Carleton Place, July 27th, 1934
To the Editor, Almonte Gazette. Dear sir:— I have read with much interest the fish story in your issue of July 26th, ( read- Another Fish Tale- Clayton Lake and the Minnow Can — Fred Blake, Dennis Nolan and George Comba 1934) and as the black snake incident recalls to my mind a similar experience I thought possibly you might be interested in my story which follows:
I was only a slip of a girl, my age, well, I prefer not to divulge that, but if you really insist, I was just past 18 the day the Armistice was signed. However, as age is not the most important thing in a girl’s life we will pass that up for the time being and get along with the story. I was in company with a man that had always been a great lover, that is of fishing, but who had been deprived of this pleasure for ten years, for reasons over which he had no control.
The warden who was a great friend of father’s for the past decade, decided to accompany us to a lake that father was quite familiar with as it was very close to where he had been doing business, before he met the warden. “Still” we were not sure what species of the fishey family the dark green waters held in store, just in case some person in the party wanted to fish. However, to make a long story short, like the fishermen in your recent story, we secured ‘two “cases’* of bait before leaving town and as the weather was exceptionally warm, the ice had even vanished from the most remote corners of the bay so we decided to put the bait below the surface of the rippling green fluid, directly under the shade of a tree.
Then we decided to go for a row. Well Mr. Editor, here’s where the sad part of the story begins. My boyfriend whom I had met just a short time before Confederation, had given- me a 14 vegetable diamond ring in one of the latest settings ( in the parlour behind the door to be exact) and while the warden was rowing me around the lake, I felt so girlish and giddy that my hands, if not fixing my hair, were dragging in the water beside the boat and vice versa.
So after an hour of sailing we decided to land and as we were pulling the. craft up on shore, I discovered to my horror that my diamond ring was missing, and to make matters worse I had just redeemed it from the pawn shop two before our trip, with money father had won at the races. However, after a futile search we decided to see if the bait was still intact, so the warden gave the “chain” that held the bait secure, a quick, hard pull, and up came the bait, minus the pasteboard carton but in its place was a huge black snake wrapped tightly afraid the 12 quarts and as we took special precaution to place them safely a fair distance from the rough waters.
The reptile by this time had unwrapped his slimy body and was about to exit into “from whence he came’ when father, who had had considerable experience swinging sledge-hammer in the past ten years, crashed down on the snake with cedar rail, possibly one of those he had used when in his former business. “Still,” however, lay Mr. Snake and as his sides bulged forth from the force of father’s blow “I was amazed when what should roll out of the reptile but my beautiful diamond ring.” —IMA LYRE
So I tried to find IMA LYREon ancestry and it took awhile for this old brain to realize it was “Im a lyre” LOLOLOL
Related stories
Another Fish Tale- Clayton Lake and the Minnow Can — Fred Blake, Dennis Nolan and George Comba 1934
Remembering John Drummond Sr. of Clayton
The Bear in the Middle of Clayton November 1944
Charles McNeil Tanner in Clayton
George Sadler — Clayton Doctor
Do You Remember Yoshiba’s Retreat? Clayton
Clifford Stanley May 4 1933 — Rescued Photos from Clayton Hall
Silas Shane Shoemaker Lanark, Clayton, Almonte
J. Paul’s Store in Clayton –Putting Together a Story — Joseph Paul and Margaret Rath Paul
lindaseccaspina 