I set my alarm this morning for 5:38 AM. My son Kerby, through is own determination and the generous help of many people in the town of Ennis, and friends and family from Bozeman to Oregon, earned enough money to attend a debate camp in Palo Alto, Californ-I-A. Last year he lost state by just a point, and as a sophomore he hopes to win the whole shebang. So this morning his mother--the same woman who tried to ream me a new asshole on the phone this week (but only via voice mail) because I am a “lame father” who better not take an ounce of credit for Kerby’s successes; this is the same woman who threatened to get more money out of me (blood from a turnip?) and hopes I don’t show up for anything Kerby does anymore--took him to the airport, where I met him, along with hopalong R.J., who pulled into the parking lot at the same time I did. Joe Biden’s United States of America jet was conspicuously parked on the main tarmac. Unlike Kerby’s father, at least the boyfriend and the vice president make a good showing.
Kerby was at the counter with his mother, and after leaving it, I gave him a big hug. He was nervous and excited, and about as bleary-eyed as I was. He said he stayed awake watching movies. His mothering hen told him how to catch a shuttle out of San Francisco, and I gave him $40.00. The mother and bf left, and I stayed around to make sure Kerby made it through the security ok. The line was down the stairs to the main floor, the longest I’d ever seen in our sleep town.
After that, I knew I wanted to head down the Gallatin above Big Sky and fish. The drive down in the dog hair-infested Buick was quick and unimpeded by RVs. I swung into Big Sky which has a new stop light (it’s been a while since I have been there). I stopped at the market, grabbed cookies in the clearance cart, coffee, a pepper jack and turkey sandwich, salty seasoned corn chips, and a pack of Polar Ice. The lady at the counter had no interest in taking my money, and I had to ask her if she wanted me at this side of the counter, or the other. “Oh sorry, he he.”
Then the good part, I went to the second fly shop in town (I avoid the Orvis shops), and Jimmy was just heading in. It was 7:40, and he said he was opening. By now my caffeine buzz was wearing off, and flip flopping into the shop with a hot cup in hand spruced me up a bit. Somehow we ended up talking about my dissertation work, and the guides and Jimmy all seemed interested, until the wealthy whites showed up for their $400 day with a guide. How boring for the guides, taking people and their kids out on the Gallatin. Anyway, with plans to find a pull out above BS, I left the shop with two caddis, two PMD patterns, and a couple of green soft hackles.
Alas, the dream like dip into the Green Gallatin began at mile marker 42, just above the MDT sand site, I slid into the shadowy 9:00 AM river. It was uniformly knee deep, and with a #14 caddis, I laced the 4 weight into a riffly seam next to a rock. A six inch rainbow ate it right away. This happened over and over, and by 11:30, I had caught enough, and thought I needed to sit and read Paul Schullery’s tongue in cheek titled book Fly Fishing Secrets of the Ancients. I found a cozy little bank side spot piled with dried mounds of pine needles and sand from runoff packed into caverns below the roots of trees. As I peeked into those, I found a strike indicator, and the lid of a fly box. After reading for an hour, I grabbed my Therma-Rest, and napped for two hours. I needed that rest, and have never slept along a river in the shade under large pines. I dreamed of scuba diving in a McDonald’s.
When I awoke, I was soaked in sweat, and square shoulders and a neck were imprinted in moisture on the Therma-Rest. It looked like someone spray painted the pad while I slept on my stomach. I laughed, and went up to the Buick to chug some water. I looked across the river to the ten foot cliffs where I had caught several rainbows, and the air above the river was still, without a bug in sight. I decided I should head back to Bozeman, and see what was happening back at the house.
On the way home I stopped above Deer Creek bridge, and, hidden from the highway, stripped and slipped into the cool, deep pool to wash the bug spray and sweat from my body. I held onto a submerged log and let the current run over my body. After a while, I stood straight up, and turned into the sunshine, where an elderly woman stood 20 yards away, watching her caddis drift downstream of her latest cast. I am not sure her fly stopped, but my heart did, and hers probably did too, as a naked, hairy, bald, sunburned man 25 years her junior rose from a chilly trout stream. I just waved, looked down at my snail shriveled manhood, peeking wrinkly and timidly in the late afternoon sun, and slinked to the trees where I dressed and crossed the highway embarrassed, humbled, and enamored by Montana, again. I look forward to my son experiencing the shock of leaving Montana, and coming back.
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