Fichigan

Between Trout Seasons

I found a first edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway last summer but put off reading it until now. I have read some of his short stories, in particular, the Nick Adams stories including the one about hopping off a train in the middle of nowhere and collecting black grasshoppers which had adapted to a burn over area and using them for trout fishing. And eating an onion sandwich. Hemingway is a very visual writer. I didn’t know what to expect with this novel but so far, about a third of the way through, I can say it is about as much fun as The Grapes of Wrath. Hemingway’s ability to write visually includes graphic descriptions of man’s inhumanity toward man in the fascist war in Spain that roughly coincided with WW2. The suspense may be my undoing. I am under the spell of two characters falling in love faced with the task of blowing up a bridge. The odds of success are slowly dwindling while their fate, if captured, is torture.

In November I entered a short story in a contest held by our local Library. I labored with a very long short story for about a week before deciding file that one away. The story I entered may be considered “flash” fiction. Kind of a new phenomena. One page stories. I didn’t set out to write flash fiction. It just happened. I have no idea how the story may be viewed by the judges and know that it is always hit or miss whether a story finds an audience with the right judge. But it’s fun to enter and see what happens. Results are posted in February so it’s enter and find something else to do.

Morning Trout

Temperatures have soared around Michigan this summer with small breaks for thunderstorms. When conditions look good, during or after a storm, I check with Feral to see if he is up for some trout fishing. I picked him up last Wednesday and headed up to the Pine River to fish a stretch we normally avoid. The stretch has a lot of boulders and gravel broken up here and there with remote sandy areas and deep holes. The wading is tough and it’s impossible to walk the shore back to the vehicle so you have to turn around and walk back downstream to get out. The stretch doesn’t get fished much by other fishermen.

We went up the morning after a storm hoping the stream would be carrying some mud or at least be stained. It wasn’t. Seemed like bad luck. Feral dropped the first keeper trout after de-hooking it, then another trout fell through a surprise hole in my net. It seemed like some sort of omen and we said as much. If we lost the next trout we would be questioning whether forces were working against us. I concluded long ago the world is not the linear picture show we take for granted. Feral has his own ideas based on early readings of Carlos Castaneda parsed with his advanced IQ. Another less interesting way to look at the loss of two fish is sloppy fishing. Feral should have had a death grip on the first trout and I should have known there was a hole in my net. Thankfully, we caught the next trout and didn’t have to second guess world order or sloppy fishing.

The day warmed up fast and we got out early. I had another mission in mind. We have an art contest coming up based on a white plastic chair we saw earlier on a different stretch of the Pine. I had google earthed the bend in the river with the chair and saw it would be possible to reach the area. My thought was maybe we could camp there sometime. When we found the chair my second thought was it would be dangerous to camp there. The drop to the river is straight down fifty feet. Maybe not such a good place for guys that like to tip a few beers in the evening. But what a view…

Leverentz Flash Camp

I headed up to Leverentz Lake to meet Feral early Friday afternoon in order to beat the let’s get out of town Covid sucks crowd. It paid off because the campsite was almost full. This was the first weekend State Forest campgrounds opened in Michigan due to coronavirus concerns. Feral and I took our backpack tents (instead of the Apache tent campers) which allowed us to use campsite 2 which has no driveway. Number 2 sits on a hill near the general parking area. Sounds bad but this is a rustic campground and number 2 is more remote than any of the other spots. We had some clean-up work to do. The fire pit was full of dirt, coals, melted bottles, etc. and we had to rake the general area which had downed branches and layers of leaves. It turned out well. A comfortable camp. We bought some fudgie wood and had fires two nights.

The fishing was something else. The photo shows Feral holding up all of the fish we caught. Getting a big bass or pike didn’t seem so important. Main thing was being outdoors in cool weather. Helps recharge the soul.

Feral’s son Jake joined us on Saturday night. He brought a hammock and I should have taken a photo. His sleeping bag is designed to surround the hammock to provide better warmth (rather than lying a bag on the hammock). Jake’s a bicyclist/camper taking overnight journeys in the wilds up around Alpena so he’s into actual backpack camping and making the most in minimalist mode. Good to see him, it had been a couple years.

I brought my Ventura camp guitar, a small acoustic bass, and a mandolin thinking it would be fun to get Jake doing some music. One time, remote camping up near Vanderbilt, he brought a 3/4 size upright bass to camp. There’s a photo somewhere in the archives. Jake has some music chops on both guitar and bass. He wasn’t into jamming though, said he hadn’t played in a long time. So Feral and I traded songs back and forth hoping to prove there is absolutely no reason to be shy around us. We can veer left on some classic songs and keep right on playing. It turned out to be a fun night with stories and odd songs. Plus, free food. Some folks Feral knows from Baldwin invited us over for snacks, elephant ears, and ended up handing us tin foil dinners to warm over campfire. Thanks! People were friendly and talkative throughout the campground. Everyone has been under too much pressure with covid and bad politics.  I’m not surprised the campground filled up.

Covid alienation

I went into Meijer’s to pick up a few groceries and most everyone wore masks. I found myself noticing people, women mostly, wishing I could see their faces. I couldn’t tell if they were smiling, absorbed in their task, what they thought.. as if I could read thoughts. It made me sad. I wasn’t there for any social reason. I didn’t need to see or speak with anyone. I wasn’t trying to meet someone. Just found that I really miss faces. Sounds like a small loss but I suspect it may be the same for others. That sense of being close to people without a need to interact. To complicate matters, body language still works and you can tell how worried some folks are…like you are diseased and they are afraid to be around you.

I suspect this is going to take it’s toll. So if you are in Meijer’s or out and about here’s a thought… pretend everything is cool and smile with your eyes. Might help someone get through the day. Another thought: May help if I don’t use my covid fish skeleton mask.

and get a haircut.

Diana the Huntress

I purchased the above art nouveau calling card tray off ebay last week. The tray is sixteen inches long and made of bronze and has a relief image of Diana the Huntress, a Greek Goddess that parceled out good luck to hunters offering homage. I think that’s the way it worked. My pastime visiting estate sales has been put on hold due to Covid 19 so scouring the internet for interesting objects has been filling that void. Hard to find really great deals but this is an exception. I very much like how the artist has recreated Diana six times which may be a way of saying she can be in more than one place at a time.

Fishing for a Metaphor

Academics, fishermen, and other low-lifes enjoy hearing a good metaphor thrown into a conversation. If you are Bob Dylan or Emily Dickinson finding the right metaphor may be second nature. In my case I usually find a good metaphor five minutes after a conversation has veered in a different direction. When I blurt it out the gathering moves ten feet away while making sideways glances like I have an affliction. It occurs to me I need a universal metaphor I can always draw on that can be applied to any situation. That way I can stay “in the pocket” and not rely on folks with short memories to remember what we were talking about.

Last weekend I helped a family member move to a new apartment and we had to disassemble a bed frame so I tested this one: “That thing comes apart like a 3-piece Shakespeare fly rod.” My niece and nephews were struggling with it so I added, “Someone should have greased the ferrules, if you know what I mean.” I could see the light bulb go on. That seemed to help them understand the relationship between a bed frame and a fly rod and was a good lesson for me also. If you add a qualifier followed by “if you know what I mean” it challenges the listener to think outside the boundaries and adds some assurance that you might know what you are talking about. The fly rod metaphor has some real possibilities but the true test of a universal metaphor is adaptability to a host of subject matter.

Personal Growth: His mind expanded like a 3-piece Shakespeare Fly Rod. Someone should have greased the ferrules, if you know what I mean. (not great, but maybe)

Nature: The trout stream wandered like a 3-piece Shakespeare Fly Rod. Someone should have greased the ferrules, if you know what I mean. (good visual but I wouldn’t fish there)

Trucks: The old Ford tracked like a 3-piece Shakespeare Fly Rod. Someone should have greased the ferrules, if you know what I mean. (Not bad, the truck needs alignment)

Trains: I got nothing.

Dogs: The hound pointed at the pheasant like 3-piece Shakespeare Fly Rod. Someone should have greased the ferrules, if you know what I mean. (something disturbing here)

Food: The spaghetti was like a 3-piece Shakespeare Fly Rod. Someone should have greased the ferrules, if you know what I mean. (I’ve had spaghetti like that!)

There’s always a risk someone will say, “No, I don’t know what you mean.” If this happens, nod slowly, look them straight in the eye and say, ” I know you don’t.” For maximum effect, say it with sympathy. I expect this whole blog topic will be as confusing as a Number 9 Rapala in a bird’s nest. Wear gloves, if you know what I mean.

Winter Reading 2020

With seven months between the regular trout season I catch up on reading. Here are a few recommendations.

Anatomy of a Murder – Robert Traver. I found a first edition, first printing of this at an estate sale. If you are a trout fisherman you may have read the book Trout Madness, a collection of funny stories about fly fishing in the U.P. by Traver. This novel tells the story of a man accused of murder and his plea of temporary insanity, based on an actual case in the U.P. After reading the book look up the movie starring Jimmy Stewart. Both excellent, but read the book first!

Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens. I kept hoping to find this book on the New Books shelf at the Kentwood Library and after months of waiting placed a hold on it. I was number thirty on waiting list so it took another 2 months. Worth the wait. I can’t remember ever being so invested in the well being and safety of a character, in this case, a little girl left to fend for herself in a swamp. She thrives in her closed world. The suspense builds like a time bomb when she’s accused of murder by the white folks that shunned her and never lifted a finger to help.

The Chess Machine – Robert Löhr. The Mechanical Turk, a chess playing automaton built by Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen in the 1770’s defeats all opponents while touring Europe’s royal courts. Except the automaton is not quite what it seems. Historical fiction based on a true story. Fascinating read for engineers, inventors, or anyone dying for a strange story.

A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles. I mentioned a short passage of this book in an earlier post. A wealthy gentleman is placed under house arrest in a Moscow hotel for having expressed opinions, in his youth, that don’t align with the current state politics. Being a true gentleman keeps him engaged as a human being when his life is taken away. A book that makes you proud to be human.

Coincidence

I often wake in the middle of the night and invariably check the clock. Two nights ago I woke at 3:21. I have been harboring a suspicion for years that numbers may solve the riddle of the universe and was curious enough about 321 to ponder it at 3:21AM. For starters, was it a prime number? (a number only divisible by itself and 1) I quickly saw that it is the sum of 3×107. Not prime. So then I thought how about 432, the next set of descending numbers. No, not prime, it is the sum of 4×108. The relationship of 3×107 and 4×108 compared to 321 and 432 was interesting. So of course I thought about 543, the next sequence.  That broke the strange new rule. Not to be dissuaded I thought of the next descending sequence, 654 and saw it was the sum of 6×109. So that was interesting again. Not sure if there is any truth to prime numbers pointing to a theory of the universe but that is the kind of question I may ponder in the middle of a sleepless night.

The coincidence occurred the next day while reading “A Gentleman In Moscow” by Amor Towles. The main character, Count Rostov, has made the acquaintance of a young girl, Nina, working on mathematics for school. She has taken it on herself to figure out all of the prime numbers. There is a stack of papers next to her filled with numbers, some circled. The count picks up a sheet and tells her this one is not a prime number. She looks at the number (1,173) and asks how does he know? He replies, “If a number’s individual digits sum to a number that is divisible by 3, then it too is divisible by 3. Nina says, “Better hand me that stack of papers.” Don’t let this small description of a passage turn you off to the book. The book is really a delight capturing the human spirit.

Next time I wake at 3:21 my plan is to roll over and go back to sleep. With Einsteins help I did attempt to solve the big mystery in an earlier post: The Fisherman’s Theory of Relativity. If that sounds interesting type Einstein in the search engine in the right hand column…

Winter Reading

One way to get through winter (waiting for the next trout season) is catch up on reading. Here’s a few suggestions…

If you long for the days when American’s thought the British had a monopoly on crass self-important, egotistical men with power you should read Larry McMurtry’s Barrybender series starting with Sin Killer. A pompous English Lord drags his family and servants on a hunting trip to the old west at a time when the American Indians were not buying Manifest Destiny. Lord Barrybender gets chiseled down to size. At times hilarious, at times horrifying, an amazing read.

Not sure why it took so long for me to read Frank Herbert’s Dune. Considered the greatest science fiction ever written it is a very accessible human story in a world of spectacular imagination. Like a lot of science fiction publishers wanted nothing to do with it. First published by Chilton, the folks that bring you car repair manuals. It is my goal to find a Chilton copy of the novel at a garage or estate sale.. A true prize. Then read it all over again.

There is a new category of fiction that blends science fiction and fiction with in your face humanity. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead should be required reading for all high school students. It follows a African American girl as she flees slavery. The depiction of slavery is one thing, how whites use her in a live museum diorama to show how the trip to America on a slave ship was a pleasant experience is quite another. You will learn, make that feel, more about black history. All in the confines of masterful storytelling.

IQ84 by Haruki Murakami is another work of fiction/science fiction that left me stunned. A young boy in middle school picks an outcast, unathletic girl to be on his team when no one else wants her. Their lives become entwined in a parallel world where no deed goes unanswered. One of those books that makes you rethink what we are doing here.

A book I kept putting off for a lifetime: The Diary of Anne Frank. I was afraid to read it knowing it was a true story with a tragic ending, a basis for nightmares. Instead it was uplifting to watch how a young girl could put aside the constant terror of hiding from Nazis and continue her studies and writing. When the diary stops you realize the true horror of the holocaust isn’t the tragic image of the death camp survivors, but rather the loss of of people that could have made a real difference in the world.