Tangled Up in Blues

 

Andy Taylor and Opie had the best father and son conversations at their favorite fishing hole on Meyer's Lake. Throwing a line, sharing wisdom and wonder, watching bobbers, and catching fish. That's the way I imagined life would be for my sons and me. As a little guy, I spent a good amount of time doing exactly that with my dad. I forgot that he spent most of his time fishing with me not fishing, but untangling my line. "Now how did you do that??" I can hear my dad's bewilderment at the spider web mess dangling from the end of my rod. Twenty five years later I was just as bewildered seeing the tip of a son's rod and tangled web inches from my face.

Duck hunting and fishing have tangled lines in common. No matter how careful I am to wrap the anchor lines before returning the decoys to the bag, I find the lines snarled at 5:00 AM in the dark marsh. To love hunting and fishing you have to take tangles and snarls in stride. I suppose as a younger dad I was more eager than wise. The inevitable rat's nest of lines was a major inconvenience to me. I had my vision of what the day should be, Aaron and Patrick surely had their's and I know mine didn't include spending the day untwisting, cutting, re-tieing, re-peating.

Fall is my time. Thursday I left for a weekend of hunting where I grew up. I don't get excited about things the way I did before, but I still look to the northern area duck season opener with anticipation. Going north to hunt or fish to me means going to the Wolf River, or as I called it The Root Beer River. Lots of memories there going back to when I was six, on to when Aaron and Patrick were young, and in the last three seasons alone with memories and time to contemplate.

The early morning moments on the water are special. The images are without detail but crisp and sounds are clear. Few guys hunt alone. Alot of fellas are out with their sons or daughters. In a canoe or boat the silouettes are distinctly father and child. The voices are big and small. The conversations are entertaining, sometimes funny, and sometimes a tear trickles down. On Sunday morning I heard a dad say to his son, "Joey, Dixie is my dog when she hunts well and she's your dog when she needs to be fed." Joey's answer was too quiet for me to hear but they asked Dixie to decide.

My canoe is a two man craft. Aaron was with me when we picked it out. He owned the bow. There he could sit or sleep comfortably. The little boat looks so long without my buddy snuggled up in the dark. Patrick took the position for one day last year. I believe he would agree the canoe is a good sleeper.

This weekend it occured to me that I don't get too concerned about tangles and snarls. The time I spent with my tangled messes was time remembering watching my dad do magic and being watched by my boys as I tried to perform the same tricks. I think I cut the line more often than my line was cut.

I'm grateful my emotions aren't dominated by anger. Blues, as I feel blues, are not despair. Blues are sad. Despair is physical, emotional, and mental hell.

The picture above is a painting by David Macri. The dog is Molly remembering.


We never met or talked. We exchanged some emails and he read the early days of this blog. Notice the silouette of the Dad and son. I love this painting and I see more of my life in it every year. Sometimes the image is my dad and me. Then it's Aaron and me or Patrick and me. Today the hunters are people I don't know, never saw, and barely heard.