New Story of Panic or Choke

            The 'Guy Weekend' was a huge success, we laughed, teased, carried on and had a few cocktails.  'Fishing Weekend' was the actual term but since both are synonymous of each other you can call it what you will.

            Why would Choke or Panic be the title for a story if it starts out about man-love?  I'll get to that but first we must go to the past in search of 'Choke or Panic' stories.

            The 'Guy Weekend' was a huge success, we laughed, teased, carried on and had a few cocktails.  'Fishing Weekend' was the actual term but since both are synonymous of each other you can call it what you will.

            Why would Choke or Panic be the title for a story if it starts out about man-love?  I'll get to that but first we must go to the past in search of 'Choke or Panic' stories.

            A choke happens when the pressure of a situation gets too much for a person and they lock up.  Rory Mcllroy choked when he had a four shot lead going into the last day at the Masters, he shot an 80 and ended up in 15th place.

            I'm a choker.  I remember when I choked and when I didn't.  A very vivid memory of one of my chokes occurred when our golf team was playing in a tournament at Iron Mountain.  There were 16 teams there and the worst golfers played first and the better players watched us tee off. 

            Uncle Fuzzy gave me my first set of clubs, Nancy Lopez specials.  Red plastic golf bag with white stitching and white shoulder strap.  Since I'm smart and the rest of the world isn't, carrying the bag by the shoulder strap was dumb and I elected to carry the bag by its handle, for 18 holes.  I also didn't know the rules of the game.  Rules like; you can not take practice swings in a sandtrap but since I didn't know any better I swung away with sand flying all over the green and golf ball moving from side to side.  Mark my ball on the green you ask?  Sure would, then leave deep impressions with my shoes in their line to the hole.

            Ok, I'm now on the tee box with my 3 iron since I couldn't hit my woods very well.  I knew that if I hit the sweet spot on my 3 iron well the ball would be out there the longest. 100 kids stood looking on as I made some awesome practice swings.  Flexing my arm muscles was a psych out for my rivals so flex I did.  "These losers never saw someone swing this hard before," I told myself.

            Ball is tee'd up some since I'm going to crush it and I start to make my swing.  "Sure is quiet all of a sudden," brain tells me during my backswing.  "Hmmm, everyone is watching you," brain pipes in again.  "Don't choke, don't choke," brain chides. Club then meets ball, well kinda.  Ball is in the air and I don't see it, what I did see was this huge beaver pelt of a divot flying towards the woman's tee box where it finally dropped.  My ball then lands 20 yards behind the divot and 5 yards in front of where I first hit it from the tee box.  Quickly I look to the 100 other golfers as they point at both the divot and ball, then I look at my teammates who are laughing at me without abandon.  Replace your divots coach told us, so off I went running to the women's tee box, jumped over my ball grabbed the beaver pelt, ran back and fixed the huge hole I created. Cold sweats??? Chaahaaa. 

            There is still a problem, my ball is only 5 yards from the tee box and I have to hit it again, in front of everybody, again. I walked up to the ball, with my 3 iron, wacked it and it went 250 yards, I don't remember so well these days but surely that is what happened.

            That is clearly an example of a choke but in my next story you will have to decide whether a choke happened or the panic button was hit.

            Bubba let us use his drift boat to float from the dam on the Manistee River down to Highbridge Road.  The trip would take about five hours he said.  He also said something about how the drift boat is different from a regular boat when it comes to rowing and steering it.  I even think he might have given some advice on how to maneuver. Move the back of the boat to the current, turn backwards, row a certain way, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Bubba must have forgotten that we were from the U.P. Born in Birch bark canoes we were and lived on the water our whole lives.  Like we needed instructions on how to paddle a boat?  Right there Bubba insulted our intelligence.

            Brother Bishop took the first turn at rowing as I pushed off and stood Leonardo Di Caprio style in the front.  This was a great spot to be in, I could fish and see anything coming at us, definitely the best spot on the boat.

            Wando Maki, since he is a professional truck driver and has a license to prove it, told Bishop to stand down and he was taking over as the captain.  Half-Tonn, was in one of the middle seats near Wando and Bishop then moved to the back of the boat. 

            The discussion earlier about the weight capacity of the boat came into question.  The boat was good for 5 people or 800 pounds.  Hmmmmm, we have 950 pounds of man meat (we counted Wando as two), and 100 pounds of beer.  Those limits must have been set by people who weren't born in a Birch Bark canoes was the conclusion we came up with.

            Bishop only sideswiped two fisherman as we shoved off, he then righted himself and we moved into the fast current and the middle of the river, then Wando took over.  I tell Wando that Bubba said something about the back of the boat facing upstream,that he is supposed to look back, turn the back of boat to the direction you want to go, row, etc.  "Or something like that," I said.

            Steelhead are the fish we're after, so are the hundreds of other guys in boats and on the side of the river we are on.  Some of these fishermen are fanatics, don't f with their fishing or there is going to be trouble.  What I'm trying for you to envision  is that there are people all over in the river, both on shore and in boats so steering and maneuvering the boat is critical so you don't hit someone or their boat. 

            Our boat is going full steam downriver, right over some of the best fishing Michigan has to offer.  I can attest to this fact since I saw the Steelhead swim away as we went over them.

            "Hey Wando," I say.  "Yaa, what?" he says.  "We're going to hit that guy who is fishing near the bank, you might need to turn and row," I say.  Wando kindly obliges and starts fiddling with the paddles.  Brother Bishop now jumps into the conversation, "Wando you must row the boat!"  "I am rowing but nothing is happening, dammit," was Wando's reply.  I see the guy looking at us as we are coming directly at him and evidently this wasn't amusing to him.  I am now twitchy and nervous, cold sweat starts to go down my back as the fisherman and I keep eyeing each other getting closer and closer.  "WANDO, YOU HAVE TO ROW THE  (F'ing) BOAT AWAY FROM THIS GUY AND ALSO AWAY FROM THE BOAT THAT IS DOWNSTREAM 30 YARDS, WE ARE GOING TO HIT THEM!!!!!" I cry out.  Bishop jumps in again, "ROW WANDO, ROW THE BOAT"

            Have you ever seen slot machines work?  Pull the crank and all the wheels are spinning.  Or just like the old cash registers, to tally up, pull the handle and numbers are spinning before they stop.  I've never seen it before and probably never will again but that what was happening in Wando's eyes.  His brain was overloaded with information and he couldn't process it so his eyes just kept fluttering like a butterfly's wings.  Don't get me wrong, Wando was still trying but his brain was misleading him.  One arm pulled while the other arm pushed, it also forgot to relay the info. to his arms about keeping the oars in the water.  The oars did hit the water some where it would splash out real nice creating something of a rainbow.

            The boat now is 10 yards away from the fisherman on shore and closing in fast.  He sees what is about to happen and smartly steps out of the river and onto the safety of the bank.  'Doink', the boat bounces off the bank of the river where the man is standing 2 feet away.  "Sorry," virgin driver I explain. 

            Our next target is the anchored boat with the guys fishing from it.  Cold sweats are soaking my shirt as the fishermen are eyeballing me.  They quickly reel in their lines because they see that there is nothing stopping us.

            Wando is now a complete mess.  Bishop, Half-Tonn, and myself are still screaming at him to do something but all he has is eeentsy teensy alligator arms trying to row the boat out of our collision course. The paddles aren't even in the water but just above it, each going in a different circular motion as Wando's eyes are checked out.  Stick a fork in him, he's done.

            "Get ready for a collision," I muster to my mates.  I think we actually only barely hit the other boat because there were 14 arms outstretched to soften the blow.  Rod tips wacked us like tag elders in the fall but luckily nobody got hooked.  Again I sheepishly told the fishermen Wando was a virgin and please forgive us.  I think only the Newberry stare* on Wandos face drew compassion from them so they didn't scream or holler.

            Wando comes back to life after this and wants to still be the captain.  We all screamed in unison "Get your arse to the back of the boat," Bishop took over and got us to safety.

            What do you think?  Was Wando's meltdown a Choke or did he just Panic?

*Newberry Stare is a U.P. term based on the look of the people being housed at  an insane asylum located in Newberry, Mich.