A hundred years from now it will not matter what my
bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove, but
the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child. An important
quote
I spent
some quality time with my young granddaughter on a Friday afternoon, some 20
years ago. Here is an old column that I wrote about that experience.
Mallory wanted to fish in our creek. It`s not really a creek but Big Dickinson
irrigation ditch. But it sounds like a creek, it looks like a creek and it has
fish in it like a creek. And it also has
leaves and limbs in it.
Well, we
fished hard, my granddaughter and me. We
were working so hard, we even set up a couple of lawn chairs next to the creek
as she soaked her bait. That`s what she called the goo she put on her hook,
anyway. She had borrowed her dad`s
tackle box and fishing pole and she kept smearing some kind of pink or blue or
bubble gum-colored muck made by a company called Berkley on the end of her
hook.
She
decided she should roll the stuff into a ball first and then stick in on her
hook.
We were
having a little family celebration at our house for Mal`s seventh birthday that
evening. It was my idea that she come
early and we could get in some fishing since I had been seeing some little
brookies in our creek. I have some amazing Maui Jim sunglasses that allow you
to see through the reflection on the water and actually see the fish and the
rocks and the leaves and the limbs that were in the creek .
I put the sunglasses on Mallory, and attached
them to her head with some Croakies. Now she could see much more clearly what
was in the water. This seemed to make a
big difference to her and she got even more excited. She kept snagging leaves
and limbs, though, and the fish seemed to have departed as soon as she dropped
that line into the creek. Our dog’s
exciting jumping around the creek bank didn’t help too much, either.
I had
left work early Friday to be with Mallory.
Her folks were going shopping and my wife Nancy picked up our birthday
girl at West School. Nancy wanted me to take Mallory fishing (since I had
already brought up the idea to her) and now Nancy was busy cooking a birthday
dinner for the family.
So there
we were, a little girl and her grandpa, sitting on lawn chairs next to the
creek, watching intently to see if we got any hits from these elusive little
brookies.
Time and
again, she pulled out more leaves and more limbs but no fish. She tried
other colors of the Berkley Trout Bait.
She tried the pink and she tried the blue but to no avail.
As we sat
there on the creek bank, I couldn`t help noticing the setting sun glistening
through the yellow Aspen leaves. The
blue sky was almost cloudless. The air
was dry and there was no wind. It was Indian
Summer in Wyoming and I was exactly where I wanted to be fishing with my
oldest granddaughter.
It was
ironic that the following Monday, I attended a meeting with 200 other people
where the emphasis was on increased relationships among grandparents and
grandchildren.
Part of
Lander’s Healthy Communities/Healthy Youth initiative was confronting the fact
that in today’s mobile society often we aren’t lucky enough to spend time with
our own grandchildren or our own grandparents.
It was emphasized that we can find surrogate young people or older
people who would like our company. Such
interaction promotes healthy relationships, which can overall help a
community. It makes a lot of sense.
But back
to Mallory.
She
showed incredible patience for a seven-year-old. We drank some Pepsi and fished in several
places along the creek bank. Finally,
she got bored and we went for a long walk.
As we got back to the house, her folks were arriving for her birthday
party.
She ran
up to her dad and told him about her fishing experience. Her dad turned to me and asked how it went?
“How many
did you catch?” he asked me.
“Dozens,"
I replied.
"Really,"
he said. "What kind?"
"Aspen,"
I replied. Mainly Aspen."
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