(MCT) — ON UPPER RED LAKE — Little that I know about psychology, I believe ice fishing is better for what ails you than a frontal lobotomy. I mention this also not knowing much about frontal lobotomies, except for the old joke that argues, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”

But perhaps I’m off topic. The point is that time on the ice is time well spent. Granted, this is a peculiarly regional form of recreation, and its beneficial effects, say, on Southerners has not yet been confirmed. It’s quite possible a mutant gene brought over from one of the Old Countries and plopped down somewhere along the North Shore by an émigré who landed here generations ago as a bachelor and remained so except for a one-night stand at a roadhouse somewhere near the present-day site of the small town of Cotton, or perhaps farther north, near Buyck, was the start of it all.