Thinking of Springs Long Gone

Allow me a bit of nostalgia.  Been thinking about this as the warm weather has hit town.      


                                                                                           Feb. 1990


Dear G.U.C.I. Staff:


I've been sending you these letters for a few months now, and I've even
received some responses.  They have been very positive, I'm happy to say.  I am
always happy to hear from you and if I stimulate some thought--all the better. 
These letters are just my own personal thoughts, with no hidden meanings or
agendas.

I'd like to tell you about something very important to me; fishing.  You
probably were not aware of the my interest in this sport, nor did you know that
I have been on several fishing expiditions in the past few years.  OK. I admit
it. I do not particularly like to fish.  But my son Michael does.  Somehow he
has become fascinated with fishing and wholly committed to the quest of
bringing in the "big one."  So for the past three years, for a week in the
spring before we gear up for camp, and for a week in August right after camp
closes, off we go with tent, rod and reel, all kinds of strange looking things
called crankbaits, spoons, etc., and a canoe, to threaten the gilled
populations of our local lakes.  I might add at this point, we are the worst
fishermen ever to buy a nightcrawler.  We have never brought in the big one. 
Not even the middle sized one.  "Why," you might ask, "would I invest so much
time and energy to something in which I am not particularly interested, and do
so poorly?"  The answer is simple.  Although I do not love to fish, I love to
go fishing with my son.  His enthusiasm for fishing gives us the opportunity to
spend two weeks a year alone together.  For that, I'm happy to call myself an
angler.

Michael is the expert.  He knows everything there is to know about fishing from
books, magazines, and even the fishing shows on TV (how is it that they are
able to catch twenty or so monsters in a half-hour show, while we haven't
landed one in three years?).  The biggest thing we have ever caught was me,
when Jeremy (he begrudgingly joins us on occasion) hooked my finger.  There we
were, out in the middle of a lake, the three of us in a canoe, and me with a
barbed fish hook embedded in my finger.  I was thinking that we must be doing
something wrong, as I ripped out that hook with a pliers.  Jeremy and Michael
admired their Dad's fortitude...(I almost puked).

Well, it's almost April and off we go again.  You know?  I can't wait. 
Michael's eyes are bright with anticipation.  He's planning the "safari" every
evening, with thoughts of different types of lures, a new reel, visions of
taxidermists dancing in his head.  I'm excited too.  We'll bring along our
Charlie Parker and Buddy Rich tapes (perhaps I can sneak some Bruebeck in there
as well).  We will talk about jazz, and high school, and the Bears, and----what
the hell, we will just have all that time to talk about nothing.  It doesn't
get any better than that.  I'd like to see Michael catch that big one, just to see the look on his face.  But if it doesn't happen, I really don't mind.

Now let me tell you how I felt last night watching Jeremy play tenor sax with
the North Central H.S. Jazz Band....well, maybe next time.

Ron