My recent fishign trip to Labrador was all that you would hope for from an 8 day vacatoin. Uninterrupted by cell phones, television and other modern "conveniences" I was able to read 6 or 7 books, drink much alcohol and spend time with my fellow fishermen.

Where it got a little weird is when you consider that the average age in camp was more than double my age, with our "gang" consisteing of two brothers aged 79 and 83, a couple old buddies aged 77 and 80, my 62 year old dad, and the 18 year old grandon of the 79 year old brother.

After almost an hour of back and forth discussion, everyone finally capitulated to the unanimous desire of all of us to go fishing. We even arrived at a 5:00 wakeup time, and a plan for breakfast (with time left for the old guys to have their morning constitutionals) and a 6:30 fishing start.

This left one tricky detail. 5:00 was earlier than George normally woke up, and despite his many medical ailments, he was very much afraid that he might oversleep. Now for most people this means setting an alarm, but for people with hearing aids, this is a little trickier. So he deputized me!

What an honor. He bestowed on me his 1970s travel alarm clock and taught me how to read it, and showed me the light that you could turn on by depressing the button labeled light. Wonders never cease. He then set the clock for 4:00 and asked me to come wake him up.

So I begrudginlgy awoke the next morning and walked to the door of his room. I thought about knocking, but a man who can't hear an alarm clock can't hear someone knocking on the door. So I opened it slowly so as not to alarm him and prepared to go in to shake his arm.

To my surprise, he was lieing their on top of the covers, wide awak, naked from the waste down. Just looking up at me like, "what are you doing here." I turned around ran back to my room, and struggled to rid my mind of the vision of my 83 year old genitals that will undoubtedly haunt me for the next 51 years.

Why couldn't he just leave his hearing aid in?