It was 8am when we motored away from Jug’s Landing, the thermometer approaching 40 degrees and rising, not bad for December 11. We would pass slowly through the canal until reaching the massive iron flood gates that could close solid in a hurricane.

Brook trout are undeniably the most beautiful freshwater fish, period. The fish’s back is olive -green with yellow spots and along the top, the spots stretch in a worm-like pattern mimicking the flow of water through their natal stream.

Recently, we bought a 90 year-old lake house in the north woods of Wisconsin. It was built in 1937 by a man from Chicago in the carpet business.

F. Scott Fitzgerald may have said it best, “the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Behavioral economists refer to this as cognitive dissonance.