THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN AND BARNEY Part 3, The Word Processor is Mightier Than the Sword.

After the trapping fiasco, Barney made one last attempt to make me into the kind of son-in-law he had hoped for. He invited me into the most sacrosanct corner of his life—on a Sunday early in November he informed me that I would spend the next weekend at deer camp. 

Now, given the choice between spending time with Barney and his cronies in a cold, snowy, miserable swamp somewhere west of Iron River or being entertained in the warmth of his home by his beautiful daughter and his wife, who had, like her daughter, become quite fond of me, it is obvious how that decision would be made by any sane person.  However, I was insanely in love with the daughter, so it behooved me to do what I could to try gain favor with her father, even if it meant taking part in what would in all likelihood be another failed attempt to measure up to Barney’s standards for manhood. 

When I arrived the next Friday night Barney and his son, my future brother-in-law, Ted, were packed and ready to head out to camp.  Gwen and I lived for these weekends together, but she understood the great significance of this event, and, with a smile and kiss goodbye, sent me on my way. 

It was quite late by time we arrived at camp, an old, 32 foot Air Stream camper, and, after introductions to Leo and Albert, Barney’s friends, we headed off to our bunks.  Morning would come early.  I was awakened at 5:00 the next morning and, after a hearty breakfast of eggs, potatoes, pancakes and bacon, Barney presented me with one of his old rifles and showed me how to use it.  Then, it was off to the woods.  In the middle of November, at the extreme western edge of the Eastern Time Zone, it is very dark at 6:00 in the morning.  Yet, Barney was totally at home in the woods, with or without light, and we set out by starlight into the swamp.  In a half hour or so we arrived on a ridge that overlooked a stream and open meadow.  Barney pointed out a stump near a giant white pine tree and told me that this would be my post.  He said that when a deer with horns walked through the meadow I was to shoot it.  “Yes sir”, I said.  Then he left me there alone.  I took solace in the fact that there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and I would be able to follow our trail back to the camp if Barney decided to solve his son-in-law problem by simply leaving me there in the middle of the wilderness.  He didn’t share a lot, so I never knew what he was thinking. 

It was a long day.  I had a thermos of coffee and some bologna sandwiches, but no books to read, and it was impossible to write with the heavy gloves I was wearing.  Although I had an unobstructed view of the meadow below, it had begun to snow, and it would not be possible for me to determine the species of any critter that might pass through, much less determine if there were horns on its head.   My feet were cold, my hands were cold and everything in between was cold, but I stuck it out for the day.  The gun was never fired.  Late in the afternoon Ted came by to bring me back to camp.  I slept well that night, and in the morning announced that I was going back to town.  No one tried to change my mind. 

Many years later Gwen and I moved to Marquette, where I worked at NMU for a few years as director of their school counselor training program, and Gwen was able to be near her parents and sister, who had recently divorced and was living with them.  It was during one of our visits with Gwen’s folks in Gaastra that I noticed Barney writing in a spiral notebook.  I asked him what he was doing, and he told me that he was writing his memoirs.  At last! I had an opportunity to prove myself.  I asked Barney whether I could take a look at what he had written, and he obliged by produced several spiral notebooks filled with his writing.  In it were several chapters (He called them articles.) describing events in his life beginning with early childhood. Like the man himself, what he wrote was mainly descriptive, not a lot of heart and soul in it; what you saw was pretty much what you got—but, charming nonetheless.  “Barney”, I said, “If you’d like, I can take some of these with me and type them up for you.”  He wasn’t anxious to let the books out of his sight, but reluctantly agreed to let me have them.

For the next several months Gwen and I devoted ourselves to typing up Barney’s memoirs.  The word processor on our computer soon contained many files with his name on them.  He, of course, assumed that we were typing them on a manual Remington typewriter, and, in fact, at one time asked whether we were using carbon paper to make copies of what we typed.  Each time we visited in Gaastra we would return his notebooks to him in exchange for new ones.  Eventually he was satisfied that he had remembered all that he was going to remember.

Gwen and I completed typing Barneys’ memoirs, in point of fact, it was Gwen who did most of the typing, and I began the task of editing the material into a book.  There would be chapters on his early life, education, working in the mines, and, of course, hunting, fishing, trapping and being a jack-of-all-trades.  Gwen did an amazing job of adding life to his words and correcting historical and family inaccuracies, and we were ready to print it all up.  I took what we had printed to a local shop that bound dissertations and had them make several hard-bound copies of it.  Of course, the title on the spine, in gold letters, was “Memoirs of a Hunter, Trapper, Fisherman and Jack-of-all-trades, by Casimir Arthur Bartczak.  We wrapped the box of books and presented it to Barney as a Christmas gift.  Barney was never without an opinion on anything, and I had never seen him speechless until he opened that box.  He took out one of the books, looked at it, smelled it, felt its weight, took out his reading glasses, and began thumbing through it with something that could only be described as reverence. He headed off to his bedroom where he spent the day reading his book. 

The next time we saw Barney he paid me the highest of compliments by saying that I had done a good job of making what had now become “his book;” but, here was list of some things that would have to be corrected and changed in the next edition.  He had already begun remembering a slew of other articles that should have been included and was busy writing them.  We eventually completed three editions of his memoirs, and a copy of it is contained in the Iron River Library.  During his later years Barney’s health began to fail and he was confined to a nursing home in Iron River.  The last time Gwen and I saw him before he died, I remember saying goodbye to him as we were preparing to leave, and he asked me where his book was.  He was blind at this time.  His book was on a shelf near his be; I picked it up and handed it to him.  He lovingly held his book in his hands. “Thank you, John,” he said.