Family

“They can never take away from us the place or two, where always, time stands still. “
-Gene Hill

Let me preface this by saying two things: One, nothing brings a memory crashing back to me the way a song does ( Travelin’ Band and Money for Nothing never fail to make me smile, remembering two kids and their child father dancing to these two songs on a cheap stereo in a rundown house like we were the Vanderbilts, not having a care in the world). And two, there was a period in my life where I was totally obsessed with the group Boston and listened to nothing but the three Boston tapes that I had. But already I digress from my original thought.

I was on my way to work today and heard “Don’t Look Back”, as you might have guessed, a Boston song and immediately thought of one the trout fishing trips that Pop, Dad, Will, and myself used to take every September for about five or six years when I was in junior high and high school. We began taking these when I was in the eighth grade and I can honestly say that I have rarely had as much fun doing anything as I did for the three days that we were in Dripping Springs, Arkansas every year. Dripping Springs was right outside of a little town in north central Arkansas called Pangburn, which has got to be home to the ugliest women in the free world. I don’t think we ever saw one decent looking gal. But once again, I digress. We would go up every during the last weekend in September. The place was a little bit in the mountains and it was beautiful there. Dad and I fished in in one boat and Will and Pop in another. There was always a little friendly competition (sometimes pretty Unfriendly) between the boats and me and Dad always smoked ‘em, in our books anyway. The limit was either six or eight apiece and we would catch our limits sometimes, but usually not, and pretty much relax and do whatever we wanted for a few days.

Once, I caught the biggest trout, by far, that any of us had ever caught. Dad and I normally just put the fish in our “dead well”, as we called the bottom of his boat, but today was to be different. Before I finish this, I just want to remind everyone that there is usually a reason things are left behind or thrown away. That reason would be because they are NO GOOD. Now, back to that fateful day. Dad had found an old bream basket that someone had left on the bank of the river (Little Red by the way) and decided that we should use it. I, being young and naïve, agreed. I can see him now, smiling to himself about someone else’s bad fortune that turned into our good fortune. Well, the first fish that we hooked that morning was my trophy. It really was a nice rainbow and we were even discussing how the trophy shot should be taken when Dad managed to land one of his normal, inferior fish. As he pulled up the basket to put his fish in it, we had just enough time to see my trophy, my white whale, slip through a hole in the basket. That is why we have no picture of this monstrosity. The moral of this story is to never trust other people’s garbage, or your own Dad for that matter, when it comes to fishing.

It is these little stories that we retell over and over again, the stories that would mean nothing to someone else, that always come to my mind. Not how many fish we caught or even how big my trophy was, but how it got away and the things that only men who have “been there” can appreciate. Although I hate to admit it, I wouldn’t trade that fish getting away for anything. Dad and I still laugh about it. And the time t hat Pop’s boat motor died and he and Will had to float backwards down the river a bit before they got it going again. Seeing the look on Pop’s face, as he was wearing his usual one size too small Duxbak hat tightly on the top of his head, you would have thought that he was about to travel down a sixty foot waterfall on some unexplored river in the African jungle instead of a two foot deep “rapid” that was about twenty yards in the middle of the Little Red River. I will never forget his desperate look and how me and Dad laughed until our stomachs hurt. Things that mean nothing to the outsider, but the world to us who saw and lived it.

At last, I come back to my original thought. The song reminded me not only of trout fishing, but one trip in particular. I believe it was the year that I was in ninth or tenth grade and it rained the entire first two days. Living in a tent in the rain can be pretty miserable. Not to mention the fact that we couldn’t have a fire and had to eat bologna sandwiches for EVERY meal. The second afternoon, it was really raining and Dad and I were in his little “champagne” Ranger listening to the radio. Naturally for this time, we were listening to a Boston tape and more specifically, “Don’t Look Back”. Every time I hear it now I think about that moment, and how we were all miserable, just wanting to go home, but no one would say it. We stayed and didn’t catch much and it was pretty uneventful on the whole. But I was thinking today, how I would give almost anything to be able to go back and live it again. I would sit through a tornado just to be able to do it with Pop and Dad and Will. Back before Will and I knew the meaning of responsibility, back before Pop had so much taken from him, back before I realized that Dad didn’t have all the answers. Growing up isn’t having to get a job and pay bills, growing up is finding out that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

It is such a cheat that we can never realize how good things are and how much we will miss them when they are gone. George “Bird” Evans once wrote that “the perfection of a bird dog, like the perfection of autumn is tinged with sadness because you know, even as it begins that it must end. Time bestows the gift and steals it in the process.” The end of adolescence, like many things, is like this, you too late realize that you truly can’t go home again. That time is the thief of our yesterdays as well as out tomorrows.I loved those times, but if I could go back, I tell myself that I would love them even more. I wouldn’t sleep but instead try to soak up every single moment. Every joke told, every fishing lie, every fish caught, and every evening fire. I would try to pay the attention deserved. I think that true happiness is being able to say at any given moment that there is nowhere else in the world you would rather be and no one else you’d rather be with, and truly mean it. If that is true, that was happiness. Dripping Springs, little Cleos lures, ugly women, and being with three of the best men who have ever sat around in a wet tent and ate cold bologna sandwiches.

“But I’m not homesick for the camp or even the hunting-it’s the time I weep for; how I felt about being where I was and doing what I was doing. This is one place where I was truly happy………..I remember thinking that nothing here should ever change. And it shouldn’t have. But it does.” - Gene Hill

This was written by my wonderful husband, Matthew. I am truly a lucky girl to have someone who can express himself so well, and is not afraid of emotion. -- Brandy