My husband and my dad went fishing one afternoon on Lake Huron. They had their fishing rods and reels, bait, fish net, and anchor.  They lined up the boat with a cabin on the beach, and searched for the weed bed.  When they found it, my dad told my husband to throw out the anchor.  He did.  They prepared to fish, complete with cigars.  But, my dad said that they seemed to be drifting off the weed bed.

My husband looked for the anchor rope.  It was gone!  In their haste they had forgotten to tie the anchor to the boat.  My dad started up the engine and they went back home to get another anchor.  My mother made these out of concrete filled coffee cans with a sturdy eye hook for a rope to be tied to them.  They took the concrete anchor to the boat and tied another rope onto it.

Once again they motored out to the weed bed.  My husband threw the homemade anchor overboard.  Once again, the boat drifted as they fished.  “What the hell?” my dad exclaimed.  The anchor went overboard and took all of the rope with it.  They had forgotten to tie the anchor to the boat once again.

It was getting dark out, too dark to find the weed bed.  So they went home more slowly this time. With cigars in their mouths they put the boat back on its hoist.  They removed all of their fishing gear and slowly went up the beach to put all the gear away, sans the two anchors.

My mother and I laughed so hard that tears ran down our cheeks.  My mom had one more coffee can concrete anchor left.  She dashed into the garage after the men came into the house, defeated.  She hid the anchor, the only one left.

The next day my dad and my husband went to a nearby marina and bought rope and a good sized anchor.  Once again, they found the weed bed.  They carefully tied the rope onto the boat.  They threw the anchor overboard.  Once again they lit cigars and put their baited fishing lines into the water.

They drifted.  “What in the hell now?”  my dad asked himself.

They had fastened the rope to the boat, and had forgotten to tie the new anchor onto the rope.  It was a long time before they tried to fish on that weed bed again.