On Patriotism

 

    It seems as though life's been raging all around me lately, from the news of thousands of National Park workers being laid off from budget cuts, a new mining proposition in the Boundary Waters, and many other assaults on our precious public lands and waters. As someone who considers myself a proper red-blooded American patriot, I do agree with the general mantra of "America First," with the cutting of government spending. However, that America that comes before all else also includes our great American natural resources, our unmolested woods and mountains and deserts and waters that belong to all our people, not just elite billionaires, that make up the foundation for our national identity. 

    America, while settled by people from Europe, Africa, Asia, and by peoples from the far corners of the globe who had screws that were loose enough to roll over here, is not just an amalgamation of all these cultures. The fires stoked from around the world came together in such a central hearth as the North American continent to form something new, something beautiful, something shaped by the swamps of the Mississippi Delta to the North-woods of Maine, the towering peaks of Alaska and the Rockies to the California Redwoods and the Western Frontier. I believe in the thesis of American author and historian Frederick Jackson Turner, in the idea that having a wilderness, a frontier out to the West to tame, is what separated the culture of this nation from that of the Old World. Where we disagree is that idea that the frontier is dead. We are still shaped, still haunted, as a nation by our woods and waters.

    Much of Europe and Asia have stripped their wilderness bare and/or privatized it into the hands of a few rich nobles and billionaires. I don't want to see us go the same way. Politicians aren't our friends. Billionaires and corporations aren't our friends. I still believe our wild places are worth fighting for. Fight these gluttons of oil and minerals and war all the way, love the land and the people of the land, create new stewards of natural resources. And never lose hope, as long as trees still stand and rivers still flow. 

    Love, 

    Alan 

    

    

The Raven

 

I saw a raven today, for the first time since I really don't know when

The raven saw me. 

    It saw the sweetness of anchor ice,

    It saw the beauty of an ephemeral February,

    It saw the future of a forest moving, alive with hemlocks 

And suddenly I opened my eyes and I was the diamond-tailed diamond-eyed raven 

    In rhododendron heaven 

Who realized that the purpose of a brook trout's spots 

Is to remind water-bound starers of stars 

    And force us to look up 

And see our own soulful ravens 

Speaking forevermore 

A Loose Tribute of Sorts

 

    The late John Gierach had often drove in the point more times that I'll nymph a run that there are three things in life that are unavoidable: death, taxes, and leaky waders. The first I've so far avoided due to nothing but God's Grace, but the others I've yet to find a solution for. I sprung a hole in mine today. It was a pair of brown rubber bootfoot Frogg Toggs I bought back in August. I didn't fish them for very many months, but I did for quite a number of days and nights. Nights through brambles of dark trout streams looking for rodent killers, days on the surf with a ripping North-West Atlantic wind in my face. I'm honestly surprised the inevitable was post-poned for this long. 

    I had just released a 27 inch rainbow from one of the most famous wild brown trout streams in the country, one that had almost certainly escaped from one of the many nearby Pennsylvania trout factories churning out dogfood fattened rainbows and browns state-wide. I've caught a decent amount of escaped hatchery or club trout that meandered their way into the unwashed masses of public water. 

    My reaction is usually one of initial surprise and excitement, followed by disappointment, for they've committed the ultimate sin a trout can be guilty of in the eyes of a fly fisherman, the sin of not being wild, for being raised in concrete instead of being born amongst the rocks and caddisflies and natural running water to sing them to sleep each night. There are legitimate criticisms of stocked fish that I hold in high regards of truthfulness. They often have diseases and/or bad genetics that can dilute populations of wild fish. They're often less intelligent, have duller patterns, worn down fins, and don't fight quite as well as a trout that's struggled to survive against otter and osprey since it's conception. 

    However, if what we value from a wild fish is it's tenacity, it's will to live, it's durability, a stocker who defied odds that reared in the shape of a hot summer slips into these specifications like a trout slips behind a boulder. 

    Right after I released that fish, I stepped back into the stream just to feel the cold leakage of snowmelt began to trickle down my right ankle. I looked down to see a puncture wound in the brown rubber of my chest waders. I sighed. Still kept fishing though. I thought about whether I should patch it up or buy a new pair. To keep patching over holes or get a new pair to start anew, what a human dilemma! I've thought this through in so many aspects that extend far, far beyond where a fly-line can cast. 

    I tried night fishing too. I've picked up a few trout here and there swinging streamers at night on rare ones when the air temp manages to crawl above freezing. This night was 31 degrees Fahrenheit and I got narry a touch. I don't think a 34 to a 35 degree night would have made much of a difference, nor a 28 to a 29. Things watery and clear and beautiful just deal in tipping points. 

    I thought of Gierach a lot today. On my way to fishing today, I finished the audiobook for his Fly Fishing Small Streams. I wish I could have met the grizzled oldhead. He probably could have taught me a thing or two of life and leaky waders. This one's for him.