Had a great experience yesterday. I was invited to go to a Retirement Living Center and tie flies with some of the residents. When I say Retirement Center think a complete community, houses, theater, radio and television station, condos, and stores. Everything is run by the very active retirees for their own community. Very nice.
The fellas were older than me by a few years so I was thinking I could pick up a trick or two from them. Turns out they were all pretty new tiers, save one guy who was just getting restarted. I demo’d a couple flies and then we all tied some of them. Lots of joking, teasing, fish stories and some well tied flies at the end. Very nice folks. We’re going salmon fishing next month.
Do yourselves a favor and check out the senior centers in your area. There may be some fine people with a hankering to tie some flies with you. You might even wind up with some new fishing buddies.
Gretchen’s parents have been in a similar place in the past before her fathers passing last year and yes it can be fun tying flies with the seniors AND listening to their stories. They all have a life-time of skills/knowledge and it’s interesting learning about them. Now that Gretchen’s father (commercial tier in the 40s-60s) has passed we spend more time at the center helping in other ways. It is especially rewarding helping them serve dinner on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. An interesting story I recently learned about was talking with a lady who used to work for the man (Philco) who lived in Rexburg, ID and invented the first TV; I do remember my first TV as a kid was an old Philco with a B&W screen that wasn’t much more than 5" across. Times have changed a bit but people are still people. Take care & …
Sound idea about the holiday meals and such. We seem to really focus on helping kids get involved in our beloved sport, as we should, but the seniors don’t seem to get the attention they deserve.
Maybe I’m just noticing as I become more and more senior myself.
Makes me think of the time when I was volunteering at one of our local nursing homes, and a sweet little old lady maneuvered her walker over to where I was, put her beautiful little hand on mine, and asked, “Are you the new resident?”
Painful, I tell you, painful!! :rolleyes:
Art Linkletter tells a story about giving a presentation at a nursing home. Afterwords, he signed pictures for everyone, but one lady didn’t want one. He asked “Do you know who I am”? She replied, “No, but if you go to the front desk they’ll tell you”.
When my brother was 16 or so, he and a friend used to go tie flies at the senior’s home care facility. They also would play chess with them. He learned a lot in both by doing so. This was many years ago now and we’re getting closer to moving in than being the young visitors!
