I love fishing, more than any other hobby I’ve ever pursued. The combination of challenge, the aesthetic of the water, and the companionship tend to make for near perfect days. Days where your youth feels savored rather than slipping between your fingers. I prefer to fly-fish which is more difficult and more proactive than watching the water dry on a bobber. I’ll fish anywhere, but it is best in central Pennsylvania, amid the trees and smells of where I grew up. There is always a burm for cars to park where a crick nears the road. This is not just a place for fishermen to leave their truck. Regular folks stop because there is something pretty about a flowing stream, more natural than a manicured golf course. My fishing partners have always been my best friends or my brothers, and often both in the same couple of guys. The sort who would give you their last dime and also not feel an ounce of reserve in asking you to buy the next round. Assholes sometimes, but my type of assholes.
You can imagine as someone who feels so passionate about the sport, any girlfriends I acquire would ask me to take them fishing. Not long-term girls, but first date types trying to make a good impression. I get hurt looks when I don�t seem excited at the prospect. On the few disastrous occasions, I�ve obliged, I quickly learned that George Constanza was wrong in the episode where he tried to combine food and sex. You should not try and mix your loves. Taking a girl fishing just sets her up to be competing for my attention with the thing I love to do most. And unless she is very content with being ignored, we are destined to fight.
Because of the spats I�ve had with girls at streamside, I made a rule that I would never take a woman fishing. After some thought, I realized that there are three woman for whom I would reconsider and I appended an exception list. First, I would always be willing to take my mother. A dutiful son can�t deny a parent a simple request and it�s easy to agree to something you never expect her to ask for. Second would be my daughter. I plan to have all my hypothetical kids out on the stream as soon as they are big enough to hold a pole. At least until they hit the annoying teen years. Third would be my wife. I figure if I love a girl enough to marry her, I could put her ahead of angling long enough to teach her to be proficient. Plus, I�m banking on marrying a girl who wants to fish as much as I like to shop, which is nil.
Well, Mom called my bluff and asked for a fishing lesson this weekend. I showed her some knots, explained the basics, and sent her out on the Juniata River. So I wouldn’t smother her, I waded in a hundred feet or so upstream and fished there. Some teachers prefer to let their students learn in the field, unattended. Mom didn�t kill any trout, but she did prove adept at catching the logs, branches, rocks, and her pant leg. I watched it all from my safe distance, but Dad helped her untangle. I also found a wood turtle.
So one of the three is out of the way without too much harm done. I can escape the other two with one trick, being a dead-beat Dad, so at least I have that going for me. We may get Mom out on the stream again and maybe even coax Pop into picking up a rod. He prefers hiking to fishing and I was supposed to take him camping this Memorial Day rather than Mom fishing, but we had bad luck with timing. I owe him a trip. My brothers owe me a beer for taking her fishing.
It’s a boy! Well, we knew it was a boy weeks ago from the sonograms, but now it�s confirmed. Last night at around 9PM on June 6, 2004, Lucas Todd Devin was born, 18-1/2 inches long, 7-1/2 pounds, son to Todd and Lisy. Baby and mom are doing fine. Dad is happy. Friends are freaked out that the guy who sold Peruvian sweaters to buy macrobiotic cookbooks and weird microbrews is now a Dad. Freaked, but very happy.
I watched a lot of news this weekend, but with the sound turned down so I could concentrate the puzzle. I can’t be sure, but I think the big story was that President Ronald Regan, who rode Smarty Jones on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day, has botched the Iraq War.
Site of the Day: You may disagree with both their politics, but Reagan was a thousand times more quotable the GWB.
I love fishing, more than any other hobby I’ve ever pursued. The combination of challenge, the aesthetic of the water, and the companionship tend to make for near perfect days. Days where your youth feels savored rather than slipping between your fingers. I prefer to fly-fish which is more difficult and more proactive than watching the water dry on a bobber. I’ll fish anywhere, but it is best in central Pennsylvania, amid the trees and smells of where I grew up. There is always a burm for cars to park where a crick nears the road. This is not just a place for fishermen to leave their truck. Regular folks stop because there is something pretty about a flowing stream, more natural than a manicured golf course. My fishing partners have always been my best friends or my brothers, and often both in the same couple of guys. The sort who would give you their last dime and also not feel an ounce of reserve in asking you to buy the next round. Assholes sometimes, but my type of assholes.
You can imagine as someone who feels so passionate about the sport, any girlfriends I acquire would ask me to take them fishing. Not long-term girls, but first date types trying to make a good impression. I get hurt looks when I don�t seem excited at the prospect. On the few disastrous occasions, I�ve obliged, I quickly learned that George Constanza was wrong in the episode where he tried to combine food and sex. You should not try and mix your loves. Taking a girl fishing just sets her up to be competing for my attention with the thing I love to do most. And unless she is very content with being ignored, we are destined to fight.
Because of the spats I�ve had with girls at streamside, I made a rule that I would never take a woman fishing. After some thought, I realized that there are three woman for whom I would reconsider and I appended an exception list. First, I would always be willing to take my mother. A dutiful son can�t deny a parent a simple request and it�s easy to agree to something you never expect her to ask for. Second would be my daughter. I plan to have all my hypothetical kids out on the stream as soon as they are big enough to hold a pole. At least until they hit the annoying teen years. Third would be my wife. I figure if I love a girl enough to marry her, I could put her ahead of angling long enough to teach her to be proficient. Plus, I�m banking on marrying a girl who wants to fish as much as I like to shop, which is nil.
Well, Mom called my bluff and asked for a fishing lesson this weekend. I showed her some knots, explained the basics, and sent her out on the Juniata River. So I wouldn’t smother her, I waded in a hundred feet or so upstream and fished there. Some teachers prefer to let their students learn in the field, unattended. Mom didn�t kill any trout, but she did prove adept at catching the logs, branches, rocks, and her pant leg. I watched it all from my safe distance, but Dad helped her untangle. I also found a wood turtle.
So one of the three is out of the way without too much harm done. I can escape the other two with one trick, being a dead-beat Dad, so at least I have that going for me. We may get Mom out on the stream again and maybe even coax Pop into picking up a rod. He prefers hiking to fishing and I was supposed to take him camping this Memorial Day rather than Mom fishing, but we had bad luck with timing. I owe him a trip. My brothers owe me a beer for taking her fishing.
It’s a boy! Well, we knew it was a boy weeks ago from the sonograms, but now it�s confirmed. Last night at around 9PM on June 6, 2004, Lucas Todd Devin was born, 18-1/2 inches long, 7-1/2 pounds, son to Todd and Lisy. Baby and mom are doing fine. Dad is happy. Friends are freaked out that the guy who sold Peruvian sweaters to buy macrobiotic cookbooks and weird microbrews is now a Dad. Freaked, but very happy.
I watched a lot of news this weekend, but with the sound turned down so I could concentrate the puzzle. I can’t be sure, but I think the big story was that President Ronald Regan, who rode Smarty Jones on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day, has botched the Iraq War.
Site of the Day: You may disagree with both their politics, but Reagan was a thousand times more quotable the GWB.
