Slowly We Became Silent, And

When Exhausted And Feeling Sorry For Yourself, At Least Change Your Socks.

Of Course, Now I Am Too Old To Be Much Of A Fisherman, And Now Of Course I Usually Fish The Big Waters Alone, Although Some Friends Think I Shouldn't. Like Many Fly Fishermen In Western Montana Where The Summer Days Are Almost Arctic In Length, I Often Do Not Start Fishing Until The Cool Of The Evening. Then In The Arctic Half-light Of The Canyon, All Existence Fades To A Being With My Soul And Memories And The Sounds Of The Big Blackfoot River And A Four-count Rhythm And The Hope That A Fish Will Rise.

Unless We Are Willing To Escape Into Sentimentality Or Fantasy, Often The Best We Can Do With Catastrophes, Even Our Own, Is To Find Out Exactly What Happened And Restore Some Of The Missing Parts.

Yet Even In The Loneliness Of The Canyon I Knew There Were Others Like Me Who Had Brothers They Did Not Understand But Wanted To Help. We Are Probably Those Referred To As "our Brother's Keepers," Possessed Of One Of The Oldest And Possible One Of The Most Futile And Certainly One Of The Most Haunting Instincts. It Will Not Let Us Go.

He Told Us About Christ's Disciples Being Fisherman, And We Were Left To Assume...that All Great Fishermen On The Sea Of Galilee Were Fly Fisherman And That John, The Favorite, Was A Dry-fly Fisherman.