By Charles Raymond Hills
It was a long time ago . . . .
The split wood crackled in the fire. The moon was full above the top of the pines that enclosed our campsite on the edge of Emerald Lake, moonlight danced among the ripples on the dark surface of the water.
“Grandpa, tell me a story before we go to sleep, please.”
My granddaughter and I had finally fulfilled a promise made the summer before to go camping on our own for a weekend. She was twelve and my only grandchild and at an age when curiosity about family events marked her desire to know more about her roots, her mother and father, and how they had grown up.
“A story? Well, let’s see . . .. “
Amy squirmed in her folding canvas chair. I knew she was anxious to hear some wooly tale featuring her dad facing down a wild creature. Or maybe the time her mother had held a large, iron frying pan in front of herself, yelling at a bobcat that wandered onto the porch of their cabin.
“How about one about fishing? One about fishing on this very lake when your mom was a little girl. Would you like to hear that one?”
“Yeah! I want to hear that story. Was she the same age as me? Did she catch a big trout?” Her eyes were wide with anticipation fidgeting with her hands while her feet danced in the air where they hung over the edge of the chair.
“We had come up to Emerald Lake with that old canoe, the red one, you remember it, right? It came with us because we wanted to fish in the middle of the lake. Your dad believed that there were some big trout out there. So, the day after we got here your dad said for your mother and me to go ahead and use the canoe. He said he wanted us to get ‘first crack’ at the big ones.”
“How big, grandpa?” She held her hands out, about thirteen inches, the width of her small shoulders. “Like this?”
I remembered the fish we caught that day. “Yeah, Amy, that seems about right.”
“Wow!” Who caught it? I’ll bet it was you.”
I checked the campfire and saw that it needed more wood. “Let’s not get ahead of the story,” I said as I reached for a couple of pieces of pine to toss on the flames. When the wood landed on the coals sparks flew up into the night sky and we were both silent for a moment, watching the burning specks mingle with the stars.
“Just after breakfast,” I began again, “we paddled out into the middle of the lake. Your mom was anxious to fish. Now, that winter she watched me tying some flies and asked me to show her how. The result resembled an ugly, multi-colored woolly bugger which she was very proud of, so I tied it on for her. She dropped her line over the gunnel, and we both watched the colorful fly go out sight. We really didn’t know how deep the lake was.”
I heard her say in a low, awed voice, “She used to fish, too?”
“Yep, she did.”
Across Emerald Lake an owl entered into our story with three baritone hoots, as if on cue.
“Then what happened?” She readjusted herself in the chair and leaned forward.
“What happened? Well, your mom let out a big holler as the line jerked in her hands. She tried to hold on as the line started to slip through her fingers. ‘Help me!’ she yelled.”
The owl hooted again, ‘Who, who, whoooo.’
I stopped and waited.
“Well, did you?” Her tone impatient. She was inside the action. She was hooked.
“ . . . . Who?”
She stared at me with an expression of confusion, then surprise as the gag finally dawned on her. First her face then mine crinkled into silly smiles followed by roils of laughter. Hers at my story and the silliness of it. And me with the joy of being a grandfather, telling my granddaughter a little joke.
Later, in our sleeping bags, my granddaughter asked, “Did she ever land the trout, grandpa?”
“She did, Amy. The big trout she caught that day is the one hanging on the wall in grandpa’s study. Now let’s get some sleep. We have fish to catch tomorrow.”
Now, many years later. . .
Amy is now an accomplished fly angler and fly tyer. She tied a special creation to celebrate that moment, a kind of woolly bugger called the ‘Who Fly.’
And when we visit, like we will later today, we’ll smile and hug and look at each other saying “Whoooo, Who?”
# # #
