trout in the middle of nowhere

A friend recently dropped by the workshop and saw three shadow boxes on a top shelf, all related by subject matter, i.e., fish. within seconds he rushed out the door, but not before saying, "I'll be right back. You've got to see what I found."

He came back two minutes later with a mailbox under his arm and said, "Your hand-carved fish decoys made me think of this."

I laughed out loud. I'd never seen anything quite like his mailbox-shaped trout, or a trout-shaped mailbox.

["Surprise!"]

It came with a story. (I would have been very surprised - again - had it not!)

Friend Derrick had lost someone close to him a week earlier, and while wandering the bush outside Sudbury - looking for wildflowers and pussy-willow branches - something caught his eye. A bit of yellow was visible from under a haphazard pile of brush. Under the pile he found the mailbox. And inside it were found all the wooden parts for a fish, ready to assemble, so to speak.

"You found it where?" I asked.

"Like I said, in the middle of nowhere."

The assorted pieces were passed from hand to hand and became fuel for thought. How did they get into the middle of nowhere?

Our best guess: After a wife's birthday party and after hubby - an avid fisherman - had gone to bed still muttering that "oh yeah, it will look great out at the end of our driveway", the wife went for a long walk, mailbox under her arm, and ended up 'in the middle of nowhere'. She spotted a pile of brush.

What do you think?

Photos by GH

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