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Favorite Pasttime
One can't describe the feeling of catching a wild West Virginia Trout with a rod you built and a fly you tied.
My Favorite Blogs
Randy Kadish: The Fly Caster Who Tried To Make Peace With The World.
Across one end of my living room is a bookcase that was one of the first things I built when I moved here. It's filled with books I consider my favorites and just cannot come to part with. If you looked among the titles you'd find everything from Homer Hickum to Harold Robbins. There are books on history and fiction as well as a collection of Jerry Bloodsole's Southern Crime books. Some I have read more than once. Some are perfect to sit by a fire on a cold winter's night and re-read. I have now found another book I will add to my collection. It's by an author by the name of Randy Kadish. The title of the book is The Fly Caster Who Tried To Make Peace With The World. I received an email not long ago from Randy. He had read my blog and wanted to send me a copy of his book. I really didn't know what to expect when it arrived. I sat it on my night stand and kept putting it off. After a late night venture to the yard with the pup, I found I couldn't go back to sleep, so I opened the book and was instantly hooked. There are untold numbers of fly fishing books written each year. Some have become classics; the others simply don't make it. Often they are only repeating some instruction covered by another. This book, however, is different. Much different. Randy informed me it might be a little bit heavy reading. I didn't find it as so and hung to each page and chapter.
I found it very interesting the fact of a problem with "catch and release" and "private versus public water" on the Beaverkill in New York, as far back as the early 1900's. I also found it even more interesting the use of bamboo rods then. The shop his friend Billy had that he describes is what I imagine the early builders' shops were like. To read about a transition of a rich kid from New York City to the Catskill Mountains told me so much about Ian MacBride, the main character in the book.We each have a means of self defense and a way of dealing with loss. Some go in directions that only create more damage to their lives and those of others. I'll take that feeling of feeling a rod I have built load and shoot a line to a run across a stream any day. I highly recommend anyone who enjoys fly fishing and the dynamics of fly castings to purchase and read this book. I'm flattered that Randy sent it to me, and wanted me to read it. It's as if he knew I'd be captured from page one. For you see, I too met an Izzy on the Abrams Creek in the SMNP long ago. Things he showed me, I still use today. I waded downstream just a few yards around a bend and when I went back to tell him how well his advice had worked, he was gone. Much like the Izzy in Randy's incredible story.
Thank you very much, Randy Kadish, for choosing to send me your book. I'm honored and I appreciate it very much.
Randy Kadish is an outdoor writer whose works have appeared in such well known periodicals as Flyfishing and Tying Journal, and Fishing and Hunting News.
St. Vitus Dance, Southern style
Having some free time on my hands as of late, along with being held hostage by an 8 week old black lab named Jake, I've been doing some Spring cleaning. To me, that usually involves putting things back I pulled out during the winter. I was sorting through some of my DVD's the other evening and came across one of my favorite movies. The name of the film is Shag, The Movie. The basis of the movie is typical of such films. A group of recently graduated high school kids decide to sneak off to Myrtle Beach. They are suppose to be attending some sort of a Southern culture event and in no way heading to the Redneck Riviera. You might know it was Fun Sun week and full of other high school grads from up and down the Eastern part of the US. I, too, had a Sun Fun week experience but that's for another post at a later date.
Myrtle beach has been the student mecca for as long as I can remember. When I was a senior and entertained the thoughts of going with the group I graduated with, I was told, "you ain't going to that old beach place". So instead, I went to work for Beckley Glass Company and spent my graduation week in the tourist mecca of Welch, West Virginia. It seems there was a riot of sorts and a store front window broken in the process. Anyway, seeing the movie Shag brought something to mind that brought a laugh out loud and a need to watch it again.
I was in a grocery store in South Carolina. It was there the person I was with, all of a sudden, grabbed the handle to the frozen food door and began a gyration much like St. Vitus Dance. There was an older gentlemen I used to see in downtown Beckley who would walk the streets during the day and all of a sudden go into a dance to music only his mind was hearing. My mom would say...as she so often did, "the poor old soul has St. Vitus Dance". I began to think the same that afternoon buying stuff for a cook out. But then another customer came down the isle and began to do the same thing. The conversation that followed revealed it was what is known as Shag Dancing. It's a dance born out of the beach culture and known as "beach music".
How these folks can be in such an almost reclined position and not fall down is beyond me. To say I was a wee bit embarrassed is an understatement. But it was refreshing to know that two total strangers could meet there between the frozen foods and fresh ground coffee and communicate by shuffling their feet and holding on to a door handle.
Later that evening as I was grilling burgers and chef for the evening, the same thing happened. Only this time it was with the deck rail post. I heard no music that I was aware of, but someone sure must have. A voice from the other end of the deck yelled out..."Momma, would you please stop that, it's embarrassing".
She then looked at me and asked if we had Shag dancing up there in West Virginia? I told her not really, but we have just learned this new thing called the Fox Trot. A very bewildered look came across her face, and she said something I'll never forget..."My God, down here they'll Shag to the 6 O'clock news"What in the world was she thinking?
I was watching an old movie last night with a scene where someone was on their death bed, and the local town's doctor was administering an elixir of some nature. I had to laugh when I saw that...for it reminded me of a a similar thing my mother used to do.
As a child, and even today, I have a problem with sinus. Each summer, just as school was out, it would hit. I didn't know then it was spurred by allergies...I do now. I believed my mother when she told me it was skinny dipping in the Little Hole below the Blue Jay Cemetary. Just couldn't figure out why I was the only one getting sick.
But my mother had a remedy...it didn't work, but it was used all the same. It came in a thin clear bottle that was well hidden on the top shelf in the kitchen cabinet...along with a spoon large enough to dig a grave with. This same spoon was tarnished from years of holding it over the flame of the kitchen stove to warm up this magical elixir. This magic potion was Castor Oil. Made from fish oil and plants and with no real known benefit other than sending you to the bathroom in a very short time. This had to be, without a doubt, the most vile tasting thing I have ever tasted. Often this warm thick nothing was rewarded with the bite from an orange. Trust me, this didn't help one bit. It did, however, help with one thing. I seldom complained I was sick for the fear of then seeing her pull the chair over and climb to that top shelf.
I mentioned this at work one evening and got the comment that child abuse comes in many forms. They were joking, of course, but when you are 10 years old and knew what was ahead, you too thought it was. I'd complain like any child would. I got the same alternative each time. It's either the dose of Castor Oil or a shot in the butt from Ol' Doc Tetter. That was like choosing between a snake bite and poke in the eye. Internet searches show that Castor Oil's only true medical advantage was it worked like a laxative. Never could connect that with sinus and sore throat.
