Fishing may be good but I have not been able to pull away lately. I hear the steelies are running on the St Joe. Good numbers and they are being caught. Maybe in a week or two I will make it up there.
I want to ask some questions today and also make a few observations. Recently I went to an auction of a man who died in his 40’s. I knew the family and the man’s brother. I went with a close friend and his wife to see if there were any “deals”. It was a cold wet day which usually means low turnout, but not today, rain and cold during harvest season means there are a lot of farmers looking for something to do. We arrived and made our way through all of the items that had been accumulated over the years. Everything from this man’s life was spread out in the rain and throughout a garage. Strangers were picking up and looking at a man’s life and hoping to get a deal on something he had worked hard to get.
There were guns, tools and an anvil that seemed to draw a lot of attention. I noticed that many of the family members seemed to be concentrating their attention on these items. It seems to me when someone important has died in my life I have been drawn to the tools and guns and the occasional fly rod. Why is that? A used gun or a hammer has relatively low value but a strong emotional worth. Is it the memories associated with those items? Do we think about the first bird hunt with a “Sweet 16”? Maybe it is remembering that crisp Thanksgiving afternoon, after dinner, watching a pointer lock on a covey and you got to take the shot while granddad watched you use the 12 gauge he sold a prize hog to buy. I think about my own life and remember the black and white tool cabinet that set in the shop at my grandparents. I remember opening each little drawer and smelling the oil on the wood and the smell of Sir Walter Raleigh cigarettes (grandpa’s brand). I wish that cabinet was sitting in my shop. Those drawers held mysterious tools that my grandpa had used to build a toy box for me when I was little. That toy box now sits in my house and my kids use it. My dad also has those things hidden away that I am sure will bring back memories as I grow older. I am sure if I looked through his record albums, I would remember the first time I heard “Sloop John B” or “All Along the Watch Tower” or maybe the split bamboo fly rod he traded for when I was a little boy. What is it about items that have such a strong pull on our hearts?
For the ladies I am sure that it is different. It isn’t the shotgun but maybe grandma’s dishes that she only put out on the dinner table at Christmas. Maybe it was the mixing bowl you used every time you would spend the night and make cookies after dinner. I know that my wife has a really interesting necklace that was her grandma’s, it is such great thought to think that my daughter will wear it someday and have a connection to the generations that came here through Ellis Island.
For me I want my kids to cherish my words. What I have written and what I have read. My Bible and my books, notes and letters I have written them. The pictures that we have taken of everyday life not just the big holidays but the photos that show how we live. Pictures of the garden or the rabbit pen we built together, the photo of the hiking path we walk in the early spring down by the river, or the picture (a little out of focus) of the small fish caught on a dry fly on the middle fork. That is what I want to pass down to the kids and that they can share with future generations. These things have value and leave a legacy. The legacy is hard to transfer but through the words of past generations I have learned to follow the path of my spiritual fathers. I pray that my family can look back into the words of my wife and me and see the life we led and in lights their path.
