Finding Wings...

Well, I guess it’s been quite some time since I have ventured back on to here to expel my thoughts upon unwary visitors, but I have decided that it has been long enough and I should attempt to post at least a few more thoughts before I go off to try my hand at my new career and while I have the opportunity to still have my feet upon “terra firma”. 

What has spurred me into this, my latest mind-burp in a series of many, is that I recently received my 90-day notification email, informing me that I now have less than 90 days until I leave for basic training.  Consequently, the message came on the same day as my 32^nd birthday.  As I read through the letter and considered my past 32 years, I began to think about all of the steps in wrong directions that I had taken throughout my life.  So many of these steps have resulted in a feeling that almost assuredly will feel equivalent to the sensation I’ll soon have when I step from a fully operational aircraft.  Likewise, I’m certain that it is the falling, tumbling sense felt by wood ducklings when they leap from the cavity of an oak tree shortly after hatching.  

These simple, minute, awkward steps have the capability to send these young, flightless ducklings into a tumultuous journey from a high perch to an unknown landing below.  The fall may culminate in nothing more than a tumble into a relatively soft landing in the leaf litter below, resulting in nothing more than perhaps an increased heart rate, or it may result in a rapid, unforgiving fate.  Similarly, we may ourselves be sent headlong into an unknown fate when we misplace our own steps.  The resulting venture may simply take us through a foggy shadow in our minds, or drive us deep into the most dismal depths of our own self-being.  We may land softly from a fall and carry on, unscathed, or fall to depths unseen and have to reach to the extent of our will to push ourselves back to a functional jumping point so that we may make a leap to yet another uncertain fate.

As I spun these thoughts through my mind, with the mountain of missteps growing steadily, I began to feel my accomplishments being heavily outweighed by my failures.  My few bright and shining moments were slowly being overshadowed by my shortcomings, and I began to feel as though I had spent 32 years taking up space and air that could easily have gone to someone better and more accomplished than myself.  I began to question myself, and whether I was worthy of wearing the uniform that I will soon don.  I stared at the Ranger and Airborne Creeds that I have hanging on my wall as my inspiration, and challenged my own self-dedication yet again.

Just as I was about to turn away and erupt into another mental fit, I noticed the silver Airborne emblem that I now recognize so well and aspire to someday wear on my own uniform.  The silver wings that represent a history much longer and more prestigious than my own had a calming effect upon me, and made me reconsider my negative thoughts.  I began to contemplate the wings, and actually laughed aloud when I was struck by the concept that made me realize what my missteps had actually amounted to.  The wings represented in the Airborne emblem are those of an eagle; majestic, soaring, taking flight with the greatest of ease.  I have chosen to liken myself much more to the wood ducklings…clumsy, awkward, flopping from their perch, uncertain of what lies beneath them (hence the earlier duck analogy).  

The times when we fall may make us feel as though we can barely walk…let alone fly. But, regardless of whether we are as clumsy as the wood ducklings or as graceful as the eagles, the result shall forever be the same.  However we learn to fly, we only need to learn once to find our wings.  If you’re reading this, thanks for checking it out, and may your flights always be fair.  Blue skies…

-M

In time...

  
   My lifetime has barely stretched over the boundary of three decades, and only falls into a fourth by a year.  Somehow, in that short amount of time, I've accumulated enough knowledge of myself and of the world around me to understand who I am more than I ever really thought that I would be able to.  At times, I feel I've experienced enough in my short time to have filled an entire lifetime, and yet, somehow I just haven't experienced enough.  I've also made enough bad decisions and accumulated enough regret to fill my lifetime several times over.  While I'm trying to rectify a lot of those bad decisions, I know that they are, in fact, the decisions I have made and the decisions I must live with forever.  Occasionally, I do make good decisions, and the one which I have made as far as the direction in which I want to take my life and my career  feels like one of those.  While it will never have the ability to cancel out all of the bad decisions I've made, it is one that I believe I'll be proud to live with for the rest of my life.

      In the past week or two, I've been thinking a lot about my decisions, and what they really mean as far as the direction my life has gone thus far.  What I've realized is that many of my decisions have resulted in burnt bridges, broken trust, injured feelings, occasionally legal issues and economic stress.  In addition to these, however, they've also resulted at times in new friendships, love found, career successes, and ultimately, in a man that now has enough respect and confidence in himself to know which direction he wants his life to go in.  It took me a lot of years of making the wrong decisions (and a few right ones) to develop into the person I am today.  I am proud of the man I've become, and have come to the realization that I am a result of my decisions.  I may not always be proud of each and every one of those decisions, but I am proud of the fact that I have the tenacity to work past them, the integrity to face them and admit to them, and the common sense to never repeat them.  All of these are simply byproducts of choosing my direction at forks in the road.

      There are other byproducts that have come about as well, one of which is a long, drawn-out list of things that I guess I need to face and live up to, and that I hope will come to pass in time.  In order to make this writing slightly shorter than an encyclopedia, I've abbreviated this list and hopefully have not eliminated anything in the process that needs to be said...

-In time...I hope that the bridges I have burnt may be rebuilt.

-In time...I hope that the friends I've alienated can forgive me and find it in their hearts to still call me a friend.

-In time... I hope that I have the ability to make myself valuable enough in my career that I will never again be seen as expendable.

-In time...I hope that I may succeed at living up to my name and finally making myself into someone my family can be proud of.

-In time...I hope that I may forgive myself for the decisions I've made in my past so that I may make my own future as bright as possible.

-In time...I hope that my family and friends accept the career move which I am about to make.  It is indeed time for me to make a decision that I can be proud of.  While they may doubt the decision, I hope that they do not doubt the reasons for it.

(While this seems to be a short list, I think it covers a lot of ground.  Hopefully, I haven't left anything unsaid that needs to be said.  If I have, my sincerest apologies belong to each and every one of you.)

     One of my closest friends often gives me three simple words whenever I need a little encouragement, "Everything is temporary".  These three words seem to make a lot of sense to me, especially now.  The actual consequences of the decisions I've made in my life have been temporary, as shall the consequences of the decision I am making now, and the consequences of all of those that follow shall also be temporary.  The only thing that I've found to be truly permanent is the mental scars that these decisions may leave behind, and for me, the only way to eliminate those scars is by covering them with the new skin of the good decisions I have yet to make in life.  Hopefully this one covers a few!  And with that, in a few short months, I'll be off to wherever my decisions may lead me, so, if I don't post anything new on here for a while, it's because I'm sort of busy in the process of getting my affairs in order and making sure I don't leave loose ends behind that need to be tied up later!

Sorry for making this post a little in-depth and a little sappier than anything else I've written about on here so far.  I guess I needed a medium in which to not only apologize, but also in which to explain my actions.  

Thanks for reading.  Take Care,

-M

      

  

The art of false casting...

      For those of you reading this that do not fly-fish, the false cast is what the fly angler does to lengthen the amount of line at play. That is, it is what most people envision when they think of fly-fishing. It is the image of the angler, standing knee-deep in a river, with a loop of line whistling over his head that conjures the romantic image associated with fly-fishing. Besides the fact that this often looks very impressive, the false cast also has a very real purpose. As I stated before, it lengthens the angler's line, thereby increasing the range of the cast. It also helps the angler to place their fly on-target, achieving the the goal of a perfectly placed cast, and hopefully rewarding the angler with a well-earned bounty.

      The true fact of the matter is that it is nearly impossible to truly master the art of casting without first mastering the art of the false-cast. If an angler fails to false-cast enough, they will undershoot their target, too much, and they'll overshoot. Often, even after false-casting to the proper distance, the cast will land off target, and the angler will immediately raise the line out of the water and begin to false-cast again, changing and adjusting it ever so slightly in order to make the next cast perfect.

      In our own daily lives, whether we are anglers or not, we're all making “false casts” without ever realizing it. Working toward our own personal goals and aspirations requires us to be constantly false casting and making miscalculations in order to make our next cast just a little more perfect than the last. We are forever adjusting our efforts to avoid making recurring mistakes. Only after countless misplaced casts, readjustments, and improvements, can we really make our casts fully count.

      Often our false-casts may begin to feel redundant, causing fatigue and frustration. At times, we may not know how to adjust our casts so that they fall perfectly in the next attempt, and the only viable option is to continue to false cast until we have perfected it. If we are to fully appreciate the casts we make in our lives, we must learn to appreciate the art of the false cast. At the times when we begin to feel as though we have expended every ounce of energy and have exhausted our efforts in the hopes of perfecting our casts, if we simply lay our line onto the water once more, we'll often see our goal become reality. For every precise cast we make, we may have to false cast a hundred times, but the one cast that falls exactly where we want it to will cause all the false casts to become nothing more than stepping stones that got us to our goals. Then, and only then, will our casts become worthwhile. All of our fatigue disappears, our frustrations vanish, and the rewards of our efforts will be seen through the perfection we've achieved.

Make the memories count...

    
  “In the quiet times of my life, I occasionally reach into the back of mind and try to recall better, more peaceful times when happiness was easily found, when friendships were abundant, and when life was most enjoyable. Instead, I am often plagued by the memories of bygone days and of things left undone or unsaid. I am haunted by recollections of the bridges I have burned and the friendships I have lost. These are the memories that make up my life. At times, I feel I have become an old soul trapped in the body of a younger man, trying my hardest to live up to the expectations I've set for myself, and those set for me by the people I've let down in the past.” Less than two short years ago, I penned this paragraph in my notebook, while trying to think of the memories in my life that made up the fabric of “me”. Try as I might, at that point in my life, I could not clear away the mental debris and crawl from the rubble to find my good memories. I had pushed them aside and replaced them with all of the darkest memories that remained.

      One of the dark memories that has haunted me since the day it occurred was the last day I ever fished with my grandfather. No, it was not on some peaceful lake or on a forgotten trout stream. The day was not bright and warm, in fact, it was raining outside, and the only light was that which shone in the window of a first floor room of a nursing home. My grandfather had severe dementia, likely brought on by countless other ailments that had taken everything but the shell of the man that I once saw as the strongest, most respectable man I had ever known. As I sat by his side, talking with my grandmother, who also resided in the nursing home, my grandfather raised his hand as though holding a fishing rod, and began to turn the reel with his other hand. I think that, in his mind, he truly believed that I was at his side, fishing as we had done so many times before. Tears came to my eyes, and the image burned itself into the back of my mind. I sat for as long as I could hold my tears, and left as the first rolled from my eye. A few days after, my grandfather passed away. To the best of my knowledge, the first time I ever took the opportunity to tell my grandfather how I felt about him was at his funeral, and the words were audible only to me, resonating in the corridors of my own thoughts. I have tried a countless number of times to replace this memory with one of the many happier memories that I have of my grandfather, but my efforts have been in vain.

      Of the memories we hold in the confines of our minds, we may at times forget some of the details. The date, or time, or place may escape our consciousness. Should we fail to recall all other components of our memories, the one element that should be locked into the memoirs of our days must be the people that have been by our side to see our trials and tribulations, our missteps and our masterpieces. I urge that above all other things, we should push the very edges of our cognizance to never forget the people that have lived our adventures with us.

      As we make memories with the people in our lives, we should, in turn, polish them as they occur so that they never lose their luster. Embellish them by making them as valuable as possible. Take the opportunity to tell or at least show the people around you what they mean to you. Swallow...no, devour... your pride and convey your feelings to the people around you. We do not have, nor ever will have, the ability to amend the opportunities we have missed throughout the course of our lives. The ashes of burnt opportunity should never be allowed to cloud the brilliance of the recollections that we hold dear. Treat those in your lives as though they are the gems that sparkle the brightest when you someday clear away the cobwebs, dust off the treasure chest of your mind, and marvel at the riches you've accumulated in your life.

      I'm really not one for profound statements, and those who know me know that, at times, I struggle to even say the things I'm attempting to say without thinking before every word. The ability of spoken word is apparently one that has escaped me somehow, which is why I so often choose to write my thoughts, instead. I know some of you may have heard me say the following statement before, but I'm throwing it out there again because it resonates so loudly in my own mind whenever I think of the people in my own life: Our own candle shall never have the ability to shine so brightly alone as it does when illuminated by the flame of those around us. This is a thought that sticks in the back of my mind as I attempt to make new memories with the people around me, so that someday, during the darkest times in my own life, my memories shall forever shine through.  

Testament of a Fisherman...

This is one of my all-time favorite writings that I just wanted to share with everyone from Robert Traver's "Testament of a Fisherman".  Robert Traver was the pen-name of John Voelker, the attorney and former Michigan Supreme Court Justice who also wrote "Anatomy of a Murder". Enjoy!

"I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don't want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there; because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant - and not nearly so much fun." - Robert Traver (John Voelker)

Through the eyes of the trout...

      As you likely already know, the places where I generally go to clear my head are to the forests, the fields, and more commonly, the streams. For whatever reason, streams seem to bring me a renewed outlook on life that I cannot obtain anywhere else. Perhaps it's simply the sound of the gurgling riffles, or the peacefulness that comes when you finally reach a point in a stream where you can no longer hear a passing car on a nearby road, but more than likely, it's a combination of these and all other features that make up the areas where trout live. Robert Traver wrote that the places where trout live are “invariably beautiful”, while the places where we live “where crowds of people are found, are invariably ugly”. I've considered this many times and have realized that it is not the places where we live, but instead it is the way in which we live in these places that is ugly. Granted, there is a definitive change of scenery between the towns where people congregate, and the streams where trout congregate, but these are miniscule differences when compared to the societal disparity that exists between the two “habitats”. While I generally try to avoid anthropomorphizing, in this case, I feel it is only right to do so.

      To a trout, the concerns of the world exist in a relatively small sphere of which they occupy. The concerns of the trout are quite simple. They care only about clean water, food, someplace to live, and reproduction. They are hardly bothered by the concerns that seem to trouble us as people and plague our societies. In fact, society to a trout simply means the other trout that they may bump into in the hole that they live in. The concerns that reach the pits of their minds likely do not consist of “look at how that trout is behaving”, or “look at that trout's stupid hairstyle”. Additionally, a trout will never express any disdain over another trout for it's lack of a flat stomach (although the idea of a trout with a little mini six-pack is quite amusing). Instead, their thoughts probably more closely resemble “can I eat this fish, will it eat me, how do I outcompete it for food, and can I mate with it?” A trout will never waste the effort of examining the way another trout wears it's spots, nor will it have any concern for how much those spots cost. Likewise, the trout will never show any appreciation for how thick another trout's wallet is, and has no idea what a wallet is.

      The most complex issues of trout derive from finding the ability to discern food as it drifts rapidly past. Never has a trout involved itself in a political debate, or had a heated discussion about religion and the existence of (insert deity here). A trout has no regard for the color of another trout's skin, or how that trout may choose to live it's life. Instead, the trout cares only for how it lives its own life, and worries only about what is going on in it's own sphere of existence. It cares not about the level of education of other trout, and has no desire to assert its own intelligence over the intelligence of others. It will never choose to play mind games with, nor discount the emotions of, another trout.

      A trout will never...well, okay, I think you get where I'm going with this, so I feel I can cease my rambling. The point is, that as people, it seems at times that we have become so entangled in the complexity of life that we often forget to enjoy and embrace the most simple aspects of it. Is it possible that because of the level of intelligence that we have, we have forgotten how to use it? Has the basic quality of being human excluded our ability to appreciate humanity? If this, then, is where evolution has led us, I personally feel the need to devolve. I have seen enough of the world through my own eyes, and I think, maybe it's time for me to view the world as though I were looking at it through the eyes of the trout...    

The confluence...

      In the waters I've fished in my life, I've often come across places where tributaries flow into streams, streams into creeks, and creeks into rivers. The technical term for these places where flowing waters meet is “confluences”. Whenever I come across these gathering waters, many times I've sat and pondered which way to go. More often than not, I choose to stick to the main streams, in waters I've fished before, that are familiar to me, where I know what to expect. Occasionally, however, I choose to take the path of the tributary, the unfamiliar direction that leads me to things unknown, waters unfamiliar.

      At times, I end up finding success by straying from the beaten path. Other times, I follow the tributaries until I can follow no more, ending in a small trickle that holds no promise. When the latter occurs, I usually turn around, walk back the path I've taken, head back to the confluence and put myself back on the main path.

      At a point not long ago, as I walked back from one of these unsuccessful ventures on a relatively unknown stream, I came to the realization of the similarity of the confluences in the stream to the times in my life when I was unsure which path to take and had to make difficult decisions about which direction to go. Should I have chosen the familiar, often traveled streams and continue on a comfortable path, following the direction of so many before me, or should I have chosen the path that would lead me to unknown territory, where nothing was sure except that I'd end up walking where I had not walked before?

      The realization of this similarity was shortly followed by the epiphany of the alterity of the two. In choosing a stream, if the decision proves abortive, there is always the possibility of turning around, going back to the confluence, and choosing the opposite path. In life, the path we choose is the one we must stick with. Sure, we will come to further confluences, where our path can be altered, and may lead us in time to more fruitful streams, but the reality is also that although the direction may vary, it is still simply a feeder of the same tributary, that eventually always derives from the choice we made at the confluence.

      This reality seemed very daunting to me at first, and for an instant, made me wish it had not occurred to me. When I reached the confluence, I sat and thought in earnest about this for some time. I perched on a rock, looking into the stream I was on, as though it would provide some consolation to me in my state of mental entanglement about the situation. Lo and behold, it did. The stream always flows the same direction, constantly moving, never reversing it's path. The water that flows through at one second is replaced in the next by new water. It's constitution is always the same, but it's position is constantly changing. The water that flows by one point shall never again see that same point. The short memory that the river has of the water that just passed by is displaced by the waters that have yet to come. At the confluences of life, whichever path we might choose to take, we may only move in a single direction. The choice we made at the confluence and the waters we have traveled disappear behind us in the mists of our memory, and the promise of what new waters may bring is where our hopes shall lie.

-M

A Great Friend and a Box of Bugs

      There was a time, not long ago, when I didn't know a thing about my self, or about the world around me. I was sort of wandering through my life, stuck somewhere between what I wanted to do and what I had to do. I was a non-traditional college student going to school at UW-Stevens Point for Wildlife Ecology, dedicating myself to my classes, trying to do my best to achieve good grades, and not exactly succeeding at doing so. I thought that I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but could not find the dedication to get to that point. Sooner or later, something had to give, and it did.

       I had been away from formal education for about 6 years. I had spent that time bouncing around as a butcher, until I decided it was time to do something with my life. The only thing I had any passion for was the outdoors, but wasn't sure how to make a career out of it. As a matter of fact, I had no idea that I could make a career out of it. I began doing internet searches and realized that the best Natural Resources school in the country existed right at home in Wisconsin. I enrolled, which was easier than I thought it would be since I was a non-traditional student. I began my education at MATC in Madison, since it was close to home, and it was cheaper than a four-year school. I took a year's worth of college transfer courses, and in January of 2005, transferred to UWSP for Wildlife Ecology. In my first semester, I was struggling my way through introductory college math, and had no desire to continue. I felt that if I couldn't even complete this, there was no way for me to finish 3 more years of progressively more difficult courses. I was in serious need of a mental reset, and it came in the most unexpected way that I think it ever could have.

      On a cold February Wednesday morning, I came to class early. The reason has escaped me at this time, and really isn't important anyway, but for whatever reason, I was early. I was standing in the hallway, and could overhear a couple of the other people from my class talking. One of them mentioned that, since the following weekend was the opening weekend of trout season, he was going trout fishing. This was a language that I understood, and I piped up, “where are you going?”. His response nearly floored me, “Richland County”. I instantly replied that Richland County was where I was from. He asked, “Do you know where Boaz is?”. Being from Boaz, I nearly fell over, not only because he fished near Boaz, but simply because he even knew that a town named Boaz actually existed in Richland County. We continued to talk, and ended up setting up a fishing adventure for opening weekend in my home stream, Mill Creek.

       Now, before I go any further, let me digress. I grew up fishing Mill Creek...usually alone. Very few people even realized that Mill Creek still held trout when I was young, and even fewer ever ventured out to try fishing for them. The creek was about 300 yards behind my parent's house. The main branch flowed in a straight, channelized ditch that had been carved into the landscape and diked for flood control many, many years before I was even a thought in my parents' minds, and even before they were thoughts in my grandparents' minds. Even so, the stream still held large, fat brown and brook trout, with an occasional rainbow thrown into the mix to keep things interesting. The only competition I usually had for these fine fish were the cattle that waded across the crossings, lowing and probably wondering what I was thinking as much as most of the people around there did. Because I had no one to trout fish with, I grew up thinking it was right to trout fish alone, and was fine with it, but started to tire of the sport by the time I had reached adulthood.

       But on that early-season day when my new friend Dale and I ventured out together to fish the Mill together, I began to realize the enjoyment of trout-fishing with someone. Watching someone else's smile when they hooked into a gorgeous brown or a bright, colorful brookie really made me realize the connection that I myself still had with the sport. After that trip, we set up another, and another, and soon, we were fishing together regularly, and not just trout. We began fishing for white bass, muskies, walleye, smallmouth, and pretty much whatever would bite. This re-instilled some vitality in me that had been lost. I didn't know anyone in Stevens Point, let alone having friends. Dale became my one connection back to the world that I was slowly beginning to want to leave behind.

       At some point in the mix of our adventures, Dale decided to go take a fly-fishing course through the university. I was somewhat familiar with fly-fishing, and had attempted to fly-fish for panfish many times, and had occasionally been successful, but generally my ventures into the sport ended up with me being frustrated and closely resembling a penguin trying to take flight. Dale soon started tying flies and fly-fishing more frequently. He invited me over to show me how to tie a few flies several times, and I picked up what I could from his instruction. What intrigued me more than anything was the precision of the hand-tied flies in Dale's fly-boxes. This, more than anything made me want to learn to fly-fish. Something about the idea of beating mother nature at her own game really piqued my interest. I could sit for infinite amounts of time talking flies and marveling over his creations. We spent more time leaning over the fly-boxes than we ever had on the water, I think. The following semester, I was in need of an elective credit, and Dale recommended that I take the fly-fishing course to fill the credit. I considered it, and decided, “why not, it's an easy credit, and I guess I can stand to learn a little about fly-fishing.” I didn't expect what was about to occur in my life.

       The first day of the course, it snowed about 12 inches, and the course was being held in Tomahawk, about an hour and a half north of Stevens Point. I drove the distance, through heavy snow, to the Treehaven field station, which is set back about a mile from any main road, and doesn't usually get plowed out until about a day after everything else. When I arrived at the field station, I was warmly greeted by John Heusinkveldt, the instructor, who told me I could stow my gear in the dorm, and that we would be meeting that evening for some videos and instruction. I was ready to learn, but with an air of “easy-A” in my mind. Instantly upon meeting John, I realized that there was going to be more to this course. John has the look of a man who has spent his life...not his free time, his life...on the water. He looks as comfortable with a fly-rod in his hand as most people do with shoes on their feet, or a hat on their head. When he began casting instruction, I became mesmerized. The rod appeared to be an extension of his arm, and it flowed as though it was some connecting tissue between his hand and the air. In my mind, I later realize now, that what I was seeing was the perfect marriage of technology and nature. It was this instant that I became in tune with what the class was really about. It wasn't about an easy A, and it wasn't just instruction, it was about learning the inner-workings of the sport, about the method behind the madness.

       By the time I finished the 3 day course, I had learned to make my arm flow somewhat in the fashion that I had seen performed by John. I had learned to tie proper knots to attach a fly, to connect leaders to tippets and line to leaders. I could determine when to use certain types of flies, and even learned how to use some of those flies. I fully felt I was ready to tackle the fly-fishing world with full force. I even stopped on my way home from Tomahawk at a Gander Mountain and bought a new rod and reel so that I could look the part. I was addicted, and what more, I was set from head to toe, and couldn't wait to hit the water. During the class, we had gotten the opportunity to fish the mighty Prairie and Wisconsin Rivers, and I thought, if I can handle those, I can handle anything. What didn't dawn on me was that these were both big, open rivers, with lots of casting space, and less room for anything to get caught up on.

       The following weekend, I drove home to Richland County, and instantly headed for the Mill. I began casting, and flailing my rod around, forgetting everything I had been taught. I was becoming ever more frustrated, and wanted to just give up. I sat down on a rock, angry, wondering why I had wasted my time and money learning this stupid sport and buying the equipment. I reached down, picked up a rock out of the stream, and was about to toss it angrily into a prime pool in protest to the fish that had so rudely refused to take my fly. As my hand was coming back, I saw something moving on the rock. I stopped and looked closely at the rock, and there, on a flat spot on the bottom, was a small cluster of olive colored caddis larvae. I sat and stared at them, placing the rock just under the surface of the water, so that the larvae wouldn't die in the cold air. As I watched them, the only sound in my ears was the rush of the water over and around the rocks I was sitting on. The reflection of the sun on the water danced in the corner of my eye, and the brisk air around me filled my lungs. I sat and thought for quite some time about what was occurring around me. Rather than tossing the rock, I placed it back into the stream, with a smile on my face, and thought about how peaceful, how serene this sight was. For just a moment, even though I knew it wasn't true, I felt like I was standing in a place that no man had ever seen, hearing, seeing, smelling things that had never been experienced before that moment.

      Shortly afterward, Dale and I began talking fly-fishing every chance we had. We swapped fly recipes, swapped stories and pictures, but rarely ever got to fish together, anymore. Our friendship continued to become stronger, though, and whenever we got together to hang out, the stories always turned to the fly, and eventually, we ended up hunched over each others fly-boxes, talking about what had been working for us, and what hadn't. Over the past few years, fishing trips together have become a rare occurrence, and our conversations less frequent, but still we remain friends. Because of this friendship, I have had the opportunity to talk about and experience some of the most unbelievable sights, sounds and smells that a person could imagine. I've been to some of the most pristine places in some of the most beautiful streams in the state, and in the country, and caught some of the most beautiful fish that the mind can imagine from them.

       When I look back now, I admit to not really paying attention to the importance of what had really occurred through the friendship that had developed with Dale. Sure, I learned how to fly-fish, how to beat a fish at it's own game, how to tie a few flies. What I realize now is that the most important things I learned really had very little to do with fishing. I began to see things differently, to notice how everything was connected and how it related not only to the fish and the world around it, but to me. This in turn made me want to learn as much as I possibly could about the natural world and the interactions that existed in it. My grades jumped and my GPA began to climb as soon as I began fly-fishing. I became more outgoing, more at peace with my life, and more open to new experiences that I had previously shied away from. Most importantly, I learned about myself. I learned that what really mattered was stopping and taking that look around, taking the whole world into account. Rather than looking at what was going wrong, I began to look at what was going right, and how I fit into that. All in all, I guess I found my place in the stream, and when I look back, I realize now that where it all began was with a great friend and a box of bugs.