I stopped on my way home and fished for the rest of the afternoon today. Was this an acceptable action? Callous? Irresponsible? Was this the correct thing to do?  Would he have wanted me to do something like this? I don’t know, but it brought some peace…

He was the master raconteur: the stories my father told bind my own experiences, making my life whole.

As a child, I remember the dusty hours I spent out in the garage, snooping into his cork-lined tackle boxes; prying open the old metal Perrine fly boxes and rummaging through his trout flies. Holding each one up in awe, I imagined the stories each fly had to tell, an imagination fueled in part by Sunday afternoons with Curt Gowdy and Field & Stream articles. I could see my Dad, with his flannel shirt and old hat, catching those huge browns on the Wolf that he so often told me about; or was it those brookies out of Maxwell’s…?

Right after World War II, my father was stationed at a naval air station on Attu, an island in the Aleutian chain of islands off the coast of Alaska. A naval fuselage mechanic, Petty Officer Koch was an expert at patching bullet holes and stretching aluminum skins over the skeletons of battle-torn aircraft that had provided air support for the Pacific fleet.

On that forgotten Isle of War, he found himself in a fisherman's paradise: he witnessed migrating salmon and trout that had never before had a white man’s foot invade their water. Fishing the long Alaskan days on those lonely tundra rivers was the stuff of dreams

Ever the Wisconsin farm boy, accustomed to the lakes and streams back home, he was appalled at the ugliness of his first saltwater catch out of the coastal waters: at the first sight of an enormous Alaskan halibut he had hooked, my father cut his line.

He raised me as an opportunistic fisherman; we fished for the trout of my youth with a fly box in one shirt pocket and a container of 'crawlers in the other. Often times our drifting flies would be spiked with a bit of worm. Our trout fishing ritual usually started the night before: crawling through the moist June nights, we collected the annelids under the dim flickering light of ancient flashlights, packed with a fist full of sod into an old soup can. 

But even though we often fished with bait, my Dad's mastery of the dry fly was a thing of beauty and grace. With a skill honed fishing wild brook trout in the crystal clear glacial lakes of northeastern Wisconsin, I remember watching in awe as he dropped, with dainty precision and maddening repetition, tiny dry flies to raising trout, always well out of reach of my feeble casting skills.

 I had spent the morning in the hospital, visiting my father, victim of a stroke that left him with a useless right hand and impaired speech. Far from the aseptic environment I had left that morning, I found myself caught in the exquisite patterns of time spent on the river. Fishing with the ghost of my father’s youth, I watched his golden Heddon cast perfect loops, heard the scream of his Perrine Automatic reel, smelled the wafting tobacco smoke coming from his pipe. In the middle of the big silence, I sat and watched a fox squirrel wander down to the creek and take a drink. Listening, quiet rolled down over me like a mist, louder and more profound than any sermon…

“My fishing days are over.”

The simple words rang clear, but I pretended not to hear them, and instead pointed to a dark shadow moving deep in the woods, my finger stabbing across the dashboard of my father’s parked car towards a tangle of alders and birch.

”Over there, Dad - there’s a nice one walking down over there…” I inwardly winched; even I could hear the hollow ring of forged interest and conjured excitement in my voice.

 “… I always like seeing those guys walking through the woods like that.” I hopelessly continued as my father and I watched the large bull elk ponderously stride through the swamp.

“Me too.” was my father’s soft reply. He shut his eyes. His hand gently tapping the rhythm of the words on his knee, he tried again: “My-fish-ing-days-are-ov-er.”

I put the car into drive and pulled slowly onto the road, away from the high fence that separated us from the elk farm. My family was visiting my parents for the day, and we had decided to drive by a large captive elk and buffalo operation not far from their home to see what we could see. We took two vehicles, as my father wanted me to drive his new car to “see how I liked it”; with my wife, kids and mother taking the other car, my Dad and I were alone.

It had been several months since the last time we had visited them. Hindered by the effects of a stroke and subsequent health problems since, it had become increasingly difficult to communicate with my father, and often the simplest of sentences left him (and his audience) exhausted, frustrated and angry. On these visits, I’d find myself rushing to give him updates on my latest outdoor exploits, desperately trying to cover everything and get it out of the way quickly, thus avoiding another agonizing conversation with him. Yet that is who we were: to sit and visit in silence, quietly wishing for the time to go by without any of the banter and joking that had been so much a part of our relationship as father and son, though certainly physically easier, was unbearable. And so we talked, or at least tried to.

But this time, even though his words were clear, I refused to hear what he had said so plainly.

“Your feet are in the clover?”

His pale blue eyes blazed at me as he sharply drew his finger across the air in front of him: “Done. Finished. Over.” it said.

My update this visit included the details from the latest fishing and hunting trips. The week before, I had bagged a fine rooster pheasant from an area of fields that I had hunted with my father since I was a child. I can recall many late fall days, flurries swiftly falling out of leaden gray skies, following him and one of our many fine dogs across the frozen corn stubble.

As the warm autum sunlight filtered down on us as we drove the new car accross the sleepy country roads back to my parents house, the memories washed over me like a flood: my father was there when I bagged my first rooster, now so many years ago. Making sure that I was the one in the lead, we followed our big black lab up a narrow strip of grass, anxiously anticipating the flushing bird that we knew was running in front of us.

“Watch him, John, he’s on one. Watch ‘m, watch ‘m!” my Dad chanted as the black otter tail snuffled back and forth across the grass. Several yards ahead of the dog we could see the grass waving to and fro as the bird frantically ran ahead. With an explosion of wings, black iridescent head, white ring and a long wavering tail, the rooster flushed from the end of the grass.  I bagged the cackling bird with the single shot from a Stevens 20 gauge. My father gave me a happy grin as the dog rushed over to the dead bird and brought it to him.

“Take it over there, boy” he said to the wheezing dog, pointing my way and smiling…

My father, small and gray, stared at me from across the car. “My fishing days are OVER!” he repeated. Reverie broken, I couldn’t look at him, and drove on in silence.

The quiet was oppressive: thick and cloying, like the weight of an approaching summer’s storm. Passing a patch of grouse cover we had hunted together many years before, I slowed the new car and pointed.

“Do you remember…”

I couldn’t continue, and so instead yielded to that which I had been avoiding.

”I know Dad, what you said: you’re fishing days are over. I know that. I didn’t want to hear those words from you, but I know that, and I’m sorry”

“Me too” was my father’s soft reply.

So what do the “normal” end of life activities for survivors include? I certainly have never wanted to know, though I guess as I age I’m finding out more and more whether I want to or not. I spent my time that week with what I suppose they include: driving back and forth to the hospital, waiting for “the call”, trying not to think, trying to remember everything.

My father had been hospitalized again, this time with pneumonia, and his condition had quickly deteriorated to the point that he was taken off life support and his body was left to die; harsh though it seemed, it was what he had wanted. The family spent as much time as was physically and spiritually possible with the dying man. A maelstrom of second-guessing and indecision, that agonizing week led up to the same inevitable conclusion that all of our last weeks here on earth will lead to...

Dear Pete
Most of the usual suspects made it to the funeral – seems to be fewer and fewer of the white-hairs that show up for these things; I guess some day it will be you and I that will ask “Do you remember me? …”. D and V made it over from Antigo, as did some of our Mom’s cousins. A couple of folks from Dad’s side of the family made it, too. Some of Mom and Dad’s old neighbors came down, and of course my sisters and their families were there. If you didn’t know, K is expecting soon with her second baby. It was great to see your Mom and Dad there, and really nice to see M and A…

Spent the morning fishing yesterday, on the Rush in a couple of spots where he and I used to go. No grand revelations or visions – I suppose those may come in time, but I’m not really expecting anything like that anytime soon; my Dad was not the sort of person that believed in that sort of thing. If he was ever offered the opportunity of letting his spirit wander around, I have to believe his reaction would be to snort, shake his head and mutter
to himself:  “well ‘fer cripes sake…”

 I had a very pleasant morning all to myself, remembering things. Had a big ‘ole turkey fly over my head, and even caught a 14” brown.

There is meditation in all things - I will spend the rest of my days fishing with his memories, and that is good.

---

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