"Take Him Fishin'...if you want him for a friend"

"Take him fishin', take him fishin', if you want him for a friend"...goes the old Tex Ritter Classic. And that is exactly what we decided to do.

I should probably preface this tale with the acknowledgement that I haven't had a drink in almost eight years. It wasn't my idea, but was strongly suggested by...let me see...nearly everyone around me. I can live with this promise if I tell myself that I am merely "laying off the sauce" during odd numbered centuries. This allows me to look forward to a reunion with my pal Jack Daniels sometime in the year 2100. Now, having said that, return with me to the summer of 1968 and another radio tale that amazingly...I survived.


I am still in college and working at the radio station, KVRA, and having the time of my life. The money was good and I hadn't yet been drafted. (Yes, youngsters there was once a military draft!) My whole adult life lay ahead and the possibilities seemed exciting. My pal, Metcalf, had been sweating the draft too while he attended law school and worked a reduced shift at the station. He had cut a deal with the Marines to go to their OCS program if they would wait for him to complete his law degree. They were willing and he was to be on his way to boot camp in a couple of months. He had put in a good word for me with the owners of the station and I was now the program director at the ripe old age of 19.

Metcalf had also recently married...SUZY. He and his bride were residing in a little love nest in her hometown of Yankton the town immediately west of Vermillion for those of you not familiar with the greater Eastern South Dakota "metro". Yankton boasted a population large enough to have something besides Velveeta in the gourmet section of the local supermarket. It was also home to some regional bus company that was owned by Suzy's father, thus qualifying her as a desirable monied "catch" for one Mr. James Metcalf. I don't know what her old man's bottom line looked like but apparently it was enough to have the Met looking completely "whipped". The guy could hardly utter anything more robust than, "Yes dear" in her presence. To Metcalf, however, it was all worth it. He was now driving a new Mustang and rumor had it that Suzy's dad was footing the bill for his law school education. Dum de dum dum!

One Saturday in late July...Dave Walker, who also worked at the radio station, and I decided that we couldn't stand what was happening to the Met. We knew we had to get him away from Suzy for at least a little while just to make sure he didn't turn into a capon. To us he had taken on the personality of a once great hunting dog whose trip to the vet had lanced not only his "man marbles" but his "old hunting dog" personality as well. A fishing trip!!! That was it! We, along with some other college reprobate buddies, John Hall and Roger Boyd would take the Met on a fishing trip to the nearby Big Sioux River.

It was set. When the big day arrived, Metcalf had actually lied to Suzy and told her he was going to the laundromat to do their laundry. He even piled the baskets of clothes into the "thanks Dad" Mustang and headed for Vermillion. Sneaky bastard that he always was, he had "borrowed" his father-in-law's expensive fishing tackle and was ready for an outing that even he knew he needed.

We gathered for the big fishing safari at the radio station where we stashed all but one basket of the laundry that Met would take care of after we returned with prize fish, sunburns and a new outlook on life for our buddy. Probably the die was cast for this misadventure when, instead of the bait shop, we stopped at the state liquor store. "Just a little something to slake our thirst on a hot July day" was the rational. Each of us provisioned a case of 16 ounce Budweiser's and a fifth of our favorite "bust head" whiskey...and it was off to the Big Sioux.

My recall of that day is a little hazy...I know it was hot and that we may have been over served.
I do know that at some point we all wound up wearing nothing but our underwear as we frolicked and splashed in the river. Our clothes, with the exception of the aforementioned drawers, all wound up somewhere downstream. Omaha would be my guess. The expensive purloined fishing gear including a custom made tackle box had floated away fairly early in the outing. We were covered in mud as a mud fight had commenced over...I don't recall what. I do remember Hall standing on a large rock in the middle of the river waving at passing cars on an Interstate 29 bridge as he answered nature's call. (Did I mention this was all transpiring within shouting distance of the major north/south highway of the region?)

Late in the afternoon it was decided that maybe it was time to head for town where we stupidly thought Metcalf could still do his laundry and make it home before Suzy realized he had actually participated in some fun. The ride back to Vermillion was memorable. They say that cars depreciate rather rapidly during the first year of ownership. I'd venture that Metcalf's Mustang took about a fifty percent hit in just one afternoon. In our underwear, covered with mud, we all hauled our sorry asses back to town. Metcalf, now aware of the time, was doing 100mph most of the time as the rest of us amused ourselves by dumping the remaining beer into his laundry. (It was mostly Suzy's stuff anyway.)

We pulled up in front of the radio station on Main street in downtown Vermillion just as Country Al Watterson was finishing his "Country Hall of Fame" show. (You may remember Al from a previous blog of mine.) In our underwear we got out of the car. This on a Saturday afternoon in broad daylight. (I'm almost positive the statute of limitations has expired for this caper. Hasn't it?) We proceeded to walk through the front door of the radio station and began chatting with the receptionist who, by the way, was not at all pleased to see us. We, on the other hand, were MOST happy to see anyone of the female persuasion. We graciously invited her to join us at the apartment Walker and I shared...but, she declined. It's a good thing too as I found out later that she was a cousin of my longtime pal the Skipper.

Al was even less happy to see us. As I remember he locked the control room door and told us to go away or he would call the owner. You'd think that a guy who was a purveyor of country music would have been a little more receptive to some fellas who had consumed too much wobble water.

I was never able to extract the whole awful story of Suzy's revenge on the Met from the man himself, but I can only hope that he got his "man parts" back in the divorce settlement; maybe the Mustang too. Yes, they did divorce. And, I no longer drink...but it sure was fun that hot July day in 1968. Maybe now I can catch some fish.