My younger brother and I were constant companions when we were the age of my kids. Our summers were spent adventuring outdoors just to keep ourselves occupied.  We did those things in the late 60's that movies are made about now. Like all kids in our small suburb of Richfield Minnesota we had a summer pass and our place on the concrete at the municipal swimming pool. Our pool had a 15 foot high dive with an endless line of kids waiting their turn to show their stuff. We played little league like it meant something to us personally and endured 19 inning games of street ball with the neighbor kids. Our high adventure was flying off rope swings into the Minnesota River following a luckless carp spearing trip along the Minnesota River bottoms in Bloomington. When we felt like really staring down danger, we'd jump off the Cedar Avenue Bridge in to Lake Nokomis. My brother Erik and I rode our bicycles on many fishing trips to the local lakes in south Minneapolis using worms we'd dug up in the yard for bait.

We also did lots of fishing in the beautiful lakes of Northern Minnesota.  Until I found girls fishing was my passion. Our family would rent a cabin on a pristine lake up in the north woods for a week or two every summer. We were farmed off to the care of a favorite old Aunt and Uncle way up in Itasca County for the summer one of those years.  My folks needed some alone time and the idea of the two of us staying home alone for a few weeks was too certain of trouble to even be considered.  So off to the care and attention of Aunt Gin and Uncle Ells we went. Two of God's finest.  They were sweet and loving people, quirky about neatness and liberal with love and attention.

  In exchange for our stay, Uncle Ells always had chores for us in the morning. We would pull weeds out in "The Garden of Eatin”, pick up sticks blown from the trees on the property of their lakefront home, clean the dock, or pick up flotsam from the shoreline. Afterward, we’d return for lunch and go out fishing in Uncle Els's small aluminum boat with an outboard motor. Aunt Gin would pack us a lunch with stuff I'd wait in line 2 hours for now...but back then it was a bit different. There was nothing out of a package and nothing store-bought. She made the best meatloaf sandwiches on homemade bread with local cheese and sorghum instead of mayonnaise and pack them along with homemade pickles, and , apples, homemade cookies, and a Thermos with milk. Aunt Gin also made Anise candy from scratch. 

  Uncle Ells would either have the boat prepared with our fishing gear and necessities in the boat or we'd walk a mile down to Lost Lake and fish from an abandoned dock. Heaven for the two of us kids who'd survived a car crash which took the life of our mother. A new step mother was now in the picture.  On a still summer day we wandered off with our gear and our lunch down the sandy road  in the Chippewa National forest to Lost Lake. Uncle Ells called it God's back yard. Beautiful mixed pine forests and wildlife. I still remember the smell of the pine trees and of the lake and the familiar sound of an outboard motor chugging across the lake. Not a soul in sight.  The road was less traveled and became narrow as we walked to wards Lost Lake. I have a love for the sound of birds from this very walk. As the road turned into two tracks through the grass we knew Lost Lake was just ahead. Erik and I would spend the walk talking. I don't recall the subject much so it was likely kid talk about the Hot Wheels we wanted or the Schwinn Stingray bicycle with the banana seat.

 Erik suddenly stopped talking as we rounded the corner to the lake. He was focused on something and his body language scared me. He was motionless and staring. I tried to follow his line of sight to see what had his attention. I saw it. I had an almighty fear come over me that froze my voice and feet at the same time. Erik was still in his tracks.  Should we run or yell or should we stay quiet? My instinct was to get under the cover of the forest and get down. I grabbed Erik's arm and pulled him off the path and into the forest...shushing him with my fingers over my lips and strong eye contact. What caught our attention looked a bit like a huge shiny hot air balloon resting on the ground in a clearing.  There was someone walking and playing near it. But we couldn't really see. We needed a better vantage point. So using our considerable stealthy Navy Seal combat training acquired from the other neighbor kids, we made our way towards the object. It was big. As big as a hot air balloon but tucked under the trees.  Using hand signals perfected through nights of hide and go seek and kick the can, we gained still more ground and crept to within only 25 yards or so of the object.  Close reconnaissance like this requires that we go without our fishing poles and lunches. We tucked them under a pine tree. We squatted and waddled closer still.

 There wasn't just one kid playing, there were two. And they weren't kids. At least not from Centennial Elementary I can assure you.  They had purple heads. Big bug eyes that were dark....and they were wearing silver suits. These were MARTIANS! Cool! Erik and I gave each other the thumbs up and nodded our heads in unison and smiled. How cool is this? They appeared to be our size or maybe smaller. They were throwing a basketball to each other that didn't arc when they threw it. The little one dropped it a few times and it would just float back into his hands.  We watched in silent amazement. The little one threw the basket ball over the head of the big one. He leaped for it but missed. It came rolling our way. Erik got nervous and started to back up to make a getaway but stumbled over the roots of the big pine we were under. I grabbed him to silence him using my fingers over my mouth. I think I even made the fingers across the neck gesture.   

 Turning back, I could see that we were not as stealthy as we'd hoped. The bigger Martian saw us! He was walking towards us! He had very long arms and very long fingers. His skin was purple and his ears looked like a cows and they flickered whenever a fly or mosquito came buzzing close.  He appeared a bit older and about my size and was standing straight up. Their silver jump suits matched. I could tell by the way he was playing and teaching the smaller one that he must be older. He also had antennae on top of his head that moved about independently. One was always pointing at the smaller Maritain. He - I'm assuming it was a he-walked straight over to us and bent over to see us better under the tree. He stood there motionless and looked us over. Erik got up off the ground and on his knees and stood up.  The Martian backed up a little.

 He had something in his hand that he had taken out of a pocket in his pants. It looked like a baton from gym when we had relay races. I said to Erik "Man he has funny eyes, look how big they are and how big his eye lids are when he blinks. Do you think he has x-ray vision?" The baton made a noise. The Maritain listened to the baton and then looked at us up and down. He held the baton to his funny looking mouth. It looked like a purple duck bill. He then pointed the baton at us. The baton made noise but it was talking in English. The baton said. "Well, you have really little eyes. I'm surprised you can see at all. And no, I don't have x-ray vision" There was some sarcasm in his voice as the baton said "x-ray vision".  I leaned forward a bit and said "hello" into the baton. The Maritain held it to his ear and spoke back into it "Hello, I am Yenoc Nalsi and that is my brother Yaffat"

  I said, "Oh, I know what this is...it’s a translator like on Star Trek" I was a Star Trek authority; I knew these things. I spoke into the baton. I said "my name is David and this is my brother Erik, what are you doing here?" The Martian said: "well first off, we're not from Mars. Mars doesn't have any life.  We went there before we came here so we know that." I detected sarcasm again.  "We're from another Galaxy and we're here on vacation. We're camping". "What are you two doing here?" Erik wanted a turn talking so he grabbed the baton from the visitor and said "we're staying at my Aunt Gin's house and we're going to go fishing in this lake. Have you guys done any fishing here yet?" Yenoc listened to the baton. "No" he said "we just got here and I don't think we're staying long. My dad says you Earthlings are scary"

 Erik again grabbed the baton and said: "Oh we're scary? You have Purple skin AND antennas AND you're wearing silver space suits!" "Did you bring a 'ray-gun’? " Erik added a bit of sarcasms to "ray-gun". Yenoc said "No, just this ball and some games. We’re bored as heck. We were stuck in the spaceship for days. Yaffat is getting on my nerves”.Yaffat walked over and stood there staring. Blinking and staring and sucking his thumb.  Yenoc turned and scolded Yaffat. We could hear him through the baton translator...he said ' Get out of here Yaffat. These two are Earthlings and Dad says Earthlings are dangerous".  Yaffat fought back and protested: "Nu uh...mom said they're not. Mom said Grandpa has been here before and went fishing with an Earthling. They caught fish. They're not dangerous YenOOOOC' ".

 Yenoc turned to us and spoke into the baton. "Are you two going fishing? Can you take us fishing like Grampa did?" "What do you catch when you go fishing? On Neeterg we can only catch buffalumps and they're yucky".  Erik once again grabbed the baton and said "We catch Sun fish, blue gills, and bass and they are fun to catch. We throw them back into the lake because we don't like to eat them".  I told Erik that he doesn't have to say one word at a time, that the translator will figure it out. Just talk normal.  Our fear of the visitors had all but vanished. They looked just like two Earth kids on vacation with their mom and dad only these two traveled, well further.

 We turned and walked back to get our stuff. Yenoc stopped. He spoke in to the translator and said "We can’t go too far from the ship, or we'll get in trouble". Yaffat grabbed the translator out of Yenoc's hand and hurried right past him and up ahead on the narrow road with Erik. Erik pointed out a woodpecker on the side of a dead pine tree to Yaffat who nodded and asked questions into the translator baton. Yenoc just shook his head like no, this isn't a good idea, and followed.  We got our fishing poles and our lunches.

 Yaffat asked me about what was in the bag. I spoke back into the translator and told him it was our lunch. He said that he was really hungry. Their lunch was back near the spaceship. Their mom made it for them. He suggested a trade. He'd trade the lunch he and Yenoc had for our lunches. It was agreed.  Yaffat ran back to where they were playing and grabbed a metal box containing their lunch.  On his way back he looked over his shoulder back at their ship again shaking his head maybe regretting his decision. Off we walked down the narrow road crowded by the trees and bushes, the four of us, to the dock on the lake.

 When we got there, I showed Yenoc how to work the fishing pole. He couldn’t cast very well.  He had a hard time because his fingers were long.  Yaffat ate a worm. Yenoc scolded him "Those are to catch the fish Yaffat, not to eat!”.  Yaffat spent time looking into the water at the small fish. We fished a while and they both caught a few fish.  Yaffat was small and Erik cast the line out with a bobber and a worm on a hook and would hand it to Yaffat. Yaffat figured out how to reel the fish in right away.  When the bobber would go down he would giggle and point at it and say something out loud. Erik instructed him to reel in. Erik motioned as though he were reeling. Erik was excitedly gesturing directions and Yaffat was giggling. 

  Whenever he caught a fish and reeled it in out of the water Yaffat would hold the fish and the fish seemed to be still in his hand. His very long Martian fingers would gently take the hook out of the fish’s mouth. We noticed that Yaffat would talk to each little fish that he caught and gently set them back into the water. Soon there were dozens and dozens of big and little fish in the clear water around the dock lapping at the surface and swimming slowly about. Erik picked set down his pole and was going to reach into his lunch bag for some lunch. I laid my pole down too and we all sat down on the dock with our feet in the cool lake water.  He looked around on the dock for the baton. He spoke into the baton and asked them if they still wanted to trade lunches. Yenoc said "sure lets trade".

 He opened the box and their food looked funny because it was just cakes of blue stuff and some green things that looked like peanuts. He slid the box over to Erik and me.  They had drinks too. Erik handed Yaffat his sandwich and Yaffat ate it in three bites.  Yaffat picked up the bag and looked in to see if there was more. He stuck his hand in and came out with a big cookie Aunt Gin had baked. He wasn't watching what he was doing because he was looking into the lunch bag for more and when he twisted around he accidentally knocked the baton into the lake. It went straight to the bottom of the lake and disappeared under the lily pads in about 3 feet of water.

  We could tell that Yenoc was panicked. He leaned over the dock and reached into the water for the baton...and came up empty handed. Erik ran off the dock and waded into the lake and felt around for the baton.  Finally he found it. But when he pulled it out of the water and it was covered with sand and weeds. It sparked once or twice while water dribbled out. Yenoc put his hands on his face and shook his head. I didn't need the translator to understand him. I understood that Martian prefect. "My dad is gonna have a fit!" "This translator was expensive!"  We tried to dry it off on our tee shirts. We blew the water out of it. Yenoc spoke into it and listened...nothing came out, just some garbled stuff. I motioned to him to lie it down on the dock and pointed at the sun. "The sun will dry it off" I kind of shouted thinking he'd understand me better if I were louder.  Again, in Martian, I think Yenoc said "OK...but I'm in trouble" At least that's what I assumed he said.

  We sat there quietly and sampled each other’s lunches looking at the translator. The blue stuff was really good. It tasted like meat loaf. The green peanuts were also delicious. They tasted like apples or pears. We sat there, the four of us, eating away in silence. Yaffat ate the whole apple, core and seeds and all. Yenoc's eyes never left the translator. The translator started humming a bit and then vibrating on the dock. Yenoc grabbed it and shook it and hit it on the palm of his hand. A bright red light glowed out of the end the baton. It was not like any light I had ever seen. It looked a bit like a laser light and a strange red light glowed over us all.

 When the light hit me I felt funny, like I was buzzing like a bee or something. Suddenly the red light went out. Yenoc shook the light again. Then the small lights that were on it suddenly came back on. Yencoc said "hello" into the baton and it came out in perfect English as "hello" Yenoc spoke into the baton and said "boy that was lucky, my dad would have been mad!" I looked over at Yenoc and did a double take. He was starting to turn pink and his ears and antenna were shrinking. He began sprouting blond hair on his head just like mine. I wanted to tell Erik about it and looked over at him. I almost fell off the dock as I looked at Erik. He was turning purple and his hair had disappeared and he sprouted two antennae. But he was pointing at me! I looked down and my hands and fingers were now purple. My fingers were very long. 

 I looked out across the lake at two men fishing from a pontoon boat. I could hear every word they were saying. If I squinted a bit I could see what their faces looked like and what they were fishing with. This was impossible; they were over a half mile away! Yenoc was now jumping up and down on the dock. He hopped off the dock like a kangaroo. But he looked just like a human boy. I leaned over the dock and looked at my reflection in the water and I looked just like a Martian boy! Yaffat jumped off the dock and into the lake and began to splash around. He was giggling and laughing like a human. He began to swim around the shallow water by the dock. Laughing and spitting water from his mouth.

 I looked over at Erik and he was listening to something.  Erik said that heard someone calling out. It wasn't English. The unusual sounding voice was coming from the direction of the spaceship. Someone or something was calling loudly from the spaceship. The calling sounded like my mom when she would call us for dinner. Yenoc ran to the end of the dock and listened. His human eyes grew very large and he had a worried look on his face. I walked over to him and spoke into the baton "What’s wrong Yenoc?" Yenoc replied into the baton "It’s my mother and she’s calling for Yaffat and I to come back to the ship...NOW" "She sounds kinda mad. We are not allowed to wander away from the ship “.

 Erik grabbed the baton and yelled into it "what are we going to do?" "We're Martians and you're human!" Yaffat took the baton and said: "we are NOT Martians! We're from Nerteeg!" Yenoc was worried: “I dunno but we have to go back or my mom is gonna have a fit" Erik said into the baton ‘‘She’s gonna have a fit when she sees us!” I suggested we just walk back to the ship. I was always told to face my mistakes and tell the truth. There was no choice. We all had to walk together back to the ship. We gathered up all our stuff and started walking back to the visitor’s spacecraft.  As we got close, a door opened up from the middle of the ship like a garage door opens only silently. Stairs unfolded out of the bottom of the door.

 I'm assuming it was their mother who came out on the stairs calling again. She wore an apron and had on some pink fuzzy slippers just like the ones I had seen at Wal Mart the previous week.  I whispered to Yenoc "Did your mom get those at Wal Mart?" Yenoc whispered quietly back: "yeah, she got a bunch of souvenirs from Earth. You should see all the crap she buys when we go on vacation to other planets”. A funny thought crossed my mind when I wondered how their mother went shopping unnoticed in Wal Mart. She must use the translator and make herself appear human.

  We approached the bottom of the stairs and their mom appeared in the doorway. She started laughing. I think she was laughing. She was slapping her knees (they have two sets of knees by the way).  She quickly turned back into the ship and came out with a small thin metal box and held it up to her eyes and pushed a button. In between button pushes, she'd stop and laugh. Was she laughing? I don't know. She waved both of her hands at us and motioned for us to stand together. I got it, she was taking pictures.  We stood together with our arms over each other's shoulders smiling.

  A very big Maritain, OK I know-they're not Martians, appeared in the doorway. He started to laugh too I think. He bounced down the stairs and walked over to the four of us. Pointing and laughing. He stood in front of us looking up and down at each one of us. He stood right in the middle of us and yelled something to their mom. She waved back and took a few more pictures. He took the baton from Yenoc and spoke into it. "I am Yerrem; I am Yenoc and Yaffats' father. That is Mrs. Nalsi, their mother." She waved at us. Hard to tell with that duck like mouth, but I think she was smiling.  I said "I am David and this is my brother Erik” We're from Richfield. I don’t think they knew where Richfield was. Yerrem just nodded approvingly. 

   Yaffat was excitedly telling him something in Martian (I know, it’s not Martian). He was very animated about the story as he told it. He made hand gestures and we knew he was telling Yerrem about fishing on the dock. Yaffat pointed down the road in the direction of the dock. I think he was asking if we could all go fishing together. Yerrem shook his head no. We all knew what that meant. He gestured and talked to them both. I think they were really trying to get Yerrem to go fishing with them or maybe to let them stay for some more fishing with Erik and me. They were apparently as good as we were at getting our dad to stay longer. They were not very persuasive.

 Yerrem began fiddling with the baton. He pointed it at me and pushed a button.  Nothing happened. I began to worry. He shook it had slapped it against the palm of his huge purple hand. He looked into the end of it and pulled out a little piece of weed from the lake. He unscrewed the end of it and a bit of water trickled out.  He reached into his top pocket and pulled out what appeared to be glasses. They had many different colors of lenses that could be flipped down. Then he pulled a couple of tools and a rag out of his silver pants pockets. Mrs. Nalsi came down the steps and spoke into a baton that she had tucked in her apron: "are you two boys from around here? Sorry about the way you look. You see, this translator does many things. It can translate language and it can also change the appearance of things. My guess is that you four swapped lunches? That’s why you changed so much. If you eat food from the person you want to look like...the change is much more, uh, thorough".

 "But don't you worry your little human heads. It works in reverse. That is if Yerrem can fix it. Yerrem can fix almost anything. We got it this year and it was very expensive. The boys know they shouldn't play with it". You know she seemed almost Minnesota-nice? Yerrem had it all apart. Erik was starting to worry and I think he was about to start crying. Mrs. Nalsi walked over and put her long purple arm around Erik and reassured him.  Yerrem continued to fiddle with the translator assembling it and then disassembling it and flipping the parts around. They looked like they were from the same family. I giggled and said aloud “hey Erik Nalsi!”  Brothers tend to tease each other like that.  Yenoc complained "Dad, I don't want to be a human boy anymore; I can’t see much and I don’t hear much”. 

 “Aha!” Yerrem proclaimed. "I fixed it".  He turned it on its side and pressed a button and the little lights all came on again. Then he fiddled with a dial on the side and pointed it at Erik and pushed the button. The same funny red flight came out and Erik glowed red. His antennae shrunk, his hair grew back, his ears went back to normal and in just a few minutes he started to turn back to human color. He shrunk a little and his clothes fit him a little better. I was next and I heard the buzzing again. Mrs. Nalsi went into the ship and brought out a tray with orange colored cookies. They were delicious and almost as good as Aunt Gin’s oatmeal cookies.  We ate them while Yerrem completed the transforming process on Yenoc and Yaffat. 

  She was also taking many pictures and smiling. I asked for the baton from Yerrem and so I could ask if they were going to be leaving and will they come ever back? Yerrem said "Yes, we have to leave; we have a tight vacation schedule. We want to see Saturn's rings tomorrow and Jupiter and its moons the next day. But don't you worry we'll come back on one of our next trips through your Milk Way galaxy! “Mrs. Nalsi was herding Yenoc and Yaffat back toward the ship.  It was inevitable, they were leaving soon. We were sad as we had just made friends with them. Erik blurted out "Wait Yenoc and Yaffat...here take our old fishing poles, we have others back at the cabin!" Both Yenoc and Yaffat took the poles and admired them.

  Yerrem said into the baton "That’s very nice of you boys. This is for you.  It's a beacon for you to keep.  The next time we travel back to your Earth this will help us to find you".  The object he pulled out of his pants pocket and handed to me was black in color and small and round and about the size of a pool ball. It had a tiny blinking red light. Yerrem said: “don’t worry, it can’t harm you but it will give off a signal that only we will be able to find”. We stopped them to say goodbye to the boys from Neertag. The boys bowed over to us. We bowed back to them.  Erik and I extended our hands to shake hands with them. They both looked at Yerrem. He motioned his head towards us...they didn’t know what to do. He said something to them and Yenoc tipped his head back and nodded and finally both extended their hands and shook hands with us.

 "Good bye boys. Go stand over by the road when we take off" Yenoc and Yaffat waved to us when they climbed to the top of the stairs. Our new friends disappeared into the ship and the stairs folded up into the ship and the door slid down from the top.  We walked over to the road and the big ship started to glow a bright blue and green. The hair on both Erik’s and my head stood on end like there was static electricity in the air. My ears popped like they did when we were driving through the mountains in the car. There was very little noise as it lifted slowly off the ground. As it rose up and over the tree line it started to make a very loud roar like an airplane taking off. In a few moments our friends big ship disappeared in a streak into the sky leaving Erik and I staring up into the sky.

  Erik yelled excitedly:”wow that was so cool! No one will ever believe us!" I said "hey we have this” and held up the beacon.  Erik looked around the ground as we walked back over to where the big ship was parked. "Hey, they left the translator!" So they did. The light was on and blinking. There were two dials and many buttons. No markings.  "I get it" yelled Erik.  I protested "Nu uh, it’s both of ours. We both get to keep it Erik".  Erik fiddled with the dials and buttons. We both knew that the big button activated it so he didn’t push that button. We looked at it together and wandered back down the road to Aunt Gins. We were guessing out loud which button did what as we passed it back and forth. I bet they left it there on purpose for us to have fun with.  

  It was starting to get a little dark and dinner would be ready soon.  We had to walk back to Aunt Gin and Uncle Els's home. There weren't many mosquitoes.  How were we going to explain what happened to the fishing poles ?