Postcards from
the Angry Trout Cafe

"I don't love the woods it occurs to me, the leafless, brushy, November pope trees that stand around, stand around crowding the peripheral vision, each waiting to take its place in my consciousness and each falling back to become a part of the line that divides gray earth from gray sky, as undistinguished as gray hair." Louise Jenkins, from "November"







Stay for Awhile


You don't spend every waking hour reconsidering why you didn't build that great cafe that stands out on its jutty into the Grand Marais Bay so close to the border of Canada you could leap up into a tossed handful of wind, float a mile, then land on the other side. You don't wonder what it might be like to wake with a cold smile in February, pole in hand, kid in toe, bucket looped over an elbow, as you tip toe across the disheveled beach that now is a floe unalterable frozen beach. You have all day to walk the trail that curls around the Coast Guard headquarters which stands against the northern elements just waiting, itself, for the next big mistake that the fisherman takes in the open floe out across the breakers where, once you reach the end and look out over the Lake, the biggest of big, you know nothing of yourself, mind so full of ants and hiccups back home, laced to the city gears, postcards in hand of the hundred lives you could have taken. Sit down, have a cup of coffee at the Angry Trout Cafe. Stay for awhile. Live inside yourself for a minute.