WHY MY FRIENDS DIDN’T VISIT LAST SUMMER, BY RILEY SMITH 2012

Maybe it’s because I live in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where Brett Favre draws more of a crowd on Sunday than any religious service, cheese is a staple food, it’s sub-zero during global warming, current “fashions” come three years after they’ve hit it big with the rest of the world, and where all children by the age of ten can use a 12-gauge like it’s their job.

I shouldn’t have told them I live on a farm with a barn, ten chickens, a dog, a canary, two thousand deer, coyotes and beautiful Silver Bass Lake. When I say beautiful lake, I mean it in the past tense. Each year the water level drops several inches, and we now refer to it more accurately as “the puddle” threatening to transform into a wetland. But even though you can't swim because of the weeds that entangle your appendages, you can still kayak! Just be sure you wear muck boots with your swimsuit because we traditionally portage the kayak a quarter mile down the bank to find water deep enough to push in. The bloodsuckers are also a turnoff. In the last year I have only had two ...