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I started keeping a fishing calendar this past year. My thinking was that I would in some way get to fish more. I was applying the business proverb of “that which gets measured gets done”. Apparently this doesn’t work as well on the home front. Actually, MOST of the leadership tactics I fetch home from work become useless when they pass amidst my lot lines. Kind of a Bermuda Triangle of management principles I’d say. I’ll share more on this once I to a complete degree perceive the phenomenon. In the meantime, I’ve learned it’s best to just go with the flow most of the time and undertake not to get underfoot of the wondrous women in my life. Sometimes the vehicle we call life may drive pretty fast and we’re not inevitably at the wheel. Although I love that my daughters stay busy, it does make me ponder what the heck empty nesters do with their time. The endless stream of sleepovers, homework projects, ball games, and the like – effortlessly displace the time that “coulda” been expended on a stream of a dissimilar sort. It’s “all good” though. I am happy they are busy well-adjusted kids that fundamentally stay out of trouble. However, it sure is nice to have a great deal of “alone time” once in awhile to slow the pace. Friday Evening Every once in a while though, I get a gift of time. Yesterday I found out that the softball tournament this weekend was in some manner going to go on without the Stampede, my youngest daughter’s team. As if they didn’t spend sufficient time together each former weekend, they decisive to do a movie day with the whole team. Great! Have at it. Just give me my free kitchen pass and I’m outa here. It’s the middle of July. Darn hot in my part of the country, but I bet I may find a coldwater tailrace with a few leftover stockers in it even in these dog days. Maybe four hours drive, at best, but it’d be worth it. I cited it to the boss. When she said, “just go”, she sort of looked at me funny. So, apparently the vote (or veto) is still out on this one. I am smart sufficient to recognise actions-speak-louder-than-words and did not confuse her yes with a Yes – more negotiations to resume in the morning. Hmm, it’d in all likelihood be good to leverage a great deal of other action that she is mesmerized in. I may have to get out the massage table again. Worked for my last fishing trip – even though my hands were too tired to cast. Oh, the sacrifices I whilst make for ye li’l trout. Hmm, perhaps if she comes up with independent plans of her own for Saturday night, then I could throw the tent in the jeep and head for the mountains. Sounds like a beer mercantile doesn’t it. Well, shoot, I’m just hopeless sufficient of a romantic to believe there SHOULD be moments that are beer-commercial-ish. Maybe not with the athletes and bikini girls, but at the very least something more noble than the day-to-day grind of bettering the widget making processes at work. I guess I’m searching for a lot of adventure, something that forces one to say, “It don’t get no better’n this.” Saturday Morning Didn’t rather get up as early as I’d thought. As soon as was somewhat suitable (which is candidly a stab in the dark), I introduced the topic of fishing again but was speedily reminded of the current state of my yard. She was right. The lawn was turning into a jungle – a product of our busy schedules and the same beguilements that keep me from trout fishing. Mowing, edging, weeding, pruning, weed-wacking, pool cleaning, dog doo-doo shoveling, and a bunch of sweating later, I was ready to go fishing. Too late in the afternoon altho for a reasonable trip to the mountains – but when life gives you lemons… make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches. Oh yeah, I’ll explain this later. I threw the tent, bedroll, sleeping bag, cotton sheet, cooler, and a couple of fly rods in the back seat. I grabbed the necessary paper productions as well as a lighter. A few trips to the back of the jeep with armloads of logs finished the preparation. I was getting away. Not far away, but Away. Oops, closely forgot numerous flies, my vest, a good deal of sports sandals, and the little neoprene booties I wear for wet wading; oh yeah, bug dope and polarized glasses. I guess it wasn’t as simple as I had thought. I hope that is everything. I can’t support the sinking sensation I get each time I go camping – that I am leaving the key ingredient behind. Mental checklist time – yep, got everything. Okay, Away. This trip I was attempting to keep as simple as perfectly possible. Often even though camping may be when it comes to the food. In fact, my wife is an unbelievable camp chef who works marvels with aluminum foil packets and hobo pie makers. She puts the George Foreman grill to shame or even the imagination Fire-and-Ice contraption that cools and cooks that my buddy Bruce (the James Bond of camping) uses. Camping with my wife Dawn is genuinely a culinary experience. Admittedly, I like to dabble in campfire cuisine as well. But, again, this trip was not in regards to the food. I just need to stop to get soda, ice, beef jerky, shelled peanuts, and a couple of cigars and I will be whole. You see, there exists a phenomenon I call the Peanut Butter and Jelly Paradox. Henceforth described as PB&JP. According the PB&JP, EVERYTHING tastes unbelievable after a day in the outdoors, in particular if it is made AND consumed in the outdoors. If you were out wranglin’ doggies for a long day – shoe leather would taste like steak. If you were out in the woods hunting from daylight to early afternoon – crackers and cheese would make your mouth water like crème bruele. My family came upon the PB&JP a few years ago while on Spring Break. We were spending a day at a Gulf beach frolicking in the surf and catching a heap of rays. Being so engaged in our outdoor activities, we were not cognizant of our growing hunger until late in the afternoon. All we had in the little gutbucket was a few peanut butter & jelly sandwiches; it was the only feed within a mile. You can’t perhaps imagine the delectable remainder of sweet and nutty, squooshy and crunchy? Try to visualize: moist bread with tender crusts that melt in your mouth, peanut butter that sticks to the roof of your mouth, and slippery jelly that glides over your tongue and past your tonsils. PB&J is a gourmand’s dream in the outdoors! PB&J is as good in the outstanding outdoors as prime rib is in the artificial indoors. There you have it – the PB&J Paradox. So, back to my trip – aligned with this paradox I knew I couldn’t go wrong with the simplicity of shelled peanuts and beef-jerky. Could I? I smiled as I rolled out of the drive. I’m “off like a herd of turtles” – a phrase an old friend repeated ad nauseam. My intended destination was a local lake in all likelihood only twenty minutes away. There were primitive websites there with not much more than a fire ring and a table. No electrical or imagination slabs with hookups – perfective for a rustic camper from the old school like me. On the way through the hilly country, I noticed a heap of of the tributary creeks were high. It had been a wet summer in North Texas. My plan included fishing Bear Creek once I had set up camp. But as I drove to the campground I crossed the bridge over Bear Creak and came across that the ordinarily sparse clear water – filled to the rim with bream – was in truth too deep to wade. Flooded. Shoot, I thought; I’ll have to find a new place to fish. First I better set up camp. I found the perfective camping spot high on a point overlooking Lake Benbrook in two dissimilar directions. A nice breeze came steadily off the water; I figured this would be good to keep the bugs at bay. Great spot to pitch a tent also. It was perfective except the former campers had left rather a mess. Trash was all over the internet site and partially burned logs had spilled over the edge of the fire ring. It looked like whomever just left necessitated a double dose of the golden rule. I begun to clean it up. I do touch a lot of critters and things in the great outdoors that a lot of people might find disturbing, but for me, not one thing was as disgusting as touching the leftover feed trash of strangers. Well, I guess it’s not in the cards for me to ever bus tables – good. I threw all their anthropological remnants into the fire pit. I planned to burn it all with my campfire late that evening. There will have to have been a great deal of embers still aglow in the pit. The trash burst into flames. Well, I guess I’ll roll with this. I threw a couple of logs on the fire and they promptly started with the aid of the wind. I may fish tomorrow; I’ve got a fire to watch now. As I set up my tent, I chalked up another lesson the hard way. Okay, someplace in the little dome tent manual I’m sure that it says to pound in the stakes original before erecting. Right, I’m not big on directions. Just after getting the poles into the bottom pins, the tent did a convincing impression of tumbleweed. I caught it after the fourth full rotation as it was headed in the general direction of the boat launch. Talking to it nicely, I coaxed it back to it is intended resting-place. Although I wasn’t fishing as I intended, it was a good night at camp. In a pavilion nearby, there was rather a family picnic going on. Somebody’s gifted uncle brought along a guitar and a healthful desire to instruct children and teens how to sing along with fifties songs and old country favorites. I must say it was heavenly to listen as I watched the fire dance. Interrupted more than now and then by noisy boat launchings and the personal watercrafts horse-playing in the cove, this music was plainly refreshing. I may look with fixed eyes endlessly into a fire with not one thing but the night sounds of the woods; so this welcomed accompaniment was, well, music to my ears. Peanut shells glowed as I shucked and chucked them in the fire. The jerky tasted like… well, suffice it to say – the PB&JP was at work. I sat and read a U.S. history book. I was taking an on-line class so there was a practical reason for cracking the book. However, it in truth was cool to read it THERE. I was studying with regards to the nasty things the new Americans were doing to the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears, and the thousands killed en route to Oklahoma (Indian Territory back then.). Somehow this all seemed more significant sitting fireside looking over water and galore semblance of nature. Yes, I’m a geek like that. When the fire settled down sufficient to kick isolated and then perish, I headed into the tent. I read a bit more history by flashlight. This reminded me of sneaky reading after “lights out” when I was a kid. Funny how we never in truth grow-up. It didn’t take long to begin to nodding-off. I threw my glasses in my baseball cap, turned off the flashlight, and rested my head on the makeshift pillow – a sweatshirt. See I knew I forgot something. Sunday Morning I woke to church bells echoing all over the lake. At original I thought it was a cell phone. It seems that in each day life no matter what you are doing – incessant cell phones ringing and chiming are inescapable. I reminded myself that I was not within a hundred yards of another human, then the church bell theory proved more plausible. I better get going. I always wake up with a pep-to-my-step when I’m camping. Betrayed often times by my stiff back, I like to have an action bias. After all, there are fish to be caught and adventures to be had. Left over beef jerky for breakfast, a diet coke from the cold water in the cooler – even though the ice was long gone – added to my building energy. I had all the fishing gear aligned in the front seat ready to assemble on arrival. Then rallying a quick tent tear down and chucking everything else in the back seat, I took off down the road. Headed to the Trinity River underneath the dam of Lake Benbrook, I still didn’t know if it would be fishable. The tributaries were high, but perchance they weren’t freeing much beneath the dam. After all, the dams were for flood control, right? As luck would have it, the Trinity was perfect. Sunlight cast through the mammoth old-growth oaks leaving shadows on the edges for bream to hide. The water was only somewhat more stained from the rain and scarcely above normal level. The fish were looking up. The poppers drifted well. Fish were aggressive and ofttimes visible for the take. Experimenting with woolly buggers also brought attacks by fish near beds and grassy islands. In the shadow of logs, hid the big’uns. If I could get perpendicular to them and cast just upstream, I could strip it when it comes to six inches in front of their nose for an stimulating strike and fight. My three-weight labored versus these saucer-sized brutes. I caught fish until I was too hungry to stand in the river any longer. Maybe fifty fish or more came to my hand and were freed unharmed in the extended morning. Wonderful time standing in the water – being a share of something wild. Maybe the Peanut Butter and Jelly Paradox doesn’t just apply to food. Not only does Peanut Butter and Jelly once in a while taste like Prime Rib. But occasionally rolling hills are as good as rocky mountains, local run-off creeks are as beauteous as alpine streams, and biting bluegills are as stimulating as finicky trout. There you have it – the Peanut Butter and Jelly Paradox in action. And since my girls are going to be grown up before I know it – I’ll take the little time I get, and receive pleasure from the peanut butter and jelly. |
Aftermath of two failed marriages
It grabbed me. I read it in one shot.