Lordy Lordy

I turned 40 today. I think that could be a complete enough blog, but I am not sure that’s all I have to write.


My family has moved out of our home in Bozeman, and we are camping throughout the region while I attend a four week writing workshop at Montana State. This past week we spent it at Trapper Springs campground in the lower Madison, and each evening we make the walk down to the irrigation canal, and fish the river from the peninsula the canal formed. So far, I have not hooked anything, Cole hooked a good fish on a beaded San Juan Worm with the pink chenille Yankee Jim recommended last summer. The bad boy spun around downstream, and spit the hook without nary a jump. Cole was stunned and I was impressed, but that has been it. The water is murky, cold, and not as high as I thought it would be.

We have had other adventures near our campsite this week. Cole and I decided to recon some firewood from the abandoned campsites after the weekend. In 80 degree weather, we headed down the west road on the lower Madison, and at the same time we both exhaled something like “Holy Hanna-do you see that?!” There was a very firm and adequately voluptuous woman lying on her tummy on a picnic table at one of the campsites, topless, nearly bottomless in her thong, and appropriately turning red given the first real sunny day in a month. Cole looked at me almost embarrassed, and I said something like: “You don’t get to see that every day!” We then found a trunk load of cut wood at two other sites.

We have had tremendous thunderstorms nearly every night. We watched the bruised purple clouds start to unfold behind the juniper ridge across the river, and we started packing up everything. I am amazed at how efficient Erica and the kids are at this, and it is something we never practiced. Then we all get in the tent, and hang on. The first one was quite scary, because we didn’t know if the tent would even hold. We had to bang hail off the rain fly from the inside because it was accumulating on the roof, and I feared a cave-in. The back corner pulled up the stake from the wind, but otherwise we survived without a flood, and the next two were easy to handle. The baby just rolls around and walks around laughing and making her darling expressions.

So why are we camping with two dogs, two cats, two leopard geckos, and three kids? We cannot afford Bozeman right now. The house we were in was expensive to lease, expensive to pay for propane and electricity, and we do not get along with the landlord. So we moved.

Now we are struggling to find a new place, and I think for us that’s ok. Tonight we will be in Hyalite, and the kids can get into some good fish and we can relax under some big trees. Homeless at 40. Nearly penniless. I lost 10 pounds. Well-educated, good job, working on my doctorate. Making new friends. Fishing a little. All my children are healthy, and are enjoying the gifts of living in Montana.

When I was 20, 40 was ancient, and I didn’t want to live that long. Now, I want to live to be 100. Life is good. Forty is good too.

White Fish

I have been obsessed lately, as a result of the AMST 502 curriculum, with the possible appearance of fly tackle at a world’s fair, or world exposition. As a kid the only thing I really knew about world’s fairs was that the Space Needle was built for one. (One generation earlier, many recall going to them).  I have now discovered much more, and of course, these discoveries have me thinking.

Experts who study world’s fairs including MSU's Dr. Robert Rydell argue that the U.S. worlds’ fairs were platforms to establish the superiority of the white race, and their claims are valid. Various Filipino tribes were put on display in the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and one tribe was renowned for eating dogs, and good white folk payed to watch. At the same fair I discovered there was a fish and game pavilion. Via Google Books I found a 1904 copy of Field and Stream that was dedicated to reviewing the St. Louis outdoor recreation areas. One article was written by Tarleton H. Bean, the commissioner of the Fish and Game Pavilion. Another by a sports writer, and another by the comical caricature of a rural low culture resident, Uncle David. He writes things like: “If a mule cud eat what they call a Hott Dogg, which is a kind of sausage you get on what is nown as the Pike, it would not be so Bad, fer you can get several Hot Doggs fur six bits. Ever thing else is fore dollars to set and look at it fur a little while.” He then goes on to call the beer exhibit the place where “you git yore high culchur”.1

Who attended these fairs? Middle and upper class Americans did, and they were able to see these displays as something to strive for. The world’s newest breech-loading rifles were on display, as well as fishing tackle. It framed the wild as a place to explore, safe from other non-whites who were feared, into the imaginations of millions of Americans. If you were white.

I then met with Paul Schullery, and we discussed this in relation to my research doctorate research. We started uncovering other pieces of fly fishing memorabilia at world’s fairs. Actually he started revealing them to me, and I am indebted. In 1876, at the Philadelphia International Exposition Orvis wins a medal for an innovative fly reel, which is still the standard to which fly reel shape and function still strive today. Then, at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Mary Orvis Marbury directeda magnificent fly plate display, enhanced with amazing fishing and river photography. Her book Favorite Flies and Their Histories contained elaborate chromolithographs (had never heard of these before today). These are items still survive, and Schullery’s book The Orvis Story includes a remarkable history of the Orvis legacy, and amazing photographs of flies and images from the late 19th to early 20th century. 2. So, my research is paying off and this course is sending me into a direction I was unwilling to go earlier: race, class, and fly fishing.

Back to the world’s fairs, where the best of every country was put on display to inspire and give hope, and there was fly fishing. And its rich tradition of whiteness goes back centuries. And it might be racism; just today I have been contemplating whether there is still a latent racism, working in the cracks of upper class America, and trickling down.

Another idea might be that fly fishing appears so white, that other races don’t want to be perceived as that white. I feel that way sometimes. The actions of some put the racial connections associated with them in a shade of embarrassment. “The actions of a few have put a world in harm’s way/ and history has proven that they killed our leaders dead” (Citizen Cope “Healing Hands”).

It might be about imperialism, and economic expansion. Orvis made flies in Kenya. Most flies anglers purchase at shops now are made in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, or India. The gear is manufactured overseas. But the lore still exists, one of front window tiers in the west, cane rods and small flies, and pipes. Fly fishing serves as a display of certain racial attitudes in this country. It is like golf, or owning a major sports team, or winter sports.


1. http://books.google.com/books?id=f0BYAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA302&lpg=RA1-PA302&dq=hunting+and+fishing+at+world's+fairs&source=bl&ots=tDAdtFG71s&sig=-QNFtPb5XzFXNcmZF0qot5llHiw&hl=en&ei=T8_6S_IkhNo16eOVhAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
2. Schullery, Paul. The Orvis Story: 150 Years of an American Sporting Tradition. Manchester: The Orvis Company, Inc. 2006 (20-35).

Memory

In my current course titled Research in American Studies, listed as AMST 502 in the Montana State University campus catalog, we are discussing, via online posts, the value of memory as a historical resource. Memory is a compelling subject for me, because I have several conflicting experiences with it.

In the 90s I volunteered a few times at an Alzheimer’s unit in Missoula, MT. I would take in fly fishing and hunting magazines, and sit at a table with a few gentlemen and just read to them. They really never commented on them, nor did they tell me stories of the good old days. They usually just sat there and drooled.

However, one occurrence really set in motion the oddities of the disease, and the complexities of the mind. Two couples were sitting at an adjacent table. They were not married, they were not related, but they lived in the same unit. Ironically, they acted like they were two married couples. One of the women asked the other couple “When did you folks arrive in Minneapolis?”

The man of the house answered “Well, um, just a few minutes ago.”

The inquisitor responded “Where are you folks staying, because we are having a hard time finding anywhere with vacancy”.

The little lady of the house replied “We found a nice hotel right after we got off the train.”

Ok man--I thought--am I in Missoula? Am I not in a retirement home? What a trip these people are on.

Not many years later my grandmother Ethel had a stroke after trying to take care of my grandfather Ray, who had been secretly suffering from dementia for a few years. He remained alive long after she passed, and he lived in a similar home, unable to recognize or recall anyone who came to visit him. After a while family just didn’t visit because it was too depressing.

I think about these things when I can’t find my damn car keys, or my wallet, or (fill in the blank). I want to blame it on my wife, or my kids or dogs, but it’s really I just don’t give a damn about stuff like that. There’s never any money in my wallet, so who cares where it is. I will be lucky if the car actually starts, and there usually is no gas in it anyway, so who cares where I put the keys.

But, the moments I remember are laden with significance. They are pallets of color, sound, smell. I remember every fish I have ever caught, and that number is in the thousands. I can remember the fly used to catch significant trout, and whether I tied it or bought it. Often I can even recall when and where I tied it.

I remember the biggest fish I ever caught, and the assmunch who rowed his drift boat directly across the river and downstream of where I was, and how he let his obnoxious golden retriever out of the boat so it could run up stream to where I was fighting the 25 inch rainbow hooked on a #16 bead head tan hare’s ear. It was miraculous that I landed it in the cattails and dog legs.

I remember moments involving wildlife, like when a cow elk came ripping out of the woods to slam on her respective four hoof brakes and startle hundreds of carp lounging in a slough on the Missouri. It seemed like the entire river rose six inches, and that mass of elevation swam 800 meters across the mighty Mo. I remember deer hunting with my brother, and his reaction to seeing some tan hide moving through the woods at 20 yards: “Shhh, I see a deer.” Pause and scan through the lodgepoles. “Oh shit dude, a mountain lion.” Its shoulder muscles rippled underneath its hide. Its tail was like a big league slugger’s bat. Same color too.

Once I awoke from a nap while elk hunting, and while lying on my back looked straight up the dead snag behind my head to see a saw-whet owl looking down at me. Once my dad and I awoke under a tarp in the same prone position at Sheep’s Bridge campground to see a Great Horned Owl looking down at us from a tree.

In all of these I remember the temperature, the wind, the cloud cover, or not, and my state of mind. They were usually content, and peaceful, and open.

I also remember the day I met my wife. June 12, 2004. She was astonished last night when I told her this, just as she is every year when I remember that date. It was sunny, hot actually, and I had my feet nestled in the sand at a local park. My pickup line was “are you the babysitter or the mom?”

I also remember water and laughter and tears when Kerby was born July 14, 1995, and the sound of Bianca’s whimper on February 27, 2009 when she was yarded from Erica’s abdomen. I hope these memories will be etched in digital code forever. I hope I never remember a train ride to Minneapolis while sitting at a card table with three complete strangers.

Catostomus ardens

My step-son Cole is a good fisherman. He picked up fly casting quickly, and his favorite place to fly fish is Hyalite Creek. Every time he has been there, including the first time he fly fished, he has caught aggressive rainbows in fast water. The fish size coincide with the creek size, but their appetites and willingness to eat flies make it a special place for those looking for clean water during runoff, or a quite place to fish with a three weight.

But Cole has tenacity and hope when fishing, and he hasn’t hit that place in his fly fishing career where they type of stick really matters. He will catch fish on whatever is working, whether it is a fly rod, a landing net, or our family spinning rod. So, we fish a public pond near our home once a month or more, and depending on what’s working, he usually catches something on a Panther Martin or a worm, or a fly. Last month we were at the pond, and as I often do, I get the kids fishing and then try to figure out what is going to work on a fly rod. I tied on a #16 pheasant tail with an indicator high up on the leader and flipped it out. A 9 inch rainbow ate it in minutes. This happened a couple times quickly, too quickly to turn the rod over to one of the kids. Once I did, Cole hooked a Utah sucker, Catostomus ardens. I was astonished that a sucker came up from the depths of this pond to eat a pheasant tail suspended nine feet from the surface. He was astonished because it was about 10 inches long—the biggest thing he ever caught on a fly.

Now I introduce you to Pepper. She is a 4 month old border collie puppy with a penchant for smelly shoes and, as it turns out other smelly things. See, we are moving from this house, and last summer the kids had an idea to build a pond for frogs. They hollowed out a chunk of the yard next to the veggie garden, and began plopping things into it like store bought koi, minnows trapped in sloughs nearby, and this year, the sucker. But, yesterday I decided we needed to start filling it in, and began that by kicking in a few of the river rocks that rimmed its edges. In the remaining six inches of water --what was left of the deep end--Mr. Utah sucka feesh came flopping out. I felt terrible, because I had no idea the fish had survived all the grubby fondling at the pond, let alone a trip home and thirty some days in our backyard! My yellow lab Duke pounced on him. Given the way he salivates when I catch trout, and the way he catches and massages gophers with three bites and a gulp, I thought I would let him have the fish.

Baby Bianca silently observed all this from my arms, but as the wind blew, I left Duke, the sucker, and silent little Pepper to the overgrown soggy grass in the back yard. B and I went downstairs, played with her toy instruments, and it crossed my mind that before dark, I should bury that fish in the garden so the puppy wouldn’t bring it in that night. Well, after we played for about thirty minutes I decided we needed a snack, and carried Bianca upstairs, down the hall, and as I turned to the kitchen, I saw this…

There really isn’t that much more to say, except that a warm, dog-slobbered Utah suckerfish covered in dog hair and carpet really isn’t symbolic of glorious death, nor does it give puppy Pepper the delightful puppy breath that so many oogle over. I still haven't checked to see if the doggy door got slimed or not. I am sure I will forget before I am done typing.

Important in this story is that with gregarious kids and dogs, I sometimes let things go that I myself would never do--anymore. I don’t have the heart to kill a fish anymore, and I wouldn’t kill a sucker or a trout or a gopher unless it were suffering. I find myself even braking for the baby ground squirrels in the road this month. But I remember what it was like to be a kid, and I killed a lot of fish when I was that age. I liked to eat them, I liked to slice them open and see what they had been eating, and I liked to “match the hatch” by trying to find crawdads, dragon fly larva, pink power bait, or whatever else they were stuffed with.

So, I just shrugged when they asked if they could take it home, and I figured it would die a noble death by raccoon or skunk in our back yard long before Pepper got her pointy little puppy teeth on it. But he didn’t and I am left at 10:36 PM to contemplate the will to survive. In our human tendency to anthropomorphize other species, I assumed that fish was too dumb to live very long, because he sure looks stupid, and he is from Utah. But there it was, a month later living in six inches of dusky green water, maybe a little bigger than it was when Cole caught it. And I marvel at the curiosity of Pepper. She is so much like Bianca. And as an adult, I thank god for Peppers and Coles and Biancas, that keep me bright eyed and keep me seeing the “nuisance”, the “invasive species”, as something full of wonder, as something capable of inspiring awe.

Son On My Back

Two nights ago Michael Keaton was on Letterman’s show doing what many people who have dedicated their lives, at least their recreational lives, to fly fishing: he was animatedly talking about fly fishing. He had just returned from the Bahamas, with a cast of heavy hitters that included Yvon “the real deal” Chouinard, Tom McGuane, and Tom Brokaw. What Keaton said, is what many grasp while fly fishing in salt water: the fish are strong, and permit are addictive. He claimed the “black spike” is what he spent hours looking for after hooking his first Permit, which quickly swam right at him and spit the hook. After that experience, he let hundreds of bonefish go by as he scanned the flats for the spike.

This experience is unusual in the big picture of American and global culture, but it is common among salt water fly anglers. What is unique, and humble, is what Letterman said a few minutes later. He recalled a time when Michael said "there's no better day than having your boy on your back and going fishing".  Letterman brought this up because he too just fished with his "Boy on his back." They shook hands and everyone applauded. 

Fourteen years ago my son Kerby fell asleep in a backpack while I waded knee deep in a late summer run that had a gauging cable running over it on the big Blackfoot just minutes from Bonner. He was a year old, blonde, and happy, and shortly after landing a fourteen inch brown, I felt his soft blonde hair press against my neck; a sure sign he was out for the count. I continued to nymph that run and landed a few rainbows and whitefish, and one cutthroat. I never fished with him on my back again, but it was a moment that I have never forgotten. Fly fishing the Blackfoot in summer in shorts with my son on my back touched places at the time I was starting to seal off. My heart, my tear ducts. I never heard another man talk about this before, until two nights ago. Two men musing about the joy of fishing with their baby boys in backpacks-one of which I admire so much because, among other qualities, he looks and acts like my dad: goofy, handsome, and intelligent.

And around 11 PM the other night, I was right back there, with the green river wrapped around me, and Kerby’s little toes against my back. I knew what these men on TV had experienced, and I shared it with them for a brief moment.

There is something special for men when they share the outdoors with their children. In the woods, or balls-deep in a river, we feel like children again. The world has mystery and is veiled and lifted all at once, like how I imagine toddlers see it. And to share something so simple that means so much has become tradition, and that legacy lives on today, in pockets throughout the US. I don't know if it does in other countries, but as John Mclean expresses in his essays, that tie between a father and his child and a river is haunting, and joyful.

My dad read my first entry here, and said it brought a tear to his eye. He then sent me a video of a woman freaked out because she has raccoons in the belfry. That’s my dad, and I love him for it. Kerby turns 15 this summer. I turn 40. He and I rarely have fished together. I would like that to change sometime. I love him and what he is becoming.

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First post

I just read several posts from John Maclean's web page johnmacleanbooks.com and I was overcome with his ability to write commanding prose, and the legacy under which he writes. I am inspired by his simplicity, and when I read John tonight, I felt like I was reading a writer with his own style, but aware of his father's influence.

The experiences he had with his father Norman remind me of fishing with my father on the Upper Deschutes in Central Oregon. We were bait fishermen, and I never caught anything legendary, but I awoke with my dad each camping trip near 5 AM, with fog still on the river, and cast and reeled in until breakfast around 10, or until my brother Mike's reel, or mine, were birdsnests of eight pound monofilament. I would stand next to my dad with the same line, swivel, split shot, even the same end of the worm, and he would catch amazing browns and rainbows, and I would get snagged. We did this for years, until Mike was too involved in baseball tournaments, and I was a teen too involved in drugs, girls, and rebelling against my family.

When I returned to Salem, Oregon from college at the University of Oregon in 1992 Dave McNeese sold me a used 8 foot 5 weight fiberglass Fenwick fly rod, and a new Cortland Crown for $50, and told me it was his old personal rod, and it had caught thousands of trout; when I moved to Missoula, Montana in 1993, I never put it down.

And though the details in between then and now will undoubtedly emerge, I know am three weeks from 40, and a couple years worth of writing away from completing my PhD in American Studies at Montana State University-Bozeman. My children live in world class fishing towns: 14 year old Kerby in Ennis; Cole, Shae, and 15 month old Bianca in Bozeman. I also teach developmental composition to incoming freshmen. It is a life I dreamed of, but never imagined would unfold.