The Chic Chocs

Dear Jim: The Chic Chocs….. Who Knew?

I think you would agree that I am not a bushwhacking, rugged, outdoorsy, nature loving, jock. Can you see me being happy traipsing through Moose trails by the day saying softly “oooooooh look there’s one”?

 I have been accurately described as delicate, maybe even fragile. When we are thinking of going somewhere I’m looking for the location of the nearest Ritz or Four Seasons .

Turns out there are a whole lot of outwardly sane looking tree huggers who love nothing better than going off in to the woods without phone or Wi-Fi to sop up the call of nature. I think if electric shock theory isn’t working for you here is a plan that might work.

I have just finished a 3 night journey to the Chic Choc Mountains in Northern Quebec. Staying in a small remote first class  lodge with 19 rooms,  our group of 10 guys took over the entire lodge with a staff of 10 .

Getting there was advertised as a snap. Lets see…one and half-hours in a private plane built during the war (I’m referring to WW1). This followed by a one and a half hour ride in a 10-seater bus with 10 people, some of who would normally be asked to shift their seat position to balance an aircraft. Then just when you think you aren’t going to live another 10 minutes you turn on to a gravel road to go up to the lodge…another one hour and 15 minutes! Arrival consists of falling out of the Van with all of your teeth loosely rolling around in your jaw and being picked up and straightened out by one of the courteous staff. Normally walking posture returned within 2 hours so it wasn’t as bad as it may have sounded.

Now let me day right away that this is a great place, planned and conceived by one member of our group over 10 years ago and it currently is fully booked by guests from around the world who even come back for several visits!! It is a beautiful facility, first class in every way and brilliantly located with views that can’t be captured on camera.

The food was loved by almost everyone. The menu included Red Deer, Elk, Caribou, Rabbit, Sturgeon, Rabbit livers and Duck. When they asked if there were any dietary considerations the group had I wasn’t smart enough to realize what items might be found in the forest where Bambi and Thumper live.

Small error on my part. The four pounds that I lost on main courses were quickly gained back by unlimited slices of sugar pie and cookies.

 The Chef used to work at the Beaver Club in Montreal, a very high-end restaurant. How did he get to the Chic Chocs you say?  Well His resume goes like this: T rained as a sous chef in France, working his way up all the big name restaurants here there and everywhere and now (drumroll) a career toping stint as the head chef at the 19 room Chic Choc lodge located Nowhere.

 I’m thinking he must have food poisoned the Sultan of Brunei or something and fled in to the bush ending up at the Lodge. He did have a nervous tick that indicated that maybe he is in hiding. Never the less he and his small staff performed beautifully and there was one standing ovation after another as each course of some animal part or another was placed in front of us.

I know you want to hear about the Moose search. Well we all dressed up in warm clothes including gloves and tuques and headed down a trail in to the valley below us looking for Moose. I can’t answer the question “Do Bears poop in the woods” conclusively but I can say without any doubt that Moose do poop in the woods non-stop and not in the most convenient places.

Our guide holds some antlers in his hand and a bottle of Moose Urine in a spray bottle in the other hand. (Don’t ask how he comes by the Moose Urine but I’m sure you can see why I’m thinking this guy deserves a big tip).

So here is this goofball scraping small bushes with his fake antlers and spraying urine in to the air here there and everywhere. He has a beard and is wearing a Tully hat!  Now the first obvious question is, how stupid are these Moose?

Turns out they are pretty much really dumb as they look at our guide like he is one of the gang. A little skinny but no problem. So we quietly get closer and closer to a 2000 lbs. male who has 3 females standing staring at him. Seems the mating dance takes a long time so everyone stands in position for 24 hours or so until someone makes a move. This gets boring real quick so after walking downhill for 30-45 minutes, taking 1100 pictures, we turn around to go back.

Now this may sound obvious to you city slickers but walking back up a hill that took 45 minutes to go down isn’t as easy as it sounds. One of the obvious take home aspects of the trip. A great time killer however in a place with nothing to do.

At any rate, there were no fish in the rivers because there is hardly any water in the river and wandering around in the bush trying not to get your eye poked out took most of our time. We were busy 14 hours a day!

I am now back home after a trip that took the same time as flying home from Portugal and trying to figure out how to say “I’m sick that weekend” when the others say “I can hardly wait to go back, the best trip I have ever been on, I loved every minute of it. Wow.”

Bill Meder

With friends like these.

Dear Jim:

Yesterday I played in a golf tournament. Yes, I know the forecast was for rain, wind and cold temperatures. I communicated that fact to the other three members of our group with a link to the radar system showing a deluge of biblical proportions arriving about 3 minutes before tee off.  If we were pre-paids in Ireland I could maybe understand but..

No reaction, so off I went to the Club secure in the knowledge that no one in their right mind plays golf in the conditions about to descend on the island. A quick coffee, expressions of "too bad" all around, and then off to a movie.

Right on schedule the rain started as we stood under the Portico waiting for clubs to be loaded on to carts etc. As the intensity increased I announced to everyone  “I see a group of senior executives and very rich people preparing to golf. How did you people become successful…you are all obviously a bunch of morons?”

Never mind, off we went to the first hole. Now the wind has come up and the rain is driving sideways. I couldn’t see a thing so I pulled out a tissue to clean my glasses.   No improvement… I wasn’t wearing glasses.

I’m first up and get ready. Now you know that my game is dependent on a sequence of finely tuned moves requiring extreme concentration and finesse. A soft drizzle adds 10 strokes to my game and wind has me picking up on every hole.

 As I stared in to the gale I thrashed away a drive 150 yards straight up in the air, which landed 20 yards from the tee. It only got worse from there.

One member of the team had a 4. Rats, I’m thinking, he isn’t going to quit if he is shooting pars. Sure enough he pars the next one as well. I can just make out his smiling face as the water cascades down his teeth.

By the fourth hole my Footjoy Dry golf shoes are making a squishing noise. My partner keeps the golf cart aimed in to the wind so that the rain is directly on my side of the cart and I have lost all feeling in my right hand. My wet suit is now useless and holds 20 pounds of water.

By the sixth hole the first drops of ice water start to roll down my back, coming from the sopping wet collar of my golf shirt. My hat is raining inside and the brim is flapping and smacking my face like a cold washcloth I used to use to sober up.

My teammates look like drowned rats but no one is talking. I'm starting to think Eulogy highlights.

Finally on the seventh hole we decide to pack it in. A good thing too, I was about to fake a heart attack.  We are on the green that is about 50 yards from the clubhouse so I walk in, my partner takes the cart to the bag shop and everyone heads for the shower.

Not the worst day of my life but one I'm not likely to forget. To make matters worse….

One of my teammates, making a joke, tells 4 of my friends that the only reason he quit was that on the 7 th hole, Bill, without saying a word, gets in the cart and drives off with the clubs, leaving the others holding a putter and nothing else. So they had to quit. Ha Ha Who would believe that I would do such a thing?

Well it seems all 4 friends believed every word saying  “Well, that’s Bill!”

With friends like these…

Four teams finished the 18 holes and good news was that there were four prizes. They were strutting around all proud of themselves and I’m thinking…stay away from these people, they are clearly mentally ill and who knows what they are capable of.

Next week I’m going up to the Chic Chocs a two hour flight due north to hide in the bush pretending to be a male Moose so that female Moose will come looking for me. I don’t know why I signed up for this or what you say to 1600 lbs. Moose lumbering towards you thinking you are up for a little hanky panky.  I think the first thing is to determine if it is a female Moose. That inspection could be down -right dangerous.

I will certainly let you know how this works out if I survive.

Bill Meder

And the days dwindle down....

Dear Jim:

So now that Florida is almost over for all the smug escapees from the North, you can all stop asking how we survived this horrible winter.

Every snow fall and record breaking low temperature resulted in a flood of northbound phone calls that threatened to overwhelm, the Bell system. “Oh you poor people, gee whiz look at all that snow, how cold is it?...no..can't be, it must be terrible, hee hee.”

First of all, most nights we slept indoors. During the day I left my indoor garage with my summer shoes on and no jacket and arrived at my indoor parking destination ready to do whatever. During the course of the winter I only spent about 11 minutes outside.  I am a little pale but that should go away in the weeks ahead. Do you think it bothered me when it was 24 degrees Celsius last  Tuesday and minus 8 on Wednesday and snow on Thursday?  Didn’t even notice. 

So here we are in the middle of May and as you are sitting in your shorts in your air conditioned environment I am sitting in front of the fireplace with a blanket wrapped around my body and a heating pad on my back, turned to high. This all makes sense to me and I can hardly wait until our 2 month summer is over so I can start the cycle again.

The only regret I have is that this year there was no one left in the city to go to dinner with most of the winter. After 50 years living here I now can’t find one other bozo that spends the winter in Montreal to play with. How can so many people be out of step?

As for my overall well -being there are signs that things may be starting to going downhill.

Yesterday I was lying on my Pilates machine at the studio looking over at 5 porky old ladies and had a horrible realization. When did my exercise program start to  include old ladies? Here we are all doing the same exercises with the same tension on the machine. I had sweat pouring down my entire body, barely able to see and these ladies were pounding away with their mascara totally in place babbling away about their nail appointments. Not good.

It seems that deterioration may be just around the corner. And just when I found the fix to my golf game there is a danger that I may not be able to execute a miraculous comeback this spring!

I went to see my doctor who I doubt ever passed his medical exams and told him my story. My back hurts here and my arm hurts there and when I stand up too fast I fall over etc etc. “What’s going on here”, I asked . He jumps on his computer and types in a few symptoms. “Ah, here we go”, he says. “You’re old!”

Bill

 

Put me down for a 1 svp

Dear Jim:


So after 5 years of you bragging about your Golf Pro, Steve Anderson.  I finally came up to Fort Meyers to watch you take a lesson. We agreed that he would take a quick look at my swing sometime during your lesson..

 

I hit three balls with my seven iron and he said "I'm going to make you very happy. Do This, This and This."

 I then hit three balls perfectly.

"Want me to write that down?" he said.

 "Nope I'm good. This, This and This fixes everything. No need to hit any more balls. I've got it."

 Total elapsed time 7 minutes.

 

So here I am at The Country Club of Florida member guest event warm up round. I'm worried I'm going to shoot 74 with my 23 handicap and everyone will boo when I get up to collect the trophy. 

I'm wondering if I should explain This, This and This to the organizers so they will understand that this is a new me.

Off we go and I am hitting the ball like I have never hit before!! No kidding. Straight down the middle and with authority.

I step up to the 8th hole, a par 3 rated at 165 yards or so. Big wind blowing so I take out my 190 club and proceed to do This, This and This. 

 This little beauty took off so pure that tears started to well up in my eyes.

 Straight as an arrow, right in to the hole. 

Now in 50 years I have never had a hole-in-one. I never bothered to  congratulate anyone for having one because we all know it is just pure luck.

 Except in this case there  was no luck involved. Just like Steve Anderson said. This, This and This fixes everything .

Please pass this along to him and tell him that I will protect his intellectual property by not revealing  This , This and This to anyone but family and very close friends.

 

Regards,

Bill Meder