He’d come
home from work on Friday night, that huge briefcase of his filled with papers,
and we’d head to Vermont for a weekend of skiing. Mom, who seemed to be the
busiest Mom in the world, was always there to pick us up, drive us to friends’
houses, make us do our homework and I’m guessing double-checked to make sure I
was always wearing matching socks, and always managed to have a huge cooler of
food ready for the trip to Vermont. (She was also really good at reminding Dad
of people’s names.) Car packed and kids in pajamas, when Dad got home with that
heavy briefcase filled with papers, we’d hustle into the car and head off.
Now that was
a time when kids managed to survive sleeping in the back seat and on the floor
of the Country Squire as we made our way north. I remember getting out of the
car and the cold air blasting me, the snow crunching under foot. Mom didn’t
learn to ski until she married Dad, and one day as she was learning he found
her at the top of the Lord’s Prayer ski run at Bromley after her ski instructor
had to take the rest of the class down. Guess it worked out OK, though, they’ve
been married 64 years. Mom skied for 50-plus years, all over the world. Dad
skied for a bit longer, two artificial knees and all. Somewhere I have an old
photo of him holding me between his skis as we took the rope tow up at
Catamount. He had two real knees back then. That was a long time ago.
I don’t
remember when or where I learned to fish, but I do remember fishing with my
grandfather, Papa Brophy, at a summer place they had at Merriwold in the
Catskills, a small, cabin-like house on a small, no motorboats lake. I remember
him taking me out in the wooden row boat and “jitterbugging” for bass with a
long bamboo pole that had three-feet of line tied to the end of it holding a
big old Jitterbug plug. He’d swipe that long pole back and forth, the hefty
plug making all kinds of a racket on the water around the lilly pads, and darn
if a big old bass or pickerel wouldn’t hit that thing. I’m not sure whether the
fish thought it was some kind of a food-critter like a mouse making that
racket, or just was pissed at all the water noise. I should also shamefully
admit that my grandmother, Nana, rowed that big heavy row boat around the small
lake while a friend and I trolled, sitting on the seat together, watching our lines,
while Nana rowed and chatted with us about everything in the world. I loved it
there, and my friends loved it, too.
Now Papa was
part of one of those fishing memories of mine, a trip to Canada, hosted by a business
guy Dad knew who owned a fishing camp at the edge of a lake. As a young guy,
this place was just amazing. I remember a well-appointed log cabin, not fancy,
but sitting right at the edge of a lake with a long dock just a short walk out
the back door, two large picture windows on either side of that door letting in
tons of light and offering a continual lake seduction to a young kid who figured
the biggest trout in the world were in there somewhere. Electricity came via a
generator that was shut off at night, and a large ice house was stacked floor
to ceiling with big blocks of saw-dust-covered ice cut from the lake the winter
before.
So there I
was in Canada with Dad and Papa . . . fishing. Remember that Dad isn’t a
fisherman. But there we were, out on a lake. Dad and his Dad in one boat, and
me and the business guy in another. The business guy recommended using lures
with red and white on them, like a Daredevil. So we’re casting and catching a
fish here and there when the business guy leans over, opens his tackle box and
unwraps a paper towel to reveal several pieces of steak from the previous
night’s dinner. I have to say Dad and Papa couldn’t figure out why were
catching more fish than they were. (We did confess later.) Now the final piece
of the Canadian tale was the embarrassing fact that at the end of the day, we
were about to pose for a photo, a string of trout laid in the open trunk of the
big black Chrysler sedan as we took off a few extra articles of clothing and
got ready to pose . . . and Steve closes the trunk. Fish and keys inside. The
car had a push-button automatic transmission, which I had never seen before.
Funny what we remember.
When I was a
bit older, Dad took me to an Orvis/Winchester clinic at Stratton Mountain in
Vermont, a place where Mom and Dad found the rundown old farmhouse they
renovated and turned into a second home that entertained family and friends for
decades.
At the
clinic, we learned how to cast a fly rod, taught by Lee Wulff and his wife,
Joan. No, really . . . Lee and Joan Wulff. (For the rest of my life, the fly I
reach for first is some type of Wulff fly, often a Royal Wulff, since it has a
touch of that red and white the Canadian business guy said trout liked.) We
shot Winchester rifles, and cast hookless flies at the base of the mountain, a
wide trail serving as a “run” for a fake deer on a cable motored across the
opening so we could take a Polaroid photo of it with a camera mounted on a gun.
I was glad we didn’t actually kill anything.
The clinic
the next day was moved to the Battenkill River, and we took what we learned
into the cool running water of the iconic trout stream, casting to resting fish
near the bank, downstream from logs or rocks, or tucked into a piece of calm
water in a riffle.
Me and Dad.
He isn’t a
fisherman, but he took me fishing.
Happy
Father’s Day, Dad
