where Nillo and I had kept a stringer of fish we had caught. I went into the boat house and cleaned those fish up just the way Ed had showed me. When I was almost done Nillo came in. He looked at the plate of fillets, and he looked at the pile of scraps in the bucket, and then he shook his head. I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or disappointed.”

My dad took a break from the story to pull some baby carrots out of the fridge. He handed me a bowl and we cut them in half before adding them to the pot.

“So what happened to the fish?” I asked, “Did Nillo change his mind after he’d eaten some?”

“I don’t know.” My dad said, “But it’s a funny story. Later, Grandma Hannah decided to make Kalla Mojakka. I was all excited because she’d used the fish I had just cleaned. After we said our prayers I picked up a spoonful of soup and though ‘oh boy, this is going to be great! No bones!’ I took a big old bite and nearly skewered my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Turns out Nillo couldn’t bear to see so many scraps go to waste. He’d gone back and picked them over for extra things to put in the soup.”

I enjoyed listening to my dad tell stories. Even though I’d heard it before it still made me laugh. It also made me glad that my dad wasn’t as hung up on not wasting scraps as his depression era grandparents had been. I heard horror stories at school about kids whose grandparents actually used the entire fish’s head in Kalla Mojakka. No way would I eat a fish head, not matter how tasty they said it was.

When the potatoes were half done my dad told me to get a can of condensed milk from the pantry, a can of corn, and a can opener. While I did that he was busy getting some spices from the cupboard and some pre-chopped onions and celery from the fridge. We added the vegetables and soon the potatoes were almost done. Half the can of condensed milk went into the pot as well as all the juice in the can of corn. The corn starch would make the broth thicker, like a chowder or a stew, my dad explained. “If we didn’t have canned corn we could do the same thing with flour and water,” he said. Next he showed me the spices from the cupboard, salt, pepper, and allspice.

“There are no measurements in this recipe,” he said, “It’s all a matter of interpretation and taste.” He took a pinch of this and that began throwing them into the pot. “You just keep adding until it tastes right, like this.”

He lifted the stirring spoon from the pot and handed it to me. I blew on it and slurped the broth. It was delicious. My dad brought the fish out of the fridge and cut it up into chunks that I threw into the pot. Already the smell was permeating the house, making my mouth water.

When the fish was all added we brought the pot to a boil and immediately shut off the heat. The Kalla Mojakka was done. I knew I would never be able to write down the exact recipe. I knew how it was done, what it was supposed to taste like, but everything was subjective. I guess that’s the big secret. You can know what goes into a thing but it’s how you put them together that makes it work.

My dad pulled some bowls out of the cupboard and handed one to me. He scooped portions of Kalla Mojakka into our bowls and we sat down at the table to eat. I could see the chunks of potato, carrot, and fish floating in the white broth. The smell alone made me want to go back for seconds. I raised a large spoonful of steaming fish soup to my lips and smiled as it hit my tongue.

It wasn’t so much the taste of the soup that made me smile as it was the fact that my dad had finally chosen to share the secret family recipe with me, not my sister, not my brother, but me. I realized that what I had really wanted all along was the chance to do something special with my dad. This was the best going away to college present I could have asked for. Though I must admit, the mini fridge was nice too.

Fish Soup Part II

I must have fallen asleep sometime between the lake and home; when I woke it was to the sound of an old Hank Williams song on the radio and my dad telling me to grab a fish bowl and bring it downstairs when I got in the house. I climbed out of the truck and made my way up the front steps, fumbled the door open in the dark, and dragged myself up the stairs to the kitchen. There was a big metal bowl in the pantry; I grabbed it and headed to the basement, flipping on light switches as I went.

My dad was already in the laundry room, fish dumped into the sink, old plastic shopping bag lining the bucket to collect guts. I set the bowl on top of the washing machine and stood back to watch as he pulled the first fish out of the sink and laid it on the cleaning board he’d placed across the sink. He grabbed the piece of board he kept on the window ledge above the sink and used it to smack the fish over the head, stunning or killing it so it wouldn’t flop around. He slid the nose of the fish into the clamp at the front of the board and its eyes bugged out as the metal teeth pressed down, holding it in place. Next came the knife, a long, thin, razor sharp thing that got skinnier as it reached a point. My dad started at a place just below the gills and made a cut into the fish, and then he turned the blade flat and ran the sharp edge down the fish’s side and backbone, separating the fillet cleanly from the fish. He set the fillet aside and unclamped the fish to turn it over and do the same on the other side. Then he ran the knife along the back of each fillet, taking off the skin. He made a cut up the middle of each fillet and took out the bones, leaving behind something in the shape of pants.

I always wondered why when we had to dissect fish for biology class we didn’t do it this way. It left all the insides completely exposed and easy to see; if you did it right there wasn’t even too much blood. Maybe it was because knives weren’t allowed in school and it was awfully hard to fillet a fish with a pair of miniature scissors and a metal toothpick.

As my dad threw the guts into the trash bucket I turned and headed over to the basement family room to watch T.V. I only ever stayed to watch him clean the first fish. It wasn’t that I thought it was gross or anything, it was just that it got boring after a while and there were a lot of fish left to go. After checking to see if anything interesting was on T.V. I went across the hall and got ready for bed. It was too late for my dad to cook anything tonight, but with any luck, if I got up before my dad left for work in the morning I could get a nice fish breakfast.

Snow Owl's fist post

Thanks for the author invite, I'll post a poem soon.

Fish Soup Part I

“I’ve got another one!” I said to my dad, “Get the net!”

I struggled to keep my balance in the rocking boat as I stood. I gripped the handle of my Ugly Stick tightly in one hand and cranked the reel a few times with the other. The pole bent closer to the water and I could feel the fish on the other end of the line. It was a fighter, causing the line to spin out from the reel as it struggled to get away. I waited till the line stopped spooling and reeled in again. It seemed like each time I managed to get the fish a foot closer to the boat, it fought and pulled two feet farther away.

My dad cut the trolling motor and reached for the net on the floor of the boat.

“Take your time,” he said, “let it fight and tire itself out.”

He made his way to the front of the boat and stood by my side as I fought the big fish on my line.

“Wow! Did you see that?” I said, watching the fish jump nearly a foot out of the water.

“I saw it,” my dad said calmly, “Looks like you got yourself a fat old walleye.”

I lifted the rod as my dad scooped the fish into the net and over the side of the boat. The walleye twisted in the net and it took my dad a minute to untangle the line and get the lure out of the fish’s mouth. He handed me the Rapalla and I hooked the bottom to the lowest loop on the pole and reeled the line tight. I stored the rod and the net along the side of the boat and traded the camera from around my neck to my dad for the fish. He snapped a quick picture while I held up the fish.

“It’s a keeper right?” I asked.

“Sure is, throw it in with the others,” my dad said, “We’re at the limit now so we should probably start heading back.”

I opened the live well and tossed the walleye in with the others we had caught and slammed the lid down over the splashing fish. My dad made his way back to his seat in front of the motor’s tiller and started her up again. I took my place on the bench in front, pulling my hat off and stuffing it into my pocket. I didn’t want it to fly off in the wind like it had on the way out. My dad had been forced to turn the boat around and I had fished my cap out of the lake with the net. At first my dad had been mad at me, but his mood seemed to have improved once we got to the secret spot and started catching fish.

The boat picked up speed and the wind whipped through my hair, bringing with it the scent of burning wood from the chimney of a lake house on shore. My dad turned the boat to take us out of the sheltered bay where we had been trolling and as the boat hit the open water the prow began to bounce and crash on the waves. Though by local standards Lake Vermillion was a pretty big lake, we never lost sight of shore as we headed back, sometimes weaving in and out of islands, sometimes weaving in and out of other boats. The setting sun began to sting my eyes as it reflected off the water.

The boat slowed as we approached the bay where my dad’s buddy had his cabin. As we made our way to the dock my dad steered the boat in a complicated backwards question mark that avoided the weeds and the underwater rock. I stood up cautiously and moved to the front of the boat. As we pulled alongside the dock I grabbed the rope attached to the prow and stepped over the edge onto the dock. With a few quick twists I secured the front of the boat to the dock, then went back and grabbed the tackle box and fishing rods as my dad handed them to me. I walked up the path, weaving beneath pine trees and those leafy trees I could never remember the names for. I stowed the gear in the back of the truck and waited for my dad to get there. He got there shortly; swinging the big green bucket I knew contained our catch. He stowed it in the back and we piled into the truck and headed back home.

My Life

This is my life
My pain, my strife
This is my life
My happiness, my laughter
My dreams from here on after
The things I love, the things I hate
The things I do by will or fate
My life, my choices
My many moods, my many voices
My memories, my hopes and fears
The things I’ve done throughout the years
The things that I have yet to see
The things that I have yet to be
This is my life