I have not been fishing or posting lately as my time has been spent tending to my ailing father. He passed away Feb. 16th at the age of 76 after a 10 year battle with melonoma. Most of us have or will have to go through this in our lives but I believe there is a lesson here for all of us. Some of you have learned it already, until now I had not. Please bear with me as I vent.
Dad’s obituary read something like this: Ed Putzier was a respected local farmer and citizen. He was named Minnesota Farmer-Sportsman of the year by Gov. Rudy Perpich in 1989 for his contributions to wildlife in that area. He was presented this award because of his work as President of the local Sportsman Club and President of the Lac Qui Parle Lake Association. If you ever caught a walleye with a notched fin from Lac Qui Parle you know that either he or his wife LuVerne handled that fish personally. He barbequed hogs for local charitable organizations such as fire departments, ambulances, hospitals, schools, Heart Association, etc, for many years. There were other things too numerous to mention here, but on the lighter side, he won state championships in tractor pulling and coached state and international tug of war championship teams (the Eddie’s Farmers team averaged 315# per man and could they clean out a bar or buffet!).
He also spent 40+ years teaching kids gun and snowmobile training. Some of his kids are now in their 40’s and 50’s and when he would read about them becoming bank presidents or lawyers, he would say, ” I taught that kid something”. On the other hand, when one of them would get nabbed with an extra deer or fish he would say “I didn’t teach him that!”
With all of his accomplishments, the most important of all to him was helping those kids. You folks also have a project like this with your ARM program and I would like to become a helper in this. For starters, I would like to contribute $500 to the project in Dad’s name if someone would send me the name and address to send it to. I also know some vendors who may contribute to the cause and I would like to help personnaly the weekend of the event. I can’t offer a nice boat or fishing knowledge but I can cook and help from shore. If Dad could make a small dent in the world’s problems in that sparsely populated area, maybe I can be of some help here also.
In closing, sorry about the long message but maybe it will help someone besides me and thanks for letting me go on like this. After meeting guys like Briank, Stillakid and Mike, on the St Croix I know I’m amoung friends here.
Please don’t feel bad about this post as Dad had a full life. In the hospital he requested a can of beer each of the last 2 days of his life and got to enjoy them as much as he could at the time. He went down kickin’. 
Hopefully he is up there thinking “Maybe that darn kid will turn out to be something after all”.
Results later.