Welcome to my World

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Every time I come down from upstairs I run into myself of yester year.  There I am in glorious living colour and 14X20 spread.  When I look at the print, often I walk by unseeing; I am reminded of a special day that happened years ago in my world.

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This story actually started in Toronto.  In the fall of �?5 I would miss the partridge and moose season.  It was all to do with going to trade school and making a living for our young family.  There were no options, when your name came up you went, as long as one foot was still out of a grave.  Our mill was pretty good about it in that they sent the guys down there in pairs.  For a small town, outdoors guy, the big city of TO can be pretty lonely and intimidating, hence the pairs, you at least had some one else to talk to.

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At the ripe age of 26 I was almost the grandfather in this group of fresh faced eager beavers just out of high school.  I had a wife and two toddlers back home.  I worried about different things than these young party animals did.  I needed to pass these three sessions they would send me on so I could keep my apprenticeship job and the mostly day work associated with it.  I spent weeknights studying, something unusual for me, but I had been out of school for seven years already and the book learning did not come easy after that amount of time.  On weekends I walked for miles and miles through different sections of Toronto.  I would be gone all day and return late at night.  Sunday morning I would be gone by shortly after six again and then would finish up at super time in one of two places that had great food and served draft beer on Sundays.  Then it was back to the books and school again Monday morning.  In the third year I wasn’t nearly such a hermit as the schooling came easier and with less worries.

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I met Todd in my class of 35 aspiring machinists.  He was one of the bright young faces and the fact that we were both from the north encouraged our early communications.  We went out a few times that year for diners and a few of the nightclubs that Toronto is full of.  I met his young blonde girlfriend and he met my wife when they visited the bright lights for a weekend.  The following year we were at trade school at different times and it wasn’t until our final year that we again hooked up.  More supers and even a drive with a wrong turn that ended up in a steak house where I was introduced for the first time to Black Forest Cake, made with real liquor.  We both graduated and kept in touch by phone that winter.  In the spring I invited him to come fishing with me on opening weekend.

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In my little nine foot six flat bottom punt we shoved off on a cold damp opening morning.  The 5.5 hp outboard served well that day and we came back to shore about noon for a fish fry.  The mandatory snooze afterwards took us to late afternoon and back on the water.  We left just before dark.  During the day in between catching fish, he caught more than I did; Todd snapped pictures with a 35mm SLR.  I was most envious of that black beauty, our family still operated with an old range finder that managed to produce about fifty percent of the pictures taken.  Back home it was of with Todd for his hour-long drive. 

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A couple of months went by.  One day at the post office an unexpected parcel notification produced a long cardboard tube, crimped and taped on both ends.  At home the mystery was solved.  That tube held my picture, taken that day on the water, and now hanging for close to twenty-five years on our living room wall.  I have thought of putting an elaborate frame on the print but the black, drug store frame somehow goes with the times the picture was taken.  Money was tight but the times were good, less complicated than today’s computer driven days.  A few lures and some minnows would bring whole days worth rest and relaxation.  That old punt bottom never had much of a chance to dry off during the years we fished from it.  Our family was young and several pounds lighter than today and that punt was a big part of our lives.  That punt is locked in my memories and in that picture that has it’s surprising roots in the big city of Toronto. 

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Now-a-days Todd and his family live in British Columbia.  We correspond by phone, the occasional Christmas card and most recently by e-mail.  He has the big salmon to fish for, the prawns to barb be que and the steelhead runs to chase in his home of choice.  That picture on the wall ties him forever to my world, where we spent a quiet day enjoying what I like doing most.  Todd misses the pickeral fries and the quiet dark waters of my world.