How Lost Lake has Influenced My Life
...reer. My excitement was colossal. While we were fishing I heard a sound I had never heard before: the call of the loon, the state bird of Minnesota. This haunting sound is the trademark of the North Woods. Its sound is quite similar to a moan in a horror picture. Since I experienced all of these new things while having the time of my life, I fell in love with the fish, the loons, and the birch trees. These feelings would stay with me forever. Many of the things I witnessed on my first trip to Lost Lake closely reflect primary interests in my life now. That smallmouth bass introduced me to one of my very favorite hobbies: fishing. I now go fishing at every possible opportunity. Unfortunately, central Illinois is not blessed with fishing lakes, so my fishing is limited to local farm ponds and creeks. I try to go fishing at least once a week. After seeing those mysterious white trees I became very interested in studying trees. Today I can identify any tree anywhere in the United States. I can recognize rare trees such as the Brewer's Weeping Spruce just as easily as I can identify common trees such as the Silver Maple or the White Oak. After hearing the call of the loon I became very interested in orthinology (study of birds). I can now identify any bird from the Ruby-throated Hummingbird to the Red-tailed Hawk by either sight or sound. Probably the most influential event I discovered during those early years at Lost Lake was the abundance of severely powerful thunderstorms that would roar through the wild North Country and scare the hell out of everybody. When my family and I would be out fishing on the lake, clear skies overhead would abruptly turn into scenes of violence in matter of minutes. Clouds that were shrouds of black, gray, white, green, and any other color of the spectrum, would team up with winds roaring at incredible velocities of 60 to 90 miles per hour and send us rushing to our cabin with no time to spare. The clouds would then dump combinations of quarter-sized raindrops and golfball-sized hailstones that would bombard our boat and cabin and rip the trees to shreds. Perhaps just as fascinating as the beginning of the storm would be the end of it. At the height of the wind, rain, and hail, when ...