...My Dog Thinks I Am.

I just finished Greg Keeler’s latest book Trash Fish. I read it for several obvious reasons; Greg is a local fly fisherman, he is an MSU professor in the English department, and my dissertation work is on fly fishing literature. For less obvious reasons, I took a poetry writing class from Greg during graduate school, his book has a cool picture of a sucker with the reflections of what appears to be kids with fishin’ poles underneath the golden pariah, and the back jacket says it’s about “truths about passion, relationships, and the flaws of human nature.” In multiple ways, I have been drawn to this book for months, including the MSU bookstore display with stacks of copies during spring semester. Then, I tried to justify purchasing the book for my composition course this fall themed “The West”, but couldn’t reconcile Keeler’s fishing book on relationships with my course on intricacies of where we live. Therefore, I bought it last week out of my own pocket, or debit card.


Friday I read 162 pages of the book, and at times when Greg refers to himself as Greg, I couldn’t help but wish it was fiction, and I could tie it into my PhD work somehow. Throughout it I also saw Greg, the tall thin guy who responded to students’ poetry with a laid back “Yeah” and nothing else. After several weeks he brought his guitar in, and I might have been high, but I remember laughing, and laughing! He was a professor I admired, because he wasn’t stuffy, arrogant, negative or high culture. He is real.

My friend Robyn was in the class, and after a brief stint as a job placement specialist, (I shall check and see if that is the real title) she is returning to education as an online college writing instructor. I am excited for her, and loved listening for what she might create in the quiet Tuesday Thursday class absences. Somehow Keeler developed an environment that made me long to hear his “yeah” and I don’t think I was alone in that expectation.

But what really touched me about Greg’s book was his ability to delve into the pain that makes life ache. He lost people close to him from cancer. His wife, a passionate, loving woman became a different woman because of her disease. Like many men, as his wife’s sexual interest declined severely with her disease and age, and as his age encroached, he escaped to his youth when he could attract the likes of Muffet Hemingway.

What is critical in this book, what is critical in my own life, and I think a debilitating aspect of American Culture, is out inability to accept ourselves as feelers, and embrace the feelings of others. Doing this makes me vulnerable. To admit I feel sadness makes me weak. To acknowledge that I am not strong, and stoic, and I am affected by others and my environment, makes me unavailable to others who need me. But, the feelings of others, especially the painful, sad, angry feelings cause me to retreat. Where do I go? Fishing. Smoking. Drinking.

Where do I feel the most joy? Fishing. Smoking. Drinking. Being with Bianca, who doesn’t challenge me. Yet. Do I want to feel attractive like Greg wanted to feel in his book. Yes. Do I feel that way all the time? No. Do I feel that way often? No. Rarely? Yeah. Where do I feel successful then? As a teacher of college freshmen, I feel incredibly successful, but I challenge myself always to be better. To improve what I do. To embrace students as they are now, and teach to a world as I think it ought to be is all I can do, and I hope I do it well. Why don’t I strive to be a better feeler of my family’s emotions?

Where else do I feel successful? Catching trout. Not carp, tarpon, snook, redfish, salmon, steelhead, blue gill, bass, or crappie, but just trout. I fished for the rest, and failed. But trout. I can build the fly rod, tie the flies, find the water, find the fish, and catch them. I can play god and let them go or club them over the head and eat them for dinner or give them to my neighbors as a peace offering for my bullying flame-point Siamese cat.

But where do I fail the most? With those who need me to be vulnerable and show I love them even when it might not be reciprocated. Who does this include? My wife, my son, my mom, my step kids. However, my dog shows undivided love. He is never ever ever angry with me, and imagine this, he is my best friend. Does Duke challenge me? Yeah, when we drive and he whines too much. Does he bite me? No. Does he call me names? No. Does he destroy things I have worked hard for? Mmm, no. He doesn’t. If I had him when he was a puppy-probably. My life is the constant longing for the bumper sticker that reads “God, please help me be the person my dog thinks I am”.

I don’t say that to trivialize this topic. Greg did nothing in his book but make the significance of his actions appear flawed. Who is the saint, the hero, the angel in his book? The woman who continued to love him throughout it all. Who are the saints in modern myths? Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. These people loved unconditionally without violence toward their enemies. They forgave. Judy forgave. “So what did Greg do when he realized the depths of Judy’s despair? Did he rush to her side to comfort her? Did he accompany her to marriage counselors? Did he drink and smoke and drink and smoke? Did he start taking prescribed medications? Yes he did all of the above” (207). He adds “She didn’t want to be with anyone but me. Her insides might have been twisted all funny, but her monogamous brain was painfully intact, and even though my state was the reverse of hers, her strength still brought me to tears” (238). Sometimes I am this failed man. But like Greg, I want to get it.