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Week In Pictures
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Should Steve Beshear be elected governor, might we offer that the first order of business ought to be to get some signage to this place because, Lordy, it only has this one sign that directs you to the boat dock, and it's not all that prominent, and it's not on the main road, and the word Beshear is in wee letters, and, all in all, it's not exactly like a welcome mat.
The dock's honor-system pay-ramp is another thing altogether. For here, not only are you trusted to give your fair share for use -- that'd be $3 a day or $35 for an annual pass -- but, for your safety and their entertainment, you are overseen any time of the day or night by Homer and Mary Lou Winters, who pretty much are in charge here.
We are looking for the essence of Lake Beshear, and it appears to be quiet, if kind of disquietingly so. The only signs of life are coming from a gray mobile home that has a lovely view of the water and a complaining parakeet on the porch.
Mary Lou Winter appears and she is a steady talker, once she finds her teeth. She is lamenting that the water is the lowest ever and the bass fishing is not as good as usual because "it stayed cool for so long and got hot so fast and the fish got all confused, but that's good because we need some rest."
Lake Beshear is for the tired in need of a little natural Kentucky even if it's by way of a 760-acre man-made lake carved out in 1962 as a reservoir. It is sliced in half by the Caldwell/Christian county lines and it caters to fishermen and skiers, trying to be a lot of things to a lot of folks. It's also a stone's throw from Dawson Springs, where the Beshear name is not exactly unfamiliar.
Mary Lou is eyeing the parking lot down yonder where one of Steve Cox's boat trailer tires has gone flat. He has already finished with the finest part of the day -- the time he spent fishing -- and now he's paying the piper.
Before he can do that, he shows all concerned the picture he took of the 7-pound, 3-ounce bass he caught only the second time he was on this lake, which is the thing that made him want to move here. He's situated himself so that he can get out of the house and be in his boat before the bass know he's awake.
He will have to go some to beat Homer into the water. Homer is 69 and can barely get a word in what with Mary Lou's teeth being found. Still, he tells that Mary Lou caught a mighty nice-sized bass once without trying.
Seems Homer asked her if she wanted to go with him to fish.
She said "I don't care about fish, the water, none of it."
"Alright," he said, "suit yourself."
Then, when he was getting into the boat, she got in too because they've been married 49 years and you have to spend some time together to make that kind of thing work.
So they get out there and Homer puts a June bug worm on Mary Lou's line and in minutes the reel tightened up. She tried hauling it up a few times without luck.
"Daddy," she said, "I'm hung up. Come fix it."
Homer saw that her 40-pound line and her rod was being pulled under the boat.
"You got a fish," he said.
"No," she said. "I got a rock or something."
"Keep cranking," he said. "It'll come in directly."
With some help, the bass was captured.
"It was a little more than 6 pounds," says Homer.
"It was more like 7," says Mary Lou.
"It was more like 6," says Homer who owns 50 rods, 50 reels, many rubber worms and a large tackle box full of fancy flies and runs the every Thursday night Dawson Springs Anglers Club tournament.
"Do not listen to him," says Mary Lou, "I still get after him with a broom."
"And I still can outrun her," says Homer.
The Winters have weathered children who have disappointed them in a colorful variety of ways and Mary Lou's heart trouble. But they are fine with the Lord into whose hands they lay many a load. On their porch, there is no discussion of politics, religion, current events or who is running for governor. Here, you talk fish, children, how Mary Lou used to box and how Homer is the healthiest man who ever stayed in a coal mine for 39 years.
Homer first saw this lake when he was 14. Mary Lou says she went into that lake for the first time when she was 20 and she looked quite good in her one-piece bathing suit (as bikinis were the first slide toward all the trouble she sees now on the lake in summer).
Trouble is no stranger here, but neither is misty sunrise and autumn you can touch. Every place has its upside. Every place has its downside.
But only if you can find it in the first place.
