Weather is often on our minds, especially so when storms surprise us. We didn't need this heavy, wet snowfall in March, but nothing can be done about it except clean up. An article I recently clipped from the March 18 issue of our local paper bore a Riverton, Wyo byline: "Search and rescue crews have successfully retrieved an elderly fisherman trapped on a floating block of ice on a lake in Fremont County. The incident occurred on Ocean Lake... The sheriff's office says a 71-year-old man was ice fishing when the piece of ice he was standing on broke away from the bank. It was carried a quarter of a mile from shore with the wind... The fisherman was stranded there for a couple of hours before he was picked up by airboat."
First of all, I was a bit perturbed when the 71 year old was called elderly since I just turned 69. But the incident brought to mind an incident I had on that very same lake in the spring of 1970 while I was the high school principal of the Wind River District. I'd gone to visit a staff member who happened to have had a small resort on the lake. He had just purchased three or four new outboard motors to rent out and wanted to try one of them out on a pontoon. For some reason my school's secretary and her daughter were present, too, so this fellow asked if we all wanted to ride along. Sure, so we walked on, he untied the tether, and we slowly drifted away from the dock. He proceeded to pull and pull on the starter rope, but it wouldn't even fire. By now we had drifted some distance from shore and a treacherous wind took control of the situation. The ladies panicked, the engine wouldn't start, and I knew it was time to do something about it. I found a small tool on board and tapped on the carburetor thinking the valve was stuck which proved to be the case. The engine promptly started and we were slowly able to make our way back to shore in the face of that wind. Afterward I learned Ocean Lake was treacherous that way because wind can come up unexpectedly!
