A Mneh Walk in the Woods

  Thrilling, huh?  This was one of the more exciting
   prospects on my walk.

It was beautiful weather today:  sunny blue skies and cool temperatures.  What better to do this afternoon, then, than to go for a walk?  I had passed Carson Woods many times, and Chir and I had gone for a five-minute walk there at dusk a few days ago, which whet my appetite.  Besides, the description said that the brook had frogs, fish, and turtles!  I haven't seen a turtle when walking along a stream in forever, and I love turtles.

The description lied.  The brook barely had water, and hardly deserved the name of brook at all.  When I think of Stony Brook, and Stonacker Brook, and Shipetaukin Creek, and Harry's Brook, and Heathcote Brook, and - you get the picture.  (Actually, you don't, because I didn't bother to take one.)  As for frogs and turtles - they must have been on vacation or not feeling sociable.  No close encounters of the reptilian kind (amphibian either, to be precise about frogs), although I did get bitten by some insect or other.  I do believe I saw a very small, dark fish dart away as I stepped down to the rivulet.

The woods themselves were mostly meadows, with mowed and some gravel-covered paths.  (I actually prefer plunging into the forest - damn the paths, full speed ahead and all that, but decided I wasn't in the mood to get slashed by briers or lost this particular afternoon.)

Who knows which path this was?  Not me, that's for sure!

Another teeny, tiny little problem.  The map was totally inaccurate!  Trying to follow it was like trying to make sense of things in Alice's Wonderland; can't be done, folks.  Paths that were depicted as straight curved in on themselves. Dozens of unshown paths made it difficult if not impossible to distinguish which paths were the maps depicted on the map. If there are seven right-hand turns, and only three are shown on the map,you have no way of knowing which right-hand turn is the right-hand turn you want.  Will the REAL second right-hand turn please stand up?

Well, I guess I shouldn't expect magic every time I hike.  Or even a good time.  At least I got out for a walk. And I didn't get lost.

Who has not felt in his heart a half-warmed fish?

I knew that spoonerisms were named for William Spooner, Dean and Warden of New College in Oxford in the 1800s, who was a contemporary and acquaintance of Charles Lutwidge Dodson  However, I had not run across this particular example before, no doubt due to a deficiency in my reading.

Reverend William Spooner

Evidently in one sermon, the absent-minded and somewhat fuddle-headed Spooner asked the dramatic question:  "Which of us has not felt in his heart a half-warmed fish?"  

I looked at this odd phrase for a moment or two as I was browsing a biography of Dodson aka Lewis 'Carroll,before "translating" it. I laughed on and off for about half an hour.  Half-formed wish, my dear Watson!

There are many other amusing quotes and anecdotes about dear Reverend Spooner, who evidently initially resented his inadvertent fame for verbal flubs, but later in life had a mellower outlook on the matter. I once uttered a Spoonerism completely unintentionally.  It could have been viewed as a culinary critique of the restaurant whose name I inadvertently mangled.  "Let's go to the Crusty Supper," I suggested years ago.  The seafood restaurant's name was Rusty Scupper.  I wonder if they had "half-warmed fish" on their menu.
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The biography of Lewis Carroll I was reading (with much enjoyment) is titled, appropriately enough, Lewis Carroll, and is by Donald Thomas, published in 1999 in trade paperback by Barnes & Noble.