There are few things that stay in our minds longer than our first experience
of something. One of my earliest "firsts" involved trauma, having my
tonsils out when I was barely 2 years old (according to my mother). I
remember the operating room, the doctors, the anesthesia, and the nice nurse
afterwards assuring me the ice cream would make my throat feel better -
it felt like I was trying to swallow dry, 60 grit sand paper! I remember my
first real kiss: Janie (no last names here), it was springtime with the
apple trees in blossom, third grade, in her garage. My first car: 1955
Chevy Bel Air, 2 door hard top, 327 cubic inch engine / 375 horses under the
hood, huge headers, straight pipes, 4 speed on the floor (yes, I got into a
little "trouble" with this car!) First (and only) motorcycle: 1947 Harley
Davidson, a fully chopped and extended "low rider" (I only thought I'd
gotten into trouble with the car!) First trout: 1977, on a family vacation,
outside of Bozeman, Montana on an old spinning outfit using a 1 inch
artificial minnow, caught 4 in 15 minutes (we didn't know it at the time,
but they were stocking the stream just up the road from us; they still
tasted good!)
I can't really remember my first fishing experience. As far as I know I've
always fished. My dad fished and (almost) always took us along. Family
outings, weekend or holiday get-togethers with friends and relatives,
impromptu "grab the gear and go" trips, you name it, we did it. I've owned
everything from cane poles to fly rods over my lifetime, including deep sea
trolling set-ups. My first fly rod though belonged to my father.
He'd gotten sick, went into a nursing home and eventually died when I was
fairly young. After the funeral there was the normal "get-together" at the
local VFW where he'd been a member. I remember there was sort of a
"ceremony" during part of the evening. The "handing down of things". At my
fathers' request, I received two items, the first was a 1907 Stevens Arms
12-gauge pump shot gun that had belonged to my grandfather (and told on the
side not to use it because it was in "mint condition"). The other was my
dads' early 1950 circa South Bend, 9 foot, six weight, 2 piece fly rod. I
can remember thinking, "Great, a shot gun I'm not supposed to use and a
fishing pole I didn't even know he owned or how to use." I know it sounds a
little ungrateful, but at the time I was young, dumb and didn't understand a
lot of things. I was also upset that he'd gotten sick and died. I was also
upset my brothers and sister hadn't received anything so I promised to
share the rod and gun with them. That was the first time I ever held a fly
rod in my hands. My mother promptly "confiscated" both items and I didn't
see them for years.
Life went on and I eventually forgot about both items. I had a lot of
"firsts." I got married, went into the Army, had a son, got out of the
service and set up "our first home." Somewhere about this time my mother
asked me to come over and help her move into a new house (not a "first" by a
long shot). While I was clearing out her bedroom closet I ran into the
shotgun and the fly rod. I can remember her coming into the room. I was
sitting on the floor and had taken both of them out of their cases and was
looking them over, remembering "the ceremony," and a lot of things that had
happened in the family since the funeral, years before. She looked at me
sitting there and told me it was time I took them home with me and almost
bitterly added, "that she was tired of hauling them around" with her and
left the room. I put them back into their cases and took them downstairs
and put them in my car. I asked her about them but she wouldn't talk, there
was just a taste of bitterness in the air for a while. Nothing more was
said about them but I felt that I'd just inherited a whole lot more than a
shotgun and a fly rod.
Later that night I brought them into my house and sat them in a corner. My
wife asked about them and I remember telling her they were my
inheritance from my dad and I didn't really want to talk about it. I
was tired and dirty from helping my mother move all day and frustrated with
her "mood" and headed for the shower. When I came back into the room I was
pretty upset to find my son, who was about three, had gotten both of them
out of their cases. My son was waving the butt section of the fly rod
around like a baton in a parade and had unspooled the line from the reel and
had it strung all over the living room. Lots of emotions flooded in, none
of them, as I remember, were good. I remember grabbing everything up and
heading for the basement, locking the door from the inside. I went down the
stairs into the cool darkness, turned on the bare bulb light over my shop
table and sat everything on the table. I took the old, green,
Horrocks-Ibbottson reel off the rod and carefully straightened the line and
slowly reeled it back on, like I was reeling my life back together. I sat
there, looking at the rod; a rich mahogany colored fiberglass with green and
gold wrappings on the chromed guides. I carefully put it in its case,
burying it and its memories like I'd done so many years before with my
father. I put it and the shotgun on a shelf, turned out the light and went
back upstairs. Nothing more was said of the incident or of the two items.
My wife and I eventually divorced. The fly rod and shotgun were moved from
closet to closet along with me, never being removed from their cases.
Eventually I met and married Rachelle.
We were moving into our first house when she came out of my apartment
bedroom closet carrying both items. She stopped in the living room where I
was packing things up and asked what they were and where they'd come from.
I sullenly responded with, "They're my inheritance from my father, just put them
in the truck." Later, as we were unpacking the truck at our new home I
noticed she placed them in the corner of the living room. I picked them up
and was headed for the bedroom when she asked me to stop and explain what
was going on in my head and why I wouldn't talk about the two items. I said
I didn't really want to get into it at that point but she wouldn't let the
issue be buried. So we sat down and I uncased both items and talked. Other
than marrying her, I think that talk was one of the best things that ever
happened in my life. In the end, she convinced me that rather than burying
the fly rod in the closet again I should learn to use it. "If nothing
else", she said, "it'll get you outside and maybe air out all of the
'ghosts' that were associated with it." I begrudgingly agreed.
The following Friday evening she came home a little late from work with a
small package and a big smile on her face. She handed the package to me
with a kiss and said it was a "house warming present." I opened it up and
inside was a book on basic fly fishing, a spool of line backing, a spool of
fly line, a package of leaders, a couple of packages of tippets and a couple
of flies. I looked at her, smiled and said, "Looks like it's time to clean
out the closet and get rid of the ghosts." She nodded her head and got out
the rod. It was the first time she'd touched it. I took off the old line
and backing while she read me the instructions on putting on the new
line. We worked together on the knots joining the different components of
the line to make sure they were "proper." It was like tearing something bad
apart and rebuilding it into something good and usable, like our old lives
and new marriage. The next morning we loaded up the truck and headed for a
park in eastern Iowa that they stocked with trout.
Rachelle sat on a bench along the stream and read me the basic fly casting
instructions, I practiced what she read. She corrected my "technique" using
the diagrams. I remember both of us laughing a lot and having fun. I had
her try casting for a while and both laughed when she realized "reading"
was one thing and "doing" was another! We didn't catch any fish
that day but I know we certainly didn't bring any of the ghosts back home
with us either. The rod did not go back into the closet.
Rachelle and I now have six or seven fly rods between us that we use for
fishing. Living on a river, we fish together often. Many evenings she'll
come home from work, sometimes tired or frustrated, and find me down on the
river bank casting. She'll walk down, still in her work clothes. I'll hand
her the rod and for a little while say nothing. I'll watch her cast and
unwind from the day. It always does the trick. We'll talk things out while
we take turns casting, make plans, discuss and solve all of the worlds
problems, catch a few fish, unhook them and put them back into the river
splashing their tails or maybe keeping a couple for supper. Regardless of
whether or not the fish are biting, it's a time of unwinding and rewinding.
I no longer use my fathers' rod and reel, but it's not closed up in a case
in the back of a closet. It hangs on the wall above my fly tying bench, on
brass hooks. I take it down quite often, dust it and clean it. It caught a
lot of fish for me. Trout, blue gill, crappies and bass have all been
taken with it. It's given me hours of pleasure and memories, both told and
untold. My son has handled it and cast it and caught fish with it. It was
the first rod my grandson was handed, when he was only a couple of months
old, my son proudly helping to steady it as he held his son in his arms. My
son knows it'll be passed to him when I'm gone. I hope when that time
comes I've taught him some of the things I've learned in life and the rod
won't be put into a case and stored in a closet to become my ghost. People
don't live forever, but their memories and some of their belongings do, with
the people left behind. I hope my sons' memories of me are good ones and
there aren't any ghosts that need to be locked away in a closet. I also
hope that all of his "firsts" are remembered.
~ Randy Fratzke
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