Poconos 2008: The Legend of Larsen Lake

I got back from the Poconos last weekend & meant to write something about this.

My family has been going to the Poconos on and off since me & my siblings were young. We usually take a week in the summer to get a place by a lake. The last few years we've tried different places, but this year my Dad picked out a killer house by Big Bass Lake in the Poconos. Even though most of us are moved out, my family sees each other often. Last week, though, 8 of us stayed together & had a great time: me, my parents, my brothers, one of their girlfriends, my sister, and her husband.


We had a rowboat and a canoe, so most of the time someone was out on the lake, fishing or otherwise. The fishing started out really good, with almost everyone catching smaller bass the first couple days.

My brother-in-law went with me in the canoe to explore a spooky old ice house that was by railroad tracks along the lake. I took a bunch of pictures of it & we walked toward the railroad tracks nearby. We looked to our left and, to our surprise, saw a young kid in a red shirt squatting over the tracks doing something with a knife. Not wanting to startle him & also creeped out by this kid in the middle of nowhere, we backed away toward the ice house.

Later on, one of my brothers was in the canoe by himself. He snuck up & scared the same boy in a red shirt that we saw. The kid was catching minnows by an old iron rail bridge we called "The Tressle Tracks". My family is a bunch of creative, & funny people, so we often embellish reality for the sake of our own amusement. Here is where the entire week became a chance to create a crazy story.

After scaring the the boy, whom we named "The Kid in the Red Shirt", my brother was talking to him about fishing spots & stuff. He gave my brother a red Yamamoto worm lure. Although my bro-in-law & I both saw Justin from our rowboat in middle of the lake, we joked that we didn't see the kid that he was talking to - so he must have been a ghost!

After a few days of fishing & getting absolutely no more bites or anything, we had come up with a story. The Kid in the Red Shirt was obviously a evil ghost from the abandoned Ice House. He had given my brother a cursed lure that was spoiling everyone's fishing!

By Thursday, I told my brother that there was only one thing we could do. We had to take the evil lure to the Ice House and burn it to destroy the curse. He agreed, so we went out in the canoe to meet my dad, sister, & her husband in the rowboat to get the Cursed Lure from the tacklebox.

For some reason, my Dad tossed the worm & it hit the side of our canoe. We could only watch in horror as it immediately sank into the seaweed. Seeing the look of distress on our faces, my Dad told us he'd by a new pack. Only half-joking, I exclaimed "Dad, don't you understand anything?!? How are we going to get rid of the curse?" My brother actually almost considered jumping in the muck to try to retrieve it.

So we paddled away in the canoe, slightly bewildered. To make matters worse, sirens in the town suddenly starting blaring over the lake. We thought my Dad might have inadvertently ushered in the Lake Apocalypse.

That night however, my father proved that he was definitely not an agent of evil. The curse was broken, because I caught a decent size bass that same night & the next day Dad caught a little bit bigger one.
We cooked the fish up and they were delicious. Of course, I thanked the fish's spirit for nourishing my family. I mean, it's not like I'm some kind of barbarian or something! : D

I looked thrilled, as usual.

As long as Big Paul's happy,
everyone's happy