Traces

I finished my coffee and looked at my watch. 0930. I had just driven up to my dad’s farm in Maine. The farm and most of the acreage would be going on the market in short order and the cattle fence needed to come down. The last time I was there, he had mumbled something close to, “I might need some help with a few things when the time comes.” I laughed to myself because I knew he wouldn’t ask. That’s just his way. But my sister let me know a few days after the last of his cows were trucked off that he was going to start taking fence down. Two phone calls later he and I settled on a day to do it.

0931. My plan was to be done by sundown. I got up from the kitchen table and said, “I’ll get my boots on, let’s go do this.” I looked at his face and knew he was struggling. This was the last time he would be taking fence down. It’s an annual event. One that he’s done every fall, other than a few years he didn’t have cattle, since 1955. Give or take sixty years, that’s a shitload of fence posts and God knows how many miles of wire. I had missed the fence going up in the spring. There was no way I was going to miss this day.

We started at the gate by the barn, working our way behind the garage out to the road. I reeled the wire on the top line, unwrapping it from the plastic insulators as I went. Dad followed me with the bottom line. Cattle fence now is braided poly-wire, a lot easier and less painful than the galvanized steel wire we used on our farm back in the day. And fiberglass posts, well they’re a lot easier to wrestle out of the ground than cedar posts. And no wire clips on ceramic insulators. Drop one of those clips in the grass and not find it, well you’d think all winter about one of the cows swallowing it in the spring. Suffice it to say, there were very few clips left behind.

We got out to the road and started the long straight stretch to the southeast corner. A few sections in I could hear his heavy breathing and unsure footsteps behind me. I knew he was going to try to keep up with me out of pride. I started unwrapping the bottom line from the insulator before the top to make it easier for him and to slow me down. It just sped him up. I stopped and said let’s take a minute, thinking to myself, “Damn it, George, slow the fuck down.”

In the two or three minutes we stopped, I replayed a memory from Christmas night 1986 on the old farm. We had just finished evening chores and were having a beer. I think there might have been twenty head in the barn that winter. I was a senior in college and heading back to school in a few days to begin my last season on the ski team. Years of training had caught up to me and I was having knee problems. We cracked a second beer, and I told him I wasn’t sure I’d be able to ski at the same level I had the previous seasons. In true GW Rice fashion he stared at the cow shit on one of his boots, took a sip of beer and said, “Well, go as hard as you can, for as long as you can.”

I turned away to start reeling line, but more so he wouldn’t see the smile on my face. The old man, as always, was the living embodiment of every piece of advice he’s given me.

Photo: MR

 We got to the corner, loaded fresh reels and started a stretch of fence in the wood line. A short way in dry ground turned swampy and potholed. I stopped after a hundred yards and walked back to him. Prepared for an argument, I told him I’d reel both lines and suggested he pull fence posts where we had just come from. To my surprise he agreed and said he’d meet me at the back corner where these lines stopped. I reeled wire to the corner and went back to pull the posts and stack them in the field to pick them up later with the four-wheeler. Some of them were old cedar posts and I wondered if any had been put in by my grandfather. Some of the insulators had been nailed to trees. I pried the bright yellow plastic off them with my knife. Walking back to the corner I could see dad standing there waiting for me. I turned and looked back down the tree line. There had been some type of fence there for as long as I could remember. Now there were no traces of it other than the muddy cattle path that had followed alongside.

Photo: Patty Rice

After a short break for lunch we started on the opposite side of the barn and worked our way along the west side of the farm down to the brook and out to the backside. When the ground got muddy again, I told him I’d reel the line, pull the posts and carry them out into the field so he could pick them up on the four-wheeler. Halfway down the backside, where the ground was swampy and the mud knee deep in places, I turned around and watched him driving the four-wheeler through it all picking up the posts I had yet to carry out into the field. I had to laugh.

Photo: Patty Rice

Eventually I made it to the back corner. I piled reels of wire and fence posts together and sat down to drink a bottle of water he had left for me. I watched him driving the four-wheeler, trailer loaded with posts in tow, across the field toward me. I didn’t see the old man who had started out the day trying to keep up with me. I saw a giant. The strongest man I’ve ever known.

 

Photo: MR

By 1500 we had the reels of wire stored, the posts piled and had taken a quick tour of the new house up on the hill by the back corner.

 And then it came time for me to leave.

“Well, thanks, Mike, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

I hugged him.

“Yeah, you could have, Pop. It just would have taken longer.”

 

As I got in the truck, I took a long look out over the fields and the barn. The scene was reminiscent of Frost prose. I remember reading Lathem’s “Interviews with Robert Frost” many years ago. There was a quote from Frost that stuck with me.

“The farm is a base of operations – a stronghold. You can withdraw into yourself there. Solitude for reflection is an essential ingredient in self-development. I think a person has to be withdrawn into himself to gather inspiration so that he is somebody when he comes out again among folks – when he “comes to market” with himself. He learns that he’s got to be almost wastefully alone.”

This farm was where dad grew up. When my grandparents passed, it fell to him. It’s always been his stronghold. Where he “came to market.” The farm that he and my mother built, where my sister and I grew up, was very much the same. I know from conversations with him over the years that in both places, the time spent tending cattle and the garden, cutting hay and running fence line – all while operating his construction company - gave him that solitude for reflection. The work in the barn and the fields provided the time and a place, alone and on his terms, to sort through the difficulties of life and the inspiration to do it again and again. To go as hard as he could, for as long as he could. He’s still going.

The traces of his time on the land will fade as someone else takes it over. That is inevitable. The good times and the hard times, the work done, and the lessons learned remain in memories, not only his, but also in those of my sister and me.

 

 The Rice Farm, South Paris, ME

26 October 2023

 

She's From Boston

We pushed the pedal boat off the beach and headed out of the cove. At its opening was an underwater rock field that dropped from two feet to eight. At the deep edge were several boulders that reached to within a foot of the surface. These boulders usually held large schools of sunfish and a few bass early in the morning.

I had been out at sunrise throwing orange squid flies at pickerel from the canoe. By eight o’clock the bite had shut off. I paddled back to the dock, grabbed a mask and snorkel, and swam out to the boulders. There was a couple dozen sunfish and two good sized smallies. When I swam back in, Abby was up, and I talked her into going out for a few minutes with a worm and bobber on the spinning rod. I grabbed a cup of coffee and assured her we would be back in time to run into town for a slice of gas station breakfast pizza.

I pedaled the boat close to the rocks putting the sun behind us so she could see into the water. She dropped her first cast in between two of the boulders and we watched the bobber. She missed the first few takes as the thieving bastard sunfish would peck bits of the worm off the hook. We rebaited the hook and waited. I sat back sipping coffee watching her face as she told me things about dolphins, the Red Sox and Taylor Swift. She started to tell me that she thought the Kenny Chesney song, "She's From Boston" was written about her when the bobber disappeared and she one-handed the rod.

“It’s a big one, dad!”

 

It was. Big in the sense that she brought it in the boat and popped the hook out with little help from me. Then she pinched another worm on and went right back at it, picking up the Chesney story right where she left off. She caught another half dozen before we ran out of worms.

I think of this day frequently, particularly now that Abby is making her life in Vermont. It came to mind again a couple of weeks ago while talking with someone about flies and fly fishing. After he downloaded his fishing resume of PB’s and PR’s and showed me the corresponding pictures on his phone, he asked me what my best day on the water was.

In a split-second the memory roulette wheel raced through images of big stripers, football tuna, baby tarpon, tailing reds, bonefish in a foot of water, gator blues and mangrove snook. The wheel stopped on this day, so I told him the story.

“So, what’d you catch?”

I just smiled and answered, “An unforgettable moment with my daughter.”

We did make it to the gas station in time for pizza.

And another tub of worms.

 

6 October 2023

Thompson Lake, ME

Waterman

The rain had just stopped as we left the dock at East Boothbay and motored up the Damariscotta. The sky above us was gray making the water a dark black green as the skiff cut into the outgoing tide. Around us the cormorants worked small bait while the seals corralled pogies. Life on the river paid us no attention as we passed by. 

A short boat ride put us at the foot of a small island in the middle of the river. Pulling up to a string of oyster floats, Max Ritchie throttled his Eastern skiff down and edged up next to the gear. Max holds the lease for Carlisle Island Seafood and farms oysters just off its namesake island.

Max started his company in 2020 after working his way up from deckhand to manager in one oyster company and then moving to another to put his academic degrees to work. With an undergrad degree in Marine Science and a graduate degree in Marine Biology he had hoped to bring his knowledge of bio statistics and data modeling to the oyster industry. Eventually he decided to go out on his own, taking with him the knowledge and experience he had obtained working for other farms. On his own he figured he could add more of the “science” he had studied at the University of Maine to the farming process to streamline it and make it more efficient.

 “Obviously I thought was smarter than everyone. I thought I knew what needed to happen. It didn’t take long to get humbled. I met people in farming who know more than I do. They tend to be the people you don’t hear about. The deeper I got into farming the more of them I met. I have a great appreciation for those who have been quietly farming and learning as they go. The most important thing I’ve learned over the last three years is to keep going back to the basics. Strong gear maintenance and flipping gear on time is the most crucial part of farming.”

His first “haul” to market in 2021 consisted of just under 2000 pieces (oysters). Not prolific by any means but for a guy just starting out with limited capital for gear, it was a beginning. He expects his upcoming 2023 “haul” to be somewhere around 5000 pieces. Still not a money maker, he won’t break even, but he sees the banking of knowledge and experience just as important as year-end tallies at this point. And he also knows he needs to triple his gear to get to the money-making side. But that takes more gear which requires increasing the size of the farm from 400 square feet on a Limited Purpose Aquaculture lease per line of gear to a Standard Lease of up to 100 acres. This obviously takes time, money and paperwork.

In the meantime, Max is not “all-in” on oysters. He’s branched out and now has a few select customers that take mackerel, cod and squid that he hand-jigs as the season allows from the boat after his daily work at the oyster farm. They are “bled, gutted and iced within ten minutes of coming over the gunwale and then delivered to the restaurant within two to four hours of being caught.” This addition of wild fishing has re-sparked Max’s love of working the water. His process and limited take advances his ethos that “the ecosystem should be able to survive what we harvest.”

But it’s not all sunny days and rainbows.  “There are somedays it drags on me: After a college degree and a Master’s, I failed on being part of the “usual” career path. I don’t have a Monday through Friday nine-to-five and the guaranteed paycheck that goes with it. I think of that every morning as I drive to the boat ramp. I have failed to conform to the needs of society and the status quo. And then I get on the water, work the farm and jig up whatever I can…I forget about the idea of failure for a little while. And when I deliver to my customers, and they tell me they’ll take whatever I can bring in…I get so excited when I find the one person in ten who get what I do and are excited about it.”

After spending a few hours at the Carlisle Island Seafood oyster farm and jigging up a few mackerel and cod with Max, I get it. I get all of it. The thrill of the independence in doing what you want to do and the idea that you can make it a viable living. And I get the uncertainty of looking into that abyss in the water that you pour blood, sweat, tears, every second of your day and every free dollar into. Every damn day.

Hard work. They don’t teach you that in college. You learn it. From the ground up. In this case, from the river bottom. In the heat of summer to the frigid cold of winter on the mid-coast of Maine, the work never ends. If you’re truly devoted to it, it’s not so much work as it’s just what you do. That mindset, and I can think of dozens of examples, overtime leads to making a living. In the words of many self-employed people I know, “making a living” makes a life.

My last question to Max over a beer on his back porch tonight was, “Would you trade life on the river over one in a cubicle with a salary?”

 “Absolutely not.”

 Roger that.

I’ve known Max for a lot of years now. He’s married to my niece, Jen. She is his partner in all things. She comes from tough stock and a long list of family members who chose hard work as a career. A better partner does not exist. I wish them the best and hereby call “shotgun” on any mackerel jigging excursions when Jill and I are on the mid-coast.  

 

For more about Carlisle Island Seafood, visit Carlisle Island Seafood

 10 September 2023

East Boothbay, Maine

Frost

In the morning we’ll finish loading the truck and head north. It’s not so much a vacation as it is a working road trip. Year number three, something we look forward to. We’re a week later than usual. I just could not mentally manage the idea of driving during the Labor Day weekend traffic, so we put it off.

I’ve put a few things off this year. Brush cutting and clearing out the remnants of the previous owners along the edge of the ranch got put off. A lot of shit got put off. The older you get, the more compromising you become with projects that twenty years ago would take two days. Knocking on sixty, well, those things can drag on for a bit. Compromise. You wrestle with it when you’re younger, embrace it when you’re older. I have no doubt when I get to the next chapter, I’ll call it wisdom.

Yard work isn’t all that’s been put off this year. I decided over the winter to change things up. I can’t tie flies all night, every night like I used to. I’ve been asked several times why I don’t fish anymore. Well, here’s the press release, I make a few casts nearly every day of the year, the world just doesn’t see it. To be honest, that scene has changed, and I no longer fit in. The game is too fast, too Hollywood these days. I can see my train coming, I’ve got too many other earthly things I want to do before it stops at the station. Channels need changing, pages need turning.

On a trip to New Hampshire last winter to visit my daughter I made a stop on the way home at The Frost Place. Robert Frost and his family lived there full time from 1925-1920 and spent nineteen summers on the property. His work has always held a special place in my heart, his words and prose have always felt like home. Some of his poetry still feels like it was written for me. So on a clear and cold late afternoon I sat on the porch and watched the sun fall on the White Mountains. Cold mountain air clears the soul, invigorates the mind, and focuses the eye. I think my mother said that once. Regardless, ninety minutes of silence on Robert Frost’s porch looking at the world changes your perspective.

So rather than sit on that change, tomorrow morning when we get to the end of the driveway and can turn left or right to go chase the light, I have no idea which way we’ll go. I only know we’ll go.

When we return, things here will begin to change. New outposts on the interwebs, a different look and more layers of the proverbial onion. I recently had a conversation with an old friend at our class reunion about the words and water here at Backwater Flats. She’s one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever known, so I listened. Deep into conversation and halfway through a beer she said, “it’s good, do it for you.”

So, I am.

See you on the road.

And KBK, thank you.

 

Littles Pond, MA

8 September 2023

'83 after forty

 

9 June 1983.

NASA was in final preparations to launch Sally Ride and the crew of the Challenger into space as Oxford Hills High School launched the Class of ’83 on our way into the unknown. A gallon of gas was about a buck and a quarter. We could all drive stick and three-on-the-tree and knew every backroad in Oxford County. M*A*S*H* had just ended, Cheers had just begun, and Saturday Night Live was funny. We knew Jack and Diane, Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue and the Wuppa Gubba and Raputa the Buta. Our lives were orchestrated and choreographed from the back corner booths of Goodwin’s Dairy and the pay phone out front.

We came from eight towns, transported to different elementary schools by a fleet of buses that travelled over three thousand miles daily. Eventually we were brought together at the junior high where, unbeknownst to us at the time, we began to form as one. Two years later we landed in the halls of the high school. In the classrooms our teachers taught what we needed to fulfill graduation requirements while taking us on conversational side trips to explain how it all fit into daily life. In the gym and on the playing fields our coaches instilled in us teamwork, perseverance and leadership. In the hallways and after school our class and club advisors gave us guidance and encouragement to work with each other, take on projects, solve problems and make a difference in our school and in our community.

As is the case anytime a large group of teenagers are held in a pressurized concrete building all day for nine months, there was tension at times. Social groups, friendships and relationships fractured. New ones were formed. Somehow, we kept going. In the shadows of all the drama what I remember the most is our class coming together whenever we needed to despite our differences. Homecoming skits and competitions, Winter Carnival, Dance Marathon, Walk-a-thons, parades, football games, field hockey games, cross country meets, basketball games, wrestling meets, ski meets, baseball games, track meets, plays and concerts…we all supported each other. And we all supported the Class of ’83. We were The Vikings.

All of this flooded my mind while we congregated for our class photo at our 40^th Reunion a few weeks ago. As I looked out at the faces of people I’ve known essentially all my life and talked with some I haven’t seen since graduation, I realized one thing: the basis of everything I know, everything I’ve done along the way, all of it originated in those elementary schools, the junior high and the halls of the high school. What I learned about life and how to navigate it I learned from the Class of ’83. The good, the bad, the pain, the bliss, success and failure. We learned it together.

I regret that I did not get a chance to talk to everyone in attendance. I was amazed at the stories of those I talked with. Every single one. Our AFS sister and brother, those I’ve known since the first grade, those I only knew in high school and everyone in between. We’ve done well. Healthcare, construction and the trades, art, education, business, finance, the military, law enforcement, technology, communications…we are everywhere. We’ve built our own businesses, built homes, raised families, gone out into the world and come back home. Did we make our mark on the world, did we make it better? I think we have and will continue to do so.

I've omitted names in this. Teachers, coaches, advisors, classmates – there are just too many, too many stories. Each one is no less important than the others. To quote Aristotle, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

The Class of 1983. We are one.

To close, I have three thoughts.

First, Viking Pride is not just a catch phrase.

Second, “Non Carborundum” should be excavated and read at the next reunion.

And lastly, long live The Hammer!

 Slainte!

 

3 September 2023

Littles Pond, MA

 

Blue Lines

 On the ride into the trailhead Rich pointed out small streams and talked of each one intimately. Some of them were less than shoulder width, some six or seven feet across. Some held just a trickle of water, some looked to be waist deep. All of them held his stories. Boyhood tales of boundless exploration. The intense study in high school years of each stream from the source to the mouth and all the pools and riffles along the trunk. Entomology, seasonal water flow and fly selection through trial and error specific to each stream. Trips to these waters now and how each one has changed. A living history.

At the heart of each story: native brook trout.

We parked the truck and geared up for the walk in. Six-foot-six three weight rods, a box of dry flies and water bottles. The hike-in on the trail was easy. As we walked, he told me of following the blue lines of streams on maps in the early years and drawing in the ones that were not shown as he found and explored them. He said by the time he left for college, some of the pages looked like a first-grade art project. We laughed because I had done the same thing in an old copy of the Maine Atlas and Gazzatteer my grandfather had given me.

About a mile into the woods, we left the trail and descended into a ravine that held one of the most amazing pieces of water I have ever seen. We bottomed out at the foot of a small waterfall cascading into a wide pool of water so clear it takes your breath away. I stopped for a few minutes to absorb everything around me. The birds singing above the sound of the water crashing, the smell of wet moss and damp soil, the touch of cool air rising off the stream to meet the heat of the day rushing down from where we had just been. It had been a long time since I had stood in such a place. I was speechless.

Rich took the right side of the pool and I, the left. We took turns dropping flies at the base of the waterfall. A few casts in a brookie rose from nowhere and hit Rich's fly. As I watched him release it a thought that would continue to build over the course of the morning crept into my mind: how did these fish get into this stream halfway up a mountain?

Photo: MR

While he doped his fly, I kept casting and missed a small fish on the set. I made another cast to the right of the waterfall into a shadowy corner in the rock face behind it. I watched the fly float into a small eddy and seemingly stop in the water. Just as it did, a dark form came up from below and inhaled it. It was not small. I panicked for a moment thinking I was going to do something wrong and lose it. I wanted to see this wild creature. I brought it to hand and Rich said that fish was as close to a "trophy" as one could hope for on such a stream. All the hero shot bullshit aside, that question began to build in my head...where do these fish come from and how the hell do they live long enough in this little stream to get that big?

Photo: Rich Strolis

We took turns leapfrogging down the stream waterfall to waterfall and fishing each pool as we went. Some of these pools were large and gravel bottomed, some were literally carved into the rock and the size of a kitchen sink. Each one seemed ancient. Most held a brookie or two.

Photo: MR

Several times we had to climb up the sides of the ravine through scrub brush to navigate hundreds of yards around deadfall and blowdown. My legs burned, my lungs cried for air, I tasted copper. I felt my age while also feeling like a kid again. The effort put forth to do something, whether it be fishing, climbing a mountain or mowing the lawn, is something that seems to get lost in translation, something that gets left out of the story. Rich and I will remember a few of those fish, the memories of them will fade with time as others come and go. That "day we hiked that ravine" won't be forgotten because getting into that place was the story.

In the last section we fished I set up on a pool while Rich went twenty yards downstream to another. Knowing the morning was coming to an end I just stood and stared into the water. The clouds gave way to the sun and the pool lit up. I could see everything. And in the back corner, just behind and to the side of the whitewater was the outline of a brookie laid up in what was just seconds before a shadow. I made a cast just to the right of it and watched the fish move to the fly and then stop. Two more went unnoticed. On the third, I watched the fish creep up under the fly, almost stand on its tail and sip the fly. It was a beautiful way to end the day.

Photo: MR

We hiked up out of the ravine toward the trail back to the truck. As we slogged our way through the brush, fallen trees and mud I kept running possibilities as to how these fish had made their way up this stream, through waterfalls, some twenty feet in height and found refuge in the pools. By the time we made it back to the trail and I had caught my breath, I had to ask. So, I did. He laughed and said he wondered when I was going to ask that. He had theories but no definitive answer. He left me with, "It's a mystery. Which is why this place is so magical."

A fitting answer I thought as we passed the waterfall we had started at. Recalling a class called "The Natural History of New England" in college, I remembered the ice over this area at the end of the Pleistocene epoch had melted and receded somewhere between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago. Looking down on it from above I could see the thousands of years the water had carved out of the rock as it passed through the valley below. I wondered if the DNA in the fish we had caught could be dated that far back. Regardless, it was clear to me that this place was now part of my brother's DNA.

As we drove down the mountain I thought of the morning, the stream cutting through the rock and the native brook trout that have somehow survived in it. Staring in the side mirror I found an answer in the last passage of "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing that could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

I hope the blue lines that lead to these places remain a mystery, that the magic survives.

Littles Pond

14 July 2023

The Little Things

I started writing this on my way to New Hampshire to visit my daughter a few weeks ago. I left early and joined the Monday morning commute through Boston with a legal pad on the seat beside me and a tape recorder in the cup holder. I had no idea what I wanted to write. But I had a theme, more of a feeling I suppose from an Instagram post she had recently shared with me. I’ve since lost it and have no idea who to attribute it to, but it read: “Re-introduce yourself to the things that used to give you joy. Things that used to make you smile.”

 I was headed to mountain trails and alpine air.

 A good place to start.

While we hiked and sampled the offerings of a few local breweries I thought of things that give me joy and make me smile that I either take for granted or simply put off. Little things, like the smell of the freshly mowed lawn under the coolness of sunset. A chapter or two of one of those books in the “unread” stack from the library upstairs over the second cup of morning coffee. Sitting down at the vise to tie a few flies for my own box. Early morning kayak trips with the fly rod and camera.

When I got back, I made it a point to stand in the middle of the lawn after I mowed it. I dusted off a few of those books and had a third cup of coffee. I even tied a few flies for myself. And this morning, Jill and I loaded the kayaks in the truck and were on the water just after sunrise. Cameras charged and a fly rod just in case, we “worked” offsite for the morning.

Mid-morning as we paddled from one area to another, I caught some nervous water out of the corner of my eye. I stopped and watched. A hundred feet in front of me I started seeing bait pop out of the water. I stripped line off the reel, put twenty feet of line behind the boat and paddled closer. Fifty feet away in about six feet of water all hell broke loose. Striped bass rolling on the surface, tails slapping, birds hitting the water. I started to smile. For a second, I thought about trying to get a photo. Hard pass. I made a cast and overshot the melee by fifteen feet. I stripped the fly (The Poet, of course) through the middle of the boil. I happened to look down and saw a silver torpedo coming along the port side. I water-hauled the fly and dropped a back cast as far as I could with my right hand as I tried to spin the boat with the paddle in my left.

Line wrapped on the paddle while I tried to close the box my cameras were in and push it under the bow. I began to laugh. Total shitshow. I cleared the line and started stripping. I could see the fly. A few strips in I saw the bass swim past the fly and then make a quick turn back and inhale it. The dance was on. A few times I thought I was going to break the rod as it crossed back and forth under the boat. In short order I got it boatside and released it. I told Jill, if I don’t catch another bass this year, I’ll be alright with that.

That was a special fish.

It brought back the joy of fishing.

And maybe, just maybe, a smile.

From the water

2 June 2023

Q & A

 I came in from the woodshop around three, marched into the studio and told Jill we were leaving in thirty minutes for a beer and an early dinner. Other than a few quick side trips, we had been working non-stop for months. A couple of hours sitting at the bar at one of our favorite spots was a needed break. It would also give us a chance to pencil out some details on a project we have in the works. And the Bruins were playing.

It was a rainy Sunday, and the lot was nearly full. We got lucky and found two seats at the corner of the bar. We ordered beers and started scribbling ideas on napkins and talked about making the time to get the project going in between filling orders in the studio, working on fly orders, yard work and all the other things that needed to be done. Losing momentum, I ordered another beer and excused myself to the men's room.

As I approached the door, I heard a voice behind me say something about fly fishing. I turned as I held the door and saw a vaguely familiar guy wearing the Patagucci/Costa/Xtratuf uniform complete with a buff. He paused in the doorway as he told me his name and I pretended to already know it. Unfortunately, both urinals were available. I took my place at one and prepared myself for conversation as he stood in front of the sinks looking back and forth between his phone screen and himself in the mirror.

"I heard you quit fly tying."

"Nope, still tying. Just not as much."

"I didn't see you at the shows this winter."

"Nope, didn't go."

"You still fishing?"

"Yup, quite a bit. A lot of freshwater, actually."

"You must fish a lot if you're not tying, huh?"

"I've got a few projects going on terra firma that keep me busy, so I don't get as much water time as I used to."

At this point I finished my business and walked over to the sink as he took his place at a urinal. He kept talking.

"Terra Firma, where's that, Chile?"

"Um, yeah, technically."

"Cool."

I dried my hands with a paper towel and turned to bid him farewell. He was standing there scrolling through his phone with his non-business hand. I had to admire his dexterity.

"I'm on your Instagram page. You don't post much."

"Nope."

"How come, dude? You must have a lot of fish porn on your phone."

"I just fish. I'll see you later, Chief."

I took a step through the door, back toward my beer and anonymity.

"Hey, man, do you still write?"

I smiled.

"I will be."

From the bar

21 April 2023

Good Stuff

I'll preface this by saying life is short. Do the things you talk about before you cannot, tell the people you love that you love them before you cannot.

Some moments you never forget. When Jill and I heard the news, we were just into Friday night Happy Hour in front of a fire. Rich was gone. I dropped the phone, told her the news and was speechless for a long while. 

We had talked at the end of the summer about a visit here in May. The opportunity for early season stripers in skinny water, a side trip to fish for browns and bass with my other buddy Rich, a trip to Fenway and God willing, a trip to Sully's on the way to the Garden to see the Bruins in post season play. I had meant to call at Thanksgiving to catch up and get the ball rolling. I didn't. And now, as hard as I try, I can't recall what was so important I had going on that I didn't make that call.

He was a big dude. To those of us who knew him, he was a giant, both in presence and stature. When you got to know him, you found that his size and strength were only surpassed by the depth of his heart and infinite devotion to his family and friends. I only spent a few days in the presence of my friend. At my age it seems awkward to refer to someone I had very little personal interaction with as one of my best friends, but he was. Our friendship began on Instagram. Like all good ones, it started over a dog, fly fishing and a shared passion of the Boston Bruins. He read everything I've written here on Backwater Flats and commented either in text or calls on every piece. Whether I thought it was good or poor, he always urged me to keep writing in my voice because "some will get it, some will not but some of us love it."

I wrote about the beginning of our friendship in 2014 at Dog Tales. In 2016 I wrote about our family visit to Folly Beach and time spent with Rich and Jeanette at Low Country: Chapter One. We had talked about additional chapters. I regret now they won't be written.

Rich, Jeannette, their dogs Tuck and Murphy, and their family were talked about in this house as often as any other family member. When Tuck passed, we spent nearly an hour on the phone laughing, crying and talking about the impact of all the dogs in our lives and how the special ones really alter your life.  Facebook check-ins, text messages, Christmas Eve phone calls, random conversations. Family stuff. That's the way I will remember it. And all bonded on one short conversation while he and I were fishing with Tuck in That Place That Shall Not Be Named while we were there for my daughter to visit the University of South Carolina. It became the anchor of our friendship and will remain in place as long as I live. 

He handed me a beer, climbed back up on the poling platform and said, "If Abby comes here for school, there's always a place for her here, we'll watch over her like she's one of our own."

After that, we ended all our conversations with, "Love you, brother."

Friends like that don't come along often.

Which is why Jill and I, flew down to Charleston to be with Jeanette, family and friends for Rich's Irish Wake. Exactly how he wanted to go out, his people all together telling stories and being together to remember him. I wanted to be there for Jeanette but also to meet two of his friends, Nate and Jeff, who he had introduced me to through social media. There had been talk about me making a trip to South Carolina fish with these guys. It just didn't happen. Jill and I thought under the circumstances, it would mean a lot to Rich for the three of us to meet. I'll say this, Rich chose his friends well. That fishing trip just might happen yet. And I hope to reciprocate with a trip onto my water with them in Rich's stead. 

As I start to write this, we are waiting for our flight back to Boston. My heart is broken but full. For the last two weeks all I've had on my mind is a comment Rich put on one of my blog posts detailing a trip out to Martha's Vineyard to fish the Derby in 2015. He wrote:

"Life goal: to be included in one of Mike Rice's fishing stories 'cuz they are about fishing and yet so much more. Good stuff, man. Good stuff."

These words bounced around my head as we all gathered in the living room and his daughter Lauren gave the Irish Toast. Up to that point I had held the tears back. As she spoke, they fell from my eyes. I looked up and saw a print on the wall of Rich and Tuck walking out on a grass flat. I had seen it before. I actually shared a similar moment with both of them. For a second I felt like I was in that image. And then reality hit me, and I realized he was gone, somewhere in the hereafter.

I cried more.

Jeanette came across the room and hugged me. I tried to speak but couldn't. She said, "He loved you." There are no better words to describe our friendship. That's the way I'll carry it with me. 

Before we left, I took another look at that print on the wall.

Rich Walker, I'll say this, thank you for including me and my family in your story. It started out about fishing but ended up being something so much more.

Good stuff, man. Good stuff.

Slainte! 

We love you, brother,

Mike, Jill & Abby

4 December 2022

Littles Pond, MA

Fire

 I'm sitting in front of the first fire of the season. The first fire has always held a special place in my heart: the end of summer and the beginning of winter. Fall has never been a season to me, just a jumping off point from one life to another. The transition between water to snow. Those times are past me now. These days it's become a merge down the on-ramp from mowing the lawn to the highway of (in the words of my friend Mike McAuliffe) "goddamn snow management." But still, it's my favorite time of year. The Credit Card Captains have had their boats put up, the flats are empty Monday thru Friday, and the package store isn't quite as busy. It's always been a time to be out there on the water and do what I do in honest silence. A time to get back to where I came from and appreciate where I am now. 

I throw more wood on the fire as my father is upstairs in what Jill and I call the "Lincoln Bedroom." I carried his bag upstairs a few minutes ago and as I got an extra blanket out of the closet was suddenly awash in memories of going back to the farm in college and my twenties when he would do the same for me. Walking down that long hallway from the garage to the kitchen, past my old bedroom, the smell of birch in the woodstove, sunset over the lake, pizza on the table, a beer extended from one hand and a hug from the other. My favorite memory of going home. For those first few minutes, there was nothing else but family. Tonight, Jill and I reciprocated. Drinks on the patio looking out on the pond as the sun dropped behind the pines, pizza in the kitchen and stories and current events from back home in front of the fire. 

Now I sit here as everyone has retired for the night. Jackson Browne, John Prine, the Allman Brothers and the Eagles on my set list, just like it was when I would sit up on the farm in front of the fire when everyone else went to bed. In those moments I wrestled and reconciled with where I was, where I was going and where I came from. Comfortably grounded by what has always been while anxious about tomorrow, the next step and the unknown ahead. That's what going home should be. 

I'm a short distance from turning another year around the sun. I've gone from everything to nothing and back again more times than I care to remember. In all of it there's been a constant source of strength, a light to guide me home. In my house tonight, in front of the woodstove, sitting next to my dad I was awash in that light again. Home.

Call your dad. 

Littles Pond

23 September 2022  

  

Three Rivers

The idea for this trip was first talked about just before Christmas last year. Plans and itineraries changed as often as the weather did while winter passed through spring into summer. By the first of July we had set the date for me and Matt to meet up with Rich somewhere in Montana. His plan was to drive out there with his drift boat a week in advance of his wife and daughters travelling out for vacation. Once the girls were headed home, Matt and I would arrive, fish for a few days and then drive back east with him. In the midst of the airlines being FUBAR in early July, Matt and I opted to jump on Amtrak and catch a different view of America. 

Photo: Matt Smythe

On a rainy Monday night in August, just shy of midnight we boarded the train in Rochester, NY bound for Essex, MT. The train ride is a story in and of itself that I'll file away for some other time. Thirty-two hours later the train stopped in Essex, the conductor ushered us out on to a small concrete platform alongside a dirt road, wished us well and then the train was gone. We threw our gear in the back of Rich's truck and got to the campsite just as darkness fell. 

The next morning, we headed into Columbia Falls with plans to fish the North Fork of the Flathead River. We stopped at Lary's Fly and Supply to get what current information we could and pick up some local flies. As I poked around the fly bins, I heard the term "hoot owl" a couple of times in the conversation Rich and Matt were having with the girl working the counter. When we got back in the truck, and as I was obtaining my Montana fishing license on my phone, I asked what I thought was an obvious question.

"Where's this Hoot Owl River?"

There was some laughter and then an explanation that it referred to restricted fishing between two in the afternoon and midnight on water with low flow and high-water temperature. Luckily where we were headed was not "under hoot owl." I finished entering my information, hit submit and laughed to myself remembering a line from Driving on the Rim by Thomas McGuane while I waited for my license to appear.

"Giving freaks a pass is the oldest tradition in Montana."

It was written in a different context but seemed fitting as we headed out of town. 

The Flathead and the scenery surrounding it took my breath away as we waded upriver. I've felt small out on the ocean and in the mountains here in the northeast, but this was different. It might have been the romanticism of finally being there reconciled with the images I had in my mind from what I've read about Montana. Or it might have been because it really is a big damn sky stretched out over mountain peaks, valleys and flat expanses that words and photographs really cannot fully capture. 

Photo: MR

Rich and Matt both began fishing with dry flies. Being the neophyte of the group, I stripped out line and started bombing small streamers across the river as I would for stripers here at home. Eventually I worked my way up to Rich as he started catching small cutthroat. Across the river, Matt began doing the same. I stood off Rich's shoulder and watched as he explained the process. A few fish later he rigged my rod with a dry fly and gave me pointers as I struggled with this new form of wizardry. He told me to keep at it and wandered downstream a bit. I watched him as he stood frozen staring at a small piece of water on the far bank wondering what he was seeing that I was not. And then he started casting. Short perfect casts, mending line and working the fly with a, for lack of a better description, delicate touch. He's a big dude, one of the physically strongest people I know. Watching him fish dry flies can only be described as a beautiful contradiction in constant motion.

Photo: MR

We kept moving upriver as the day went on. I kept practicing. Before leaving home, I had made peace with the fact that I most likely would not catch anything on this trip. I saw it as a learning experience, something to build on. At the end of the afternoon my Intro to Trout Fishing class was upgraded as Matt handed me his rod, gave me some instruction and stood with me as I pulled the fly out of the mouth of a dozen cutties. And then something clicked. I set the hook and brought one to hand. Matt sat back with his pipe as he and Rich continued to coach me up and I caught a few more. I'll never forget that first cuttie, on that river, in front of those mountains and under that sky. 

Photo: Rich Strolis

That evening at camp we discussed where to go next. While I looked through the photo's I had taken during the day, Matt fired up the handheld computer and he and Rich looked at options based on what they had learned at Lary's. By morning coffee, it was decided to head south to the Blackfoot River. Along the way Matt found a place to camp at the junction of the north fork and the main stem of the Blackfoot. We got there mid-afternoon, quickly set up camp, rigged rods and set off up the main stem into a box canyon. 

The boys alternated setting me up on pools, pockets and riffles. Eventually we spread out, Rich fishing above, Matt in the middle and me below. I took a break to get the camera out and watched Matt. Being on this river held great significance for him because of his lineage. We had talked about it on the train. Several years ago, he had written a poem titled "Give Me Trails."  I thought of his words as I watched him move up the canyon and a few lines of the poem came to life before me:

"Give me trails.

I run solo but I am not alone.

It's in my blood. My Blackfoot ancestry. I feel them running with me and the hair on my neck and forearms stands on end. I hear them in the wind off the lake and in the song of leafed branches overhead."

Photo: MR

A few moments later an osprey flew overhead clutching a trout. I'm not saying there was some cosmic meaning to that event, but I will say there was a palpable energy in the air. We all felt it and mentioned it at the same time later that day.

Photo: MR

We continued fishing up through the canyon. I found great joy in one tailout as I pulled the fly out of the mouth of two rainbows. I had studied the water, got myself into position and pieced together what I had learned so far to at least get the fly to a fish. Success in failure.

I caught up to Rich about the time we heard thunder in the near distance. The forecast had been for rain, a thunderstorm was a surprise. We decided it was time to get out of the river about the same time Matt came from upriver and said, "We oughta get out of the river." We worked our way back down through the box canyon looking for a way up and out. We had seen the canyon driving in so the road to camp had to be close. Matt took point and I brought up the rear trying to keep up without falling in. At the low end of the canyon Matt found a draw leading toward the road. I moved slow, deliberate and winded up it. We're all beat up and broken in places, I've just been around longer and earned a few more beatings. I fear it's starting to show. They waited for me at the top and I saw a momentary look of concern as Rich grabbed on to help me up the last step. Brothers, that's what we've become, not from a bond of blood but one of shared respect and allegiance. And they laugh at my jokes.

We found the road and got back to camp just as the wind picked up, the rain started and lightning followed. We pulled out the chairs, sat under a canopy of trees and watched the storm over cold beverages. This was the one time, at least for a few hours, during the trip that we weren't moving. 

The next morning Matt got on the board early with a bull trout. This was what we had come for. A guide floating by offered us his net and I was able to net it for Matt. His first bull but more meaningful that it came from the Blackfoot. A moment both of us will remember.  

Photo: MR

We moved up the north fork to catch up with Rich and along the way Matt gave me a lesson in swinging streamers. Cast, mend, raise the rod. Cast, mend, raise the rod. We fished our way past a sandstone cliff. In my mind I could see Butch and Sundance (the Newman-Redford version) crouched on the top looking down saying, "Who are those guys?" Cast, mend, raise the rod. Around the next bend I made a cast in front of a brush pile, mended the line and got bit hard as I raised the rod. Again, success in failure. We continued on for a while but after discussing the low water we decided to return to camp, pack up and head for Wyoming.

Our last day of fishing was on the Wind River. This was the highlight of the trip for me for the reason that it afforded the opportunity to use everything that Rich and Matt had taught me on my own. We parked the truck in a campground and walked the bank. Right off the bat there were rainbows holding in front of rocks and boulders. Matt worked one with a dry fly for a half hour while Rich and I did the same downstream. Matt eventually caught his, I was pleased with myself for getting mine to move on my fly several times. We waded our way upriver and I switched to swinging one of my own flies, one named after Matt that has caught just about everything in saltwater and freshwater. I really wanted one fish on the fly from the Wind. But only on The Poet. I fished below Rich while Matt went way upstream. Eventually I raised a rainbow on it, saw the fish take the fly, felt it on the line as it turned into the current and then as quickly as it happened it was gone.  That was it for me. I hadn't brought it to hand, but it was enough. 

Photo: MR

I made up my rod, stepped out of the river and walked up to Rich. He looked at me and said, "I'm done too, let's go have a beer and wait for Matt." We walked back to the truck, broke down the rods, changed into dry gear and were sitting down at a picnic table when Matt caught up to us. We sat and talked about the trip as we looked down the Wind. Since I wasn't driving, I opted for a second beer and walked back to the truck as Matt packed his pipe. On my return I looked at them both staring at the river in silence and was reminded of a passage Norman Maclean wrote in A River Runs Through It:

"It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water."

Taking my seat at the table I realized this story didn't start in a series of text messages or at a train station in Rochester. It didn't start on the Flathead, the Blackfoot or the Wind. It started long ago in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and the western foothills of Maine.

Photo: random English lady

Three lives.

Three brothers.

Three rivers.

Littles Pond, MA

16 September 2022

Gravity

I followed Rich from his house to the put in. Staring at the raft in the back of his truck reminded me of last year's trip. It had been my first float in the freshwater scene. He and Matt had coached me up during the day as I threw albie flies and Baby Poets at bass, browns and rainbows. I've fished up and down the east coast and the islands and thought that some of those days would never be bested. I was wrong. At the end of that day, exhausted from catching a ton of fish and laughing endlessly like schoolboys, we agreed to make it an annual event.

Over the winter this year's group trip got postponed until later this summer. More on that after it happens. Rich and I had talked about fishing for stripers here on my water this spring but after reading all the information and listening to the "industry experts" leading up to Amendment 7 of the Striped Bass Management Plan, we both, individually, decided to cut back on fishing for stripes this year. For both of us it was a personal decision based on our own observations and history on the water, not meant to incite debate or seek comment.

So, instead we headed to one of his favorite pieces of water. We dropped the boat, shuttled his truck to the take-out and grabbed a coffee and one pound cream cheese muffins on the way back. Stepping into the raft last year was like stepping back in time. It was the same on this trip. Back to my childhood on those days when I was free to leave the house early in the morning on my bike. A green stick shift three-speed Schwinn with motorcycle handlebars and a banana seat with a backrest. A fishing rod tied to the backrest with bailing twine, my grandfathers' army knapsack with a water canteen, peanut butter and cucumber sandwich, Buck knife and a book of matches, I was set for the day. I roamed the lakes, ponds and streams around North Norway in search of adventure until it was time to be home for dinner, keeping track of time by the position of the sun in the sky (yes, that's how we did it in the 70's). Pure freedom.

Being in the boat of one of the best fly tiers in the industry and author of Catching Shadows: Tying Flies for the Toughest Fish and Strategies for Fishing Them, you might assume I'd be fishing his flies. No way, man. I was rigged with one of my favorite albie patterns just like last year. Rich looked at it and said, "Throw it." A few casts into the float and the bass were on it. And then a rainbow. And then more bass.

Photo: Rich Strolis

And so it went for hours, with Rich on the sticks calling out shots at pockets, cuts in the banks and ledges. I skipped the fly in under some overhanging branches and got hit hard. We both saw the take and knew it might be the bass of the day. It would have been for sure, but it popped off just as I wrangled it boatside to the net. Disappointing for a second but we had both watched the whole thing happen. That was enough. 

Photo: Rich Strolis

By noon my arm was spent. I wasn't going to say anything about needing a break. We had both been dealing with elbow and wrist tendonitis and he had a shoulder issue to boot. I knew even after rowing for five hours into the wind he wasn't going to say anything about needing a break. So, I kept casting. Finally, after a few half-assed spaghetti casts and long pauses in between he told me to take a break and we stopped for lunch. While we ate, I asked questions about the bugs in the river and their lifespans and all the stuff I've seen in books and articles but never read. He started flipping rocks over to show me what was going on underwater and how to "read" the bug activity to know what and how to fish a particular stretch of water. More things to add to my "more things to learn list."

While I finished my Strolis River Sandwich he got out a rod and started casting. We joke at times about being born a hundred years too late and that about the only place we feel at ease is as far away from people as we can get on some piece of water just fishing. For the sake of just fishing. After listening to his talk on egg, larva, pupa and adult stages of aquatic bugs and then watching him at work in water that surely runs through his veins as it does the riverbed, I know that he's found his place.

We got back in the raft and continued on. I switched over to a Baby Poet and kept racking up bass. All sizes. It didn't matter. While we drifted along Rich talked about the possibility of a spinner hatch going off at dusk close to the take-out. It would mean staying out until dark, but it might be worth it. This is something I've never fished so I was in. Until then there were more bass to catch.

Photo: Rich Strolis

Late in the afternoon we happened upon a bald eagle. It flew off downriver and joined another one high up in the pines. Rich dropped anchor and we sat there for close to thirty minutes watching them. Two grown men sitting silently in the middle of a river in awe of these two remarkable birds.

It was about then Rich started seeing spinners start to hatch. We picked up the pace and got to the section of river he had had talked about as the sun was sinking in the trees. He rigged a rod with a dry fly, made a few casts to show me the basics and then had me make a few practice casts. In golf it would be the short game. In baseball it would be small ball. All finesse and strategy, a little different than what I'm used to, but I figured what I lacked in experience I could make up for with enthusiasm.

We sat and watched the spinners rising off the water. Every so often there would be a small delicate ripple underneath them. Rich made a few casts in the area of these ripples and picked off a beautiful brown. He handed me the rod and talked me through where and when to cast. After several casts I finally made a somewhat suitable presentation, mended the line and was on, just long enough to know I was on before I was off. More experience, less enthusiasm. Apparently, there's this thing called a trout set. I've heard about it, never used it. Now it's on my list. 

I handed the rod back and told him to have at it. He made some ridiculously long accurate casts and brought to the boat the largest brown trout I've ever seen up close and personal. It was an amazing thing to watch. 

Darkness fell and we floated the rest of the way to the take-out. I was a little skeptical about getting the raft up the bank to the truck, but the winch made short work of it. I collected our gear, set it to the side of the truck and stepped back into the river for one last look. I thought about that old green bike.

In a world that seems increasingly smaller and troubled as each day passes, there are still places here that feel like a different planet. Places where the heartbeat of the sights and sounds and the pulse of a river can transport you to another time. Places that pull on you to return to the more you think about them.

It is a special kind of gravity.

From the field

31 July 2022   

hay bales and whiskey

It was the summer of 1992 and a day much like today. It was hot, humid and the breeze pushing the hot air around only made it worse. Growing up on the farm, my family joked that we always picked the hottest week of the year to hay the upper fields. On the years that we did two cuttings, we seemed to also pick the second hottest week of the year. Despite the conditions, when that last bale went into the barn, well that's a feeling you wouldn't understand unless you lived on a farm.

It was a Friday. I was heading back to Burlington after working a case in the Northeast Kingdom. I kept looking at my watch and plotting my course to get to back to the city in time for happy hour at Esox. Around three o'clock it dawned on me that I wasn't really sure where I was. I had a general idea, so I kept heading south looking for the next main road to turn right on. I knew if I kept following the sun, I would eventually end up somewhere familiar.

I kept driving but no crossroads appeared. I finally came upon a farm on my left. It was iconic Vermont. A white two-story farmhouse, big red barn, tractor-shed and a farmer's garden planted out back. Across the road were large hay fields that had just been cut. The smell of dried hay carried with dust and chaff rolled in the window with the wind. I passed the lower end of the fields and saw an older gentleman throwing hay bales onto the back of a flatbed trailer being hauled behind an old F-150. An older woman who I assumed was his wife suddenly jumped out of the cab, truck still in gear, ran up to clear a bale or two to the side and then got back in. Then she would stop while he stacked what he had just thrown on. I laughed a little because that's how my dad and I did it for years. And how I learned to drive.

I passed by them and pulled over thinking I probably should ask for directions. I looked back at them in the mirror and saw the old man give his wife the hand signal to stop and then he sat down on the bale at his feet. Memory lane came knocking and I recalled riding home from a jobsite in dad's truck one hot afternoon when we passed a neighbor's farm with hay down in the field. Thunderstorms were approaching and he pulled into the field and said, "Let's give them a hand." 

I looked down the road to the south and saw thunderheads building. Then I looked back at the old couple in the mirror and for an instant saw my dad's face. So, I turned the truck around and pulled up behind the hay trailer. I got out and walked up to them. Me with long hair, camo BDU pants, a Metallica t-shirt and an earring. The old man stood up and asked if he could help me. I said, "No sir, I'm here to help you."

He introduced himself as Ed, his wife as Mary and handed me a bottle of water. I sipped the water as we agreed Mary would drive, Ed would stack on the trailer, and I'd throw bales. As Mary got back in the truck, I pulled a bag of Levi Garrett out of a pocket and packed a chew. Ed looked down from the trailer and asked if I could spare some. I threw him the bag. He packed one, threw the bag down and said, "Don't tell mother." I laughed, gave him the nod and started throwing bales. 

It didn't take long to fill the trailer. Ed looked at the gray clouds approaching from the south and then at the forty or so bales left in the field. It was obvious he wasn't going to ask me to stay and load another trailer so I told him between their truck and mine we could probably get the rest of it pretty quick. And we did. We got back to the barn, stacked the hay from the trucks in the loft and then got the trailer into the barn just as the thunder started and rain began to fall.

"We'll leave that right there. I like to have something to feed out if I need it. Appreciate your help. Can I buy you a beer?"

Before I could answer he ducked into the tractor shed and came back with two bottles of ice-cold Miller High Life. We stood in the door of the barn watching the storm blow through and talked about my life growing up on the farm, deer hunting and his sons. Two years apart in age, the oldest was a JAG lawyer in the Marine Corps, the youngest a helicopter crew chief in the Navy.

"Those two couldn't wait to get away from here, said no way in hell they were gonna be farmers." 

"Take it from me, Ed, every farm kid says that. I did. But I go back every chance I get."

"Yeah, yeah, they do too. When they can. The youngest thinks he'll come back after his twenty is up in six years, the oldest will probably stay in as long as he can."

Mary appeared on the porch and waved Ed over. He came back and said, "Mother's got supper in the oven, it'll be about a half hour if you can stay."

I looked at my watch and decided Esox could wait and accepted the invitation.

"Good. You like to fish?" I said yes. He went back into the tractor shed and came out with an old Zebco set up and a fly rod. "Which one you want?" I pointed to the Zebco and he told me to follow him. 

We walked past the barn and through the cows in the pasture a short distance to a pond about the size of a hockey rink. A small, almost dried up stream fed into the north end and another flowed out the south. A split rail fence, falling down in places, encircled the pond. I said, "It looks like a hockey rink."

Ed laughed and said, "Close, just shy of regulation size but we watched a lot of hockey games out here when the boys were growing up. It's spring fed out there in the middle. We got bass, crappie, pumpkinseed, bluegill, the boys used to catch fish in some of the other ponds and lakes around and then bring 'em back and put them in here."

Mary caught up to us carrying an old wire milk bottle carrier with three Mason jars of brown liquid and what looked like a knitting bag. We walked through a gate near the inlet where there was a wooden platform with a small dock jutting off it into the pond. On the platform were two Adirondack chairs and a small table. She handed us each a Mason jar, took one herself and raised it in a toast.

"To old farmers and new friends."

We clinked glasses and I took a sip. After throwing hay bales in the heat and dust it was one of the best things I had ever tasted. She saw the look on my face and said, "Jack Daniels, ginger beer and a splash of our maple syrup." Then she sat down and started knitting. Or crocheting. I don't know the difference. Turned out this was their Friday night ritual. 

Ed stripped out line and started casting off the dock. While he did so he told me about the flies he tied, showed me what looked like something between a dragon fly and a grasshopper. Then he showed me his fly box lined with a few dozen small insect looking flies. I had no idea what I was looking at. At the time I had zero interest in fly fishing. I look back now and realize I missed a great opportunity to learn something.

Ed caught a few fish while we talked. I made a few casts on the Zebco but caught nothing. And then Mary said it was time for supper. Meatloaf, roasted potatoes, summer squash and a cucumber tomato salad. Dessert was a sponge cake with a buttery lemon sauce. The best meal I'd had since the last time I was home. We finished with a cup of coffee. Sanka, out of the jar. 

I helped Mary with the dishes and then bid my farewell. Ed tried to slip me a twenty. I told him we were square and handed it back to him with the bag of Levi Garrett when Mary wasn't looking. I shook his hand, hugged Mary and got into my truck just as the last of the sun slid down behind the trees. I looked in the mirror as I stopped at the end of the driveway. They were standing in front of the barn waving. I looked twice because for a split second I saw that old barn in North Norway.

I got back out on the road and noticed a paper bag on the truck seat beside me. I opened it. Two meatloaf sandwiches. Still warm. I decided missing happy hour at Esox was probably a good thing and opened one of the sandwiches. A short time later I found a right turn and in about ten minutes knew exactly where I was. I remember laughing and almost choking on the last of the sandwich because I'd never really been lost at all. Just in a different place.

I thought of this old story tonight as I stepped out on the dock and caught a few fish in the pond. I don't know whatever happened to Ed and Mary. I'm sure they've since passed. I hope that their sons returned to the farm. And I hope they throw flies on that pond and sip one of their mother's cocktails on Friday nights.

Littles Pond

22 July 2022