A man was relating a story about his brother, Larry, who’s up there in Canada keeping their summer house summerized. He opens doors, airs it out, washes sheets and windows, makes minor repairs, and picks up conversations with the neighbors where they left off last fall.
A couple of weeks ago, one neighbor called Larry and asked him to take her 10-year-old son fishing. Larry thought that was odd, but he’s also really easy to talk into things.
The woman said that it was her son’s 10th birthday, and his dad wasn’t interested in fishing.
“Sure! I’ll take him out tomorrow,” Larry crackled into a phone with spotty reception.
The kid showed up bright and early, and he and Larry hooked the trailer to the pickup and headed for the lake to fish for trout. One would never do that here since NWA trout like cold, fast river water. In Canada, trout like cold, deep lake water. They like it so much they grow up to weigh 50 pounds and be a yard long.
The boy who just turned 10 wasn’t medically challenged or verifiably diagnosed as being unusual, but he was slow. He plopped down in the boat, deep inside his own mysterious head. He seemed bored and didn’t hesitate to yawn, squirm and stare at the sky.
After an eternity of discomfort, Larry said, “Well, let’s call it a day. I’ve caught enough trout for your birthday dinner.”
“But when are we going after the bass?” the boy asked.
Larry yanked the engine cord and motored to another part of the lake. The boy now moved with the grace and economy of a Las Vegas dancer. He lured his line and scanned the water for the longest time. Then he spoke.
“If I were a bass, I’d be right there. That’s where the temperature and the light and the food source would be perfect.” He cast his line 10 yards and pop! a 5-pound largemouth was in the boat.
The boy cast again, this time 20 yards, hitting his target like a skeet shooter. He reeled in another bass, another. Another. Eight in all.
To sit under the hackberry and hear this story almost made me cloud up.
The trout fishing boy was plodding and disinterested. But the bass fishing boy, the exact same kid, was functioning and breezy, swarming with endorphins. He was in his happy place where his Virgo precise casting could scratch the date off a dime.
Which reminded me of how easy it is to pluck one sentence, one text message, one graffiti out of someone else’s brain and misinterpret it. This boy was described as indifferent, or at least lukewarm, which kind of signifies unhappiness. To make things steeper, it was his birthday, and he didn’t want to go fishing, he wanted to go bass fishing.
When he got what and where he wanted, he was transformed. He was a young man who could toss an accurate line, understand how to read nature, and think like a bass. He was prepared.
In this office, our favorite thing to do is compile information and put eyeliner and fringe on it, make it pretty. Big pictures, bright colors, unusual events and sparkling descriptions of human achievements.
Ten years ago, we thought it was part pipe dream and part naivete to even think about owning a newspaper. We love newspaper work but hate business, just like a kid who loves bass fishing and sees trout fishing as a time stealer.
One day three years ago, an award-winning longtime columnist from the Chicago Sun Times strolled into our office and said he was writing a book about small town, independent, family-owned newspapers. We talked, then emailed, and even had a phone call or two.
Then that tricky, starving virus flipped everything upside down and we all went dark for a couple of years.
Last week a Proof Correction copy came in the mail. It was Dave Hoekstra’s book, Beacons in the Darkness.
Last weekend, I read it. Now I want to know every person he wrote about, even the dead ones.
And now I know exactly how the Canadian boy felt when he finally got to do what he always wanted.