Father's Day

When I was a boy, my father taught me how to fly-fish on the Au Sable River, in the northern end of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, near the town of Grayling. He taught me, even though I did not wish to learn, the art of casting, and of patience, waiting for the strike, in the evenings when, I suppose, the fish were out.

I did not learn how to fly-fish until years later. I was by then an adult, living in San Francisco, and suggested to my father that we take a trip to Montana, and fish the Madison and Yellowstone Rivers, as we had done on a family trip when I was nine. I had seen and read A River Runs Through It, of course, and desired some sort of literary closure with that vacation twenty years earlier. Dad rose to the idea, and a few months later he met me at the Bozeman airport, set to go.

I had not been fishing in at least a few years, so Dad had to teach me all over again. We started out on the Madison, and spent several fruitless days (at least in terms of fishing), and it started to dawn on me I still had not learned to fish. I don't think sons ever really come to terms with the idea that there is something that their Dad can do that they can't. And if this skill, or gift, or talent, is something that the father is trying to pass on, or teach to, the son, the son resists even more.

We switched rivers mid-week to the Yellowstone, in the very aptly-named Paradise Valley. Dad had arranged to hire a guide, the son of a friend of his, who would take us down the Yellowstone in a small boat, which we would fish from. We started out, and I think the guide figured out right away I did not know what I was doing, so we got out at a large sandbar, and he taught me how to cast.

Something clicked, and suddenly, I got it. I wasn't good at it, but I could competently throw line around without gnarling up every other cast. I don't think the guide used some sort of Jedi fishing technique, or that Dad was so inept at something so easy. I just think that I wasn't fighting Dad anymore, and could just learn outside of the dynamic of my father's and my relationship. It was like all of Dad's teaching kicked in, once it was freed of the constraints of our wills and emotions.

In any case, I caught some fish that day - not many, mind you, but some. And the next day, when Dad and I went wet-wading in a little stream that flowed into the Yellowstone, without a guide, I caught some more. That was a good day, the best day of that trip.

That day is now many years gone by, and neither my Dad nor I fish anymore. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that Dad had something he loved, that was dear to him, that he tried to pass on to me, no matter how much I resisted. And he didn't do it because he enjoyed it (I'm sure I made it less than a pleasurable experience), or because he thought fishing was something that I should do. He did it because he loved me, and he wished to share his passion with me. And he recognized that it was worth keeping at, even though I resisted, because in doing so we would always have something to share.

I never became the fisherman that I'm sure Dad wished I would. I just don't have the patience to invest the time to do it right. But I did gain a value of Dad's as a result of all his failed attempts to impart his passion to me. I've been to Montana, and the deserts of the southwest, and I've lived on both oceans that border this country. But I am most at home, not in sight of majestic mountains or the unknowable sea, but near a simple stream, or when I can hear the breeze whisper through the maple trees. And I have Dad to thank for that.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.