POETRY

POETRY

 I love reading well crafted words.

 Tasting the beauty of the world with just one lick.

 I love taking long walks on the beach,

 and poking dead things with a little stick.

DESCHUTES RIVER RATTLERS

The Deschutes River is pronounced "Dey shoot tay" by dry fly fisherman who fancy themselves as so very literate having some pseudo French language in their vocabulary. White water rafters call it "Da Chutes" because of the velocity of the water and the rapid falls down its path, and because someone, toked up on "loco weed" IE: "Local Weed," figured out that was a pretty good thing to yell if you have cotton mouth at the moment you're coming up on a rated 3 rapid like "boxcar." In fact it is a french name "Riviere aux Chutes" meaning river of falls. Now, my traveling buddy and I just call it "cold and wet."

When we were younger we went out of our way to be "cold and wet." Anyone can have a good time when they are warm and dry. We were special. We rattled about "cold and wet" pretty much wherever we would go.
I especially liked being "cold and wet" for the weekend out by the Deschutes River.

The Indigenous Indian population around those parts call it the "Deschutes River" which means in Indian, "dark, cold, and wet, and hard to get a campsite, because of the dry fly fisherman and the white water rafters everywhere during the summer months, when all you want to do is find a place to lay down before you fall down."
It's also a little song and dance you can see over at Happy Canyon at the Pendleton Round Up.

We were driving the "Muscrat" at high and dangerous speeds across the desert from Redmond at night, all alone, except for the sound of each others high pitched out cries accompanied by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings Outlaw tapes stashed in a pasteboard box in the back of the Muscrat next to a weeks supply of 16 ounce cans of Colt 45 Malt Liquor and a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold. Oh yeah; and blocks of ice that drained right through holes drilled in the floor boards to make it "real nice."

The "Muscrat" is actually a 64 1/2 Blue Ford Mustang that I bought for $300.00 from an old farmer guy I knew who was hurting for money. It was spray painted Metallic Blue from rattle cans bought at the GI Joe's discount store.

It had a 289 Cobra High Pro "K" code high compression 270 horsepower motor in it. Built at a cost of $3300.00 all blueprinted and balanced before being installed into the lightweight shabby body of that notorious automobile.

The body did not have one place anywhere on the car that was not dented and repaired with Bondo, then rattle can spray painted back to acceptable sleeper status. It had 2x6's screw nailed at the bottom of the doors for makeshift running boards. God only knows what it would have looked like otherwise. They were hand painted with a blue house paint that kind of matched. Most of the paint was rubbed off anyway from numerous brush runs across the desert in pursuit of high grade excitement.

The under carriage had another $1100.00 worth of racing suspension traction masters built at High School shop class for an old 1966 Falcon. It had low wide profile tires at the rear and little 15 inch tires on the front with rusty American Mag wheels to kind of pretty it up some. The front end was reverse raked by the installation of 1957 Buick "A" frame springs to set the weight back a little further on to the back wheels for better traction. The out of balance slip stream through the air didn't really matter much because the car would only go 112 miles per hour anyway.

The motor was in front of a standard 3 speed transmission shifted from the column with a 4/11 rear end. The car, up hill or downhill, would only go 112 miles per hour but it would get to top speed really, really fast! You had to hold your cheeks real tight when you were accelerating to keep them from flopping. It would pull your face all out of alignment as well. I'm saying it was a real fast automobile.

One really great thing about it, the damn thing would go nearly 40 miles an hour in reverse. It was fun to gun it up to forty in reverse then slam on the brakes for a moment to send it into a 180 degree spin to forward motion then grab second gear and run it up to about 80 miles an hour or so while plowing through the sage brush. We did it mostly to impress the ladies. Figured it was worth the risk to the paint job.

All this really means is that the car was equipped pretty much the same as if you hooked up a 45 horsepower Mercury outboard motor to a piece of plywood for a run about on Lake Billy Chinook.

Well anyway, my traveling partner and I were cruising back and forth up river from Maupin, down river to Shearers Falls and into the White River valley and even over to Oak Springs on the west side and back looking for a place to camp for the night. The normally dark night was so completely filled with campfires blazing everywhere it was confusing and our minds were somewhat addled from having drank a weeks worth of Malt Liquor on the way over from Portland.

It seemed like there was a campfire every 10 feet for miles in every direction. Finally out from no where there was a breech in the campfire light. A cold, wet, dark, black void of a place where no fires burned and no cars were parked and not a single boulder in sight large enough to dissuade the Muscrat from lurching in there for a landing. It was dark "cold and wet" so we quickly rolled out the side doors of the "Muscrat" to our resting places.


About 6:00AM: that morning I felt a kick to my head; then a second. I peered out to see a Oregon State Trooper patrolman staring down at me. All dressed up with authority over us.

"Hey! Can you read boy?" he shouted at me from about a foot and a half away from my face! "Yeah a little bit." "What do ya need read?" I replied smartly? "Look at that sign in front of that God awful piece of crap car your driving dip shit." I open my eyes wide enough to focus on a brilliantly white painted 4x8 sheet of plywood with huge red letters stating,

BEWARE KNOWN RATTLESNAKE NESTING AREA!

I called out to my traveling pal, by his God given name, and suggested he carefully rise for morning prayers right then and there. Just about where his hip lay there in a wet cotton Coleman sleeping bag between him and the ground was a nice big hole where the rattlers exit when it warms up some. Luckily he like me sleeps "cold and wet."

Yeah! "What do you need read?"----------- An inspiration to me.

Now this story has been told and retold translated from and to many languages and still controversy remains as to it's origins and authenticity.

Rattlers part ll

by our sponsors HOT DOG TRAVELER and GENERAL CHOW

Hot Dog Traveler editorial comment:

Imagine now for a moment the imaginary remote control camera that is always trained on our two heros soaring upwards in the heavens to a point perhaps 1000 feet above this whole entire scene. The headlights dimming now from a used battery going low on power that had been like a beacon shinning directly on the brilliant white sign painted with the inescapable red letters the night before. Our heros laid prostrate on the ground perpendicular to the vehicle forming a cruciform shape of sleeping bags and the Muscat. One on the right and the other to the left, respectively.

Warning to you slithery sinful serpents, rafters, and fishermen of the Deschutes River Recreation Area.

Beware known nesting rattlesnakes!

You have been presided over by a "Cobra High Pro," Gods own drunks and innocent men.

General Chows wisdom from the East (over by Service Creek, Monument and Spray maybe not Antelope certainly)

Always load up the rear end of your conveyance with General Chow for any eventuality.

It may be opened and eaten directly from the can "cold and wet," or warm and dry.

It's up to you!

RUBICON

I once had a real fine piece of property and a savings account building toward a barn that would have a pitched metal roof and real wood siding and a troweled smooth concrete floor.
I lost it all by giving in to an unlikely request from my young wife!
She pleaded that if I would just let her use the savings account to buy a little red sailboat she would be so very happy and would “never ask me for anything else” ever again.
So we went down to the Marina and bought the little red sail boat and parked it right on the flat spot leveled out for the barn. She painted the name “Ruby” on the stern and was quite pleased and was so satisfied in fact she indeed never asked me for anything ever again!
My Father and my successful farmer Uncle had taught me that a responsible self-reliant individual always lets the barn pay the way, but she was so insistent. I was young and able to resave the little bit of money set aside for the barn. It was such a small price to pay for the Cheshire cat wide smile it put on her face. Most importantly she did very well intend to keep the promise.

THIS LITTLE MISSIVE IS ABOUT A WELL PLANNED IRONY

The idiom”Crossing the Rubicon” means to pass a point of no return and refers to Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon River and beginning an act of war in 49 BC. The Latin word rubico comes from the adjective ‘rubeus’ meaning red!

“The dye had been cast” Some twenty five years later at our son’s wedding I again met the promise keeper who had taken the “Ruby in the divorce. I asked her if Ruby was a nick name for Rubicon.

“Took you long enough” was her reply!

STRING THEORY OF HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

They say that space is still expanding; stretching tight as metal banding.
Someday it’ll snap back, the universal contract
And we will blast very fast into the sun.

Remember quickly, lickedy splitly, back when we were young.
Strung back together, like we begun.

Quantum theory, singularity, quarks and
Guitar strings
bind our lives with everything.

Tethered souls, mine and yours
Unexplained it still endures.

From your friend
Dennis--------------------------2010

CAT FISHING IN THE FUTURE OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

One of my best friends is NOT always my favorite fishing buddy!

He is one of my best friends because we both have so much in common with one another. For example he and I love music. We used to both play little tin horns that had the label "Marine Band" on them. Yet, now he has attained a level of competence that requires much higher quality and quantities of mouth organs with many keys in minors and majors.

You can get a Marine Band "C" at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant in Missoula, Montana for $3.00 or so, I guess now he spends $80.00 or more for one that makes you sound a whole lot better than we did when we were just starting out!

We both bought harmonica's at the pier in Embarcadero in San Francisco one night on a hoot. I could play "When the Saints Go Marching In" pretty good in about a half an hour. I still play that about as good as I did then.

He plays lead and stands up front. I play back up and sing and dance just as good as you want.
It is only right since I take the lead on enough other stuff. It is much safer for me as well. He is much more physically capable than I to fend off stuff thrown at us when we get up to play to the public for free drinks.

Besides
"A mans got to look good even when he is just showing off."

We both love sailing. There is just about nothing in the world more satisfying than getting blown along in the wind for free in the pursuit of high adventure.
When we were first coming up we both would be constantly on the look out for boats full of pretty girls with bulging bikinis and beer lockers. We would cut them off for the booty.

We both like fast cars, late night drinking, stupid stories, uncle pervy dirty jokes, Willie and Wayland, Jimmy Buffet , running "a muck" in general and the beauty, love and patience of the women we took for wives.

One thing we don't have in common is fishing and politics.

He is a union man left swinging democrat that hasn't read much after high school and hasn't needed to. He got good marks in school and graduated on time and got a good job right afterwards in the trades. He hasn't had to compensate for any deficiencies with a continuing higher education because he was gifted with good looks, a great personality, athletic ability, an unusually gifted hand for mechanical things, an eye for art and the ability to create it, a musical bent and good hair and health.

When he goes fishing he fishes with worms and keeps and eats every fish he catches. He sees it as the only right thing to do. If the fish are not biting he considers bringing the dozen worms less the one he used back to the store for a refund. Matter of fact he kind of thinks everybody ought to get free worms from the government cause they live in the ground that belongs to us all for Christs sake.

He does not fret over the future of the world and does not see that he has much at all to do with how things are going.
He drinks beer and lives in the moment and is damn proud to say he has personally eradicated many local streams of every fish there ever was swimming there. Any responsibility to those to follow is not of any great concern to him. He leaves that up to his effete intellectual friends who go for that sort of thing and talk about it mostly when their heads are full of learning and expensive European wine.





Me, oh well, I'm a catch and release man. When a fish shakes about and loosens himself from my barbless hook I refer to it as an "early release." Sometimes I imagine, after a brilliant cast, that sets my dry fly lightly on the surface tension of the stream that if a fish just comes to look at it, that alone, is considered, by the end of the day as "a catch."

I read Kierkegaard and King James, Burns, Dylan Thomas, Emerson and Thoreau, the Economist and the like, and watch all the Sunday morning political pundits and read volumes of history so I can look for predictable events to expect and avoid in the future and fret and stew about myriads of things. I like to dabble in all manner of heady stuff to compensate for the lack of all the God given gifts my friend enjoys.

I drink enough Chianti to really know my stuff. I labor in the belief that words mean and can accomplish things and that thinking can make a strong nation endure.

It is a well known religious belief that God does not take away any time from the sum total of your life for the time spent fishing. The truth be known the time spent fly fishing gains you credits on the overall span of your life and dry fly fishing earns you a bonus round. It is common knowledge with the literate.

Jesus was a fisher among men. He hung out with disciples who were most probably net and seine fisherman. The apostles were trawl line and rod fishermen and Jesus of course was a dry fly fisherman.

So one day the self centered pragmatist called the independent existentialist to do a little fishing. He claimed he had found a fool proof method and he guaranteed a strike with every cast!

He guaranteed a strike on every cast!

The only thing I had to swallow was that it was "cat fishing" "You can use flies if you want to," he told me, "just as long as they are a pretty good size like at least two to three inches long" and if I didn't mind them "getting chewed up a quite a bit." He knew they were time consuming to tie or expensive to buy.

Well, I was in the pick up in about a second with my wife and my fly pole strapped in at my side to call bullshit on that little guarantee of his as quick as humanly possible.

We arrived lickety splitly to find he had already rigged up to two Zebco closed faced reels on six and a half foot fiberglass fishing poles that he had owned since grade school. The thirty pound test line inside had never fouled and was the original line that came on the reel sold to him by the Sears and Roebuck salesman friend of his fathers. There were two colors to choose from. Anodized coated metallic red and another in green. The green one had a couple of chips knocked off of it as it had been the one used most often. The red one was for back up. Today, as usual, I would play the back up pole.

The poles were leaned up against the handrail of the fishing deck and while I felt a little put upon to use one of these inferior rigs but it was easier than going back home to get my old reel that contained old beat up line. I wasn't going to throw my expensive floating double tapered Orvis line into that tangle of bushes and bunch grass he was fishing in.

He gave me a pointer that the best place was to sidearm cast so I could tuck my fly up right under an overhanging bush. My first cast fell short and I was quickly advised the guarantee did not extend to people who could not "cast a Zebco."

My second cast was right in there where he pointed out as the place to find the cats "honey hole." Sure enough there was a flash and a blurr and a pull on my line like you would not believe. I had never felt a strike like that before!

"What was that" I hollered. My friend said it was likely the one they had named the "Himalayan." I pulled back too hard and lost the damn thing. My friend reminded me the guarantee was not to land the big cats just guaranteed to get a strike every time.

So I rared back a let another one fly right into the bush that held the beasts.

To my amazement another cat jumped clean up into the bush for a taste of my feathered bait. I suppose you got a name for that one too I taunted. Yep we call him the "Persian."

The next one was a "Tabby" then "Scrappy" and then-------------------

The Barbecue was ready and the cats had gotten tired of chasing our lines and left the lawn for scraps of Salmon thrown to them from the patio deck.

Now a word from our sponsor HOT DOG TRAVELER reminding you that no animal domestic or feral was harmed in the writing of this story.

GENERAL CHOW is still willing to sell you the food for the people and guarantees it makes damn good cat food as well.

EVERLASTING "LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI"

Uncle Helmer and Aunt Clara had done all the threshing they wanted for awhile. They were loaded with cash from ten years of "bumpers" and decided to head south to see the relatives and do some sight seeing down the Missouri to Cora Island (Clara's aunts namesake) to see it mix in with the great Mississippi.

They left Eden at sunrise and headed due east to pick up old highway 81 to Watertown, South Dakota. They stopped to stock up on store bought provisions for the long trip due south.

They took highway 18 to 20 as they had planned, but the Model "A" kept heating up so bad they were not sure they would ever make it to Confluence State Park for the big family sleep over.

They made a pay phone call ahead to the relatives to warn them they might be late and to ask them to warm up the Hudson dealer in St. Louis with a call. They had a trade in and cash money to purchase a brand new honey colored lacquer coated 2 door coupe.

The Hudson Hornet had the largest most powerful in line six cylinder engine on the planet. It was 308 cubic inches of pure horse power.
It could accelerate to speeds over 100 miles an hour! Of course you wouldn't want to do such a thing since the speedometer was only marked to 90 mph and if you pegged the needle it would twist up the speedometer cable. From then on you would never know for sure your true speed when approaching the speed traps of Louisiana Parrish's.

Any family would be proud to have members that could pony up the $3000.00 for an "auto-mobile" and still have enough left over for a trip all the way down the "Ole Mississip" to the Gulf of Mexico.

Leaving the company of loving relatives Helmer rested his foot against the transmission hump just right into the cut pile of the carpeted floor boards at the foot feed of the new Hornet. He powered the new coupe south down the famous highway 61 where they both made a special effort to spot the bleachers folks had "set out in the sun" to seat the crowds awaiting Satan and the desolation that would follow his appearance.

The Mississippi runs slowly through nearly level farmland for hundreds of miles south. The Hudson with it's low slung center of gravity navigated the meandering turns of the state highway following the river with ease.
They would be at their destination in no time at all. Helmer could never have dreamed that one day he would be driving a machine the likes of this one.

Clara remembered a book she had read in her youth written by a famous river boat pilot. He described how really dark, dark can be, especially at night in and around the river in these parts.
He claimed it was "as dark as the inside of a cow."

Clara stared out the tinted side windows and watched the terns swoop by and the sun glint through the live oak branches. The wind breezed thru the side vent of the new Hudson thru her hair and past her consciousness.
She thought the herd of cows her Aunt and Uncle had just outside of Sisseton. They are called Banded Holsteins. They have dark black shoulders and black haunches to the rear but their midriffs are as white as new fallen snow. She yawned and nearly drifted off to sleep in the warm of the sun as she wondered, in and out, of dreams, if those cows were quite as dark inside.

Tomorrow they would be at their destination at the great delta of the Mississippi where it mixes up with the water of all the worlds oceans.



South of New Orleans there is a county park where you can sleep over in your car and cook outside in the morning while you wait your turn for the swamp tour offered there. Helmer slept on the front bench seat curled up under the afghan his mother had knitted him. Clara folded the armrest up into the backrest and slept, warm as toast, under the quilt she had bought from the friendship club over at the Methodist Church outside of Peever, near Hartford Beach on Big Stone Lake.

Down at the wharf Captain Sid had just moored his boat the "Karma Hardy" The deck hands were already loading tourists up for the excursion. While you waited, you could read up on the attraction in promotional materials, set out here and there on the dock. The brochure contained a little picture of a note hand scratched on to a scrap of paper that read "Captain Sid, the value of the time I have spent on Karma and the waters of the Great Mississippi is unmeasurable."------Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

The South Dakota couple finally boarded Captain Sid's motor boat and noticed right away brass fittings mounting a little piece of plate glass over a faded scrap of paper with the supposed scribbles of Mark Twain.
It was positioned next to a placard with mention of all the necessary license, experience, and insurance coverage the Captain carried to conduct this transcendental tour of the Mississippi swamps.

Captain Sid fired up the "one lunger" of the Karma Hardy and they set off into the bayou. It was a perfect morning. Not too hot or humid for the tour day in Gods green paradise.

The bayou swamp is not really dirty and "swampy' as you might think. The water is not murky, it is just stained brown from the tannins that leech out from the Cypress trees growing there. The bayou has a slight current that runs under a blanket of the loveliest little green flora that blooms the tiniest beautiful little blossoms daily.

The swamp had a vast population of birds and animals, beaver and black bear and blue heron, bitterns, white egrets, muskrats, box and snapping turtles and even bearcats too, but everyone was eager to see the terrifying gaze of man eating alligators!

Captain Sid handed out "marsh melons" to the children on the upper sun deck to throw in the direction of alligators as they presented themselves. The captain claimed that it is the color white that attracts them and not the sweet taste of the sugary campfire treats. No one knows for sure why white does the trick but they jumped clear out of the water for them. The captain disengaged the one lunger on several occasions so he could demonstrate the dangerous tenacity and fury of alligators feeding.

Captain Sid did not seem like someone who had spent a great deal of time in the library or the university at study of the famous works of literature, science, art, philosophy and comparative religion. From his accent and general demeanor one would guess he might very well not even seen much TV or any manner of education. He might have been, in fact, an illiterate Creole or Cajun hermit!"

When he spouted off on something however, you did get the notion that he was a keen observer of nature and had an opinion on just about everything as it related to the great outdoors on the Mississippi and everything else worth knowing in the universe.

The Karma Hardy jugged round another corner of the river and a "copperhead" fell from a tree limb to the water below. Just as quick as I am telling this part of the story the snake was pulled under by an unseen chilling monster of some kind. Everyone figured it was an alligator, for sure. Captain Sid, did you see that, they questioned?
"Modur Natur an da serpent are mor---tal enemies and da serpent, he kno dat!" replied the Captain. "Da snake man, he come into da homes good and send bad seed and eats eggs an what have ya."

Well, that was stirring and thought provoking, even for seasoned travelers like Uncle Helmer and Aunt Clara. They sat back in their hard backed plywood seats and watched the silk spiders weave another web for the day and listened to the drone of the one cylinder diesel motor of the Karma Hardy and pondered just how one does "karma hardy?"

The little craft full of tourists plied the waters back and forth, in and out, of dead end coves, exploring all manner of Gods creation.

A young women suddenly cried out, "my God" Captain Sid, "what is that in the water." Helmer peered out to see the biggest carp he had even seen! This one even bigger than anything up at Lake Travis or anywhere else for that matter. The great fish, for some unknown reason, had turned "belly up"dead. Captain Sid pulled the launch out of gear and coasted up on the motionless fish.

"Well it nutin but a deid fish! Don't you worry now Shar, it won't be deid long"---------- "gators'll get him"

Just then Helmer looked back hard at the placard with The captain's credentials.

Captain Sidney Hartha fleet commander Belle Chase Naval Reserve retired
Doctorate of Letters Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing
Proffesor Hartha University of Florida
National Merit Scholar Environmental Law
Merchant Marine 4oo ton master
Captain and owner of the pleasure craft "Karma Hardy"

and chief cook and bottle washer.

The great fish would not be dead for long!

He would soon be alive again!

This weeks story brought to you by our sponsor "GENERAL CHOW"

We got something that "you all" will eat.

Uniform, wholesome, yet it stimulates you to "Party Hardy"

Take home a continental size portion of our "very fine food product today!"

And By "HOT DOG TRAVELLER"

Be first Human for you are the splendid blossoms of Gods paradise.

Yet, the flower is fleeting in the whole of it all.

SHORT RIVER BRIDGE

I jumped from the vineyard over the ancient hedgerow and began my walk down the well worn cobblestone path that would lead me into the fishing village. The breeze carried the scent of lavender to me as I walked past the fields on my way to the arched entry gate.

As I entered, I could hear the sound of women singing sweetly from windows and shutters swung open at the second floors, behind thick, sun baked, adobe walls. They sang rhythmically to the thump of their irons on their flat ironing boards, finishing up the days laundry. Fresh, white linens, colorful shirts, and fishing trousers were hung from lines strung cooperatively from neighboring window to window. They giggled and hid themselves from me as they snuck a peak at "the mister" stumbling across the cobblestones.

The air was alive with the simple pleasures of the timeless life they lived there.

I wandered down lanes mysteriously empty, filled only with a couple of fishing boats cradled at wide places along the way, harbored there, momentarily, for repairs. The boats were hand built, with strong, brightly painted wooden planks, yet light enough to be handled by capable oarsmen. Olive wood, from the nearby hills, is used to fashion the chain plates, rub rails, oars and locks. I inspected these features and found them well worn from decades of use, but they remained extraordinarily serviceable. The boats are maintained well, using methods passed down from their grandfathers, fathers. The boats there live long, lasting well beyond single lifetimes.

The men were at sea, fishing away this day, in the soft sun, indebted only to the breeze that filled their sails and fish that found their nets.

As I made my way deeper into the little city. I found fat cats lying there in the sun waiting for the fishy feast to come. I heard the light laughter of a child, just beyond my sight.

As I rounded a bend in the lane a young man of about nine years of age, dressed in a Greek fishing hat, a white frock and flowing pantaloons ran by, laughing and shouting. He was wearing a dark blue naval officers coat with shinny buttons and a red neckerchief. I saw a wisdom in his eyes and a confidence in his gate well beyond his obvious years.

His young voice called out to me as he passed by---------

"HEY MISTER, HAVE YOU TRIED TO CATCH A BIRD BENEATH THE SHORT RIVER BRIDGE?"

I shook my head, no.

"YOU CAN'T!"

He laughed out loud!

The shutters and the windows suddenly swung shut and the lovely songs in the air were gone! A new kind of quiet shouted out for me to listen. The sea slapped sounds just beyond, as the waves and wind began to build. The seabirds cackled and called. The fat cats meowed and purred and whined as I passed them by. I could feel the warm wind whirling between the buildings and up the lane; now, being cooled, by waters and the shade of a curious arched bridge making it's way into my view. I climbed to the top of the arched bridge and found an inscription carved into the keystone of the bridges handrail.

"BREIS FLUMEN PONS PONTIS"

The experience on the bridge and the scene below and all around was endless and beguiling. I looked straight down into a life, unto itself, in microcosm! A little stream formed from nothing but moist earth, ferns and water plants. Then, a little trickle, from under a leaf came forth, hardly more than a droplet of water. It was being celebrated all around with great quiet fanfare.

Life was born there.

I noticed little fish swimming in the new formed stream, eating flies emerging from the short little river. The river flowed from nothing, to something, then under the bridge and out to the sea, that lay, but a moment away. Larger fish hid themselves in the shadows of the bridge waiting for their daily meal. Ospreys plied the sky above for their earnings. Bull frogs rested on flat rocks in the sun, waiting for an errant morsel to fly by. A "big ole" bull snake slide through the grassy area's on full alert. The Heron and Bittern made their way there from time to time to ply their trade as well.

The swallows----- Oh! -----The swallows. The swallows made their homes of mud and twigs gathered from the river below that were then hung there attached under the bridge.

The swallows made a good living on the bugs that rose from the stream below. The bugs hatch early afternoon and the swallows swoop down, float over them, spin about for a catch and then fly up to their nests to feed their young ones. The fish just down river jump clear from the water, growing larger and wiser at each bite.

Life from nothing, to something and then, to even more.

I wondered for a moment if, somehow, I could get into the act. If, I could find a fly pole and line and a bit of feather, I would try my luck at fooling one of these fish into biting my bait. I could then make a meal for myself in this world where all things seemed possible.

I looked to my right and there, leaning up against a nearby adobe wall was a very old, time tested, bamboo cane pole, with a line and a fly tied just exactly like the ones flying about below the short river bridge!

Now, the pole wasn't like an American made split bamboo work of art from the forty's. NO! NO! It was just simply a fine straight bamboo pole with the ridges sanded down some, with a handle made out of an olive wood dummy pin. This pole had no eyelets or a reel to string and hold the line. The line was just simply tied to the limber end of the pole with an "improved cinch knot."

The line itself was from the very long tail of a horse. The first length was about a meter long and maybe four or five hairs thick, all spun together. The next section was maybe three strands of horse hair, then two strands, and finally, just one hair thick for a short, horse hair, hard to see, leader. All the hairs tied together, end to end, made a pretty good, long, tapered line to dangle beneath the short river bridge.

The whole lash up, counting the pole and all, was still short enough to raise up a catch and flop it out on the cobblestones. Anything that might bite and hang on to the feathery bait without a hook hidden inside to hold the catch to would be deserving of being caught and ate. I examined the bug closely and I swear it was an exact match to an original live type! If it had a hook hidden away, it would have not fooled a one of those spectacular living creatures there below the bridge.

BY NOW, YOU MUST KNOW THIS IS A STORY ABOUT EVERYTHING!

I sent my bait floating down over the keystone inscribed handrail and the swallows went wild over the thing. Oh, those swallows! They were mad as they could be for the bait. They swooped down, flew up, spun around, and dive bombed my line till I thought I might lose my whole set up. Not once was I able to get at the water for the fish with the awful fuss from those swallows.

I became transfixed and I commited myself. I was compelled to catch one of those swallows!

OH, THOSE SWALLOWS!

If I could just float my bait right. I flew my bait fly side to side. I learned to make it appear to spin. I flew it up and down. I waited till the sea breeze and a wave corresponded just right to lift the fly from gravity, entirely, and danced it on thin air exactly as the other live ones were doing. I tried snapping the end like a whip at them. I tried tangling them in the line. I tried snagging their beaks like you do with pike or a turtle. I could not get a decent bite to save my ever loving soul!

Just about the time I was thinking about forgetting my manners altogether and rigging up a treble hook fashioned out of a piece of wire found near a downspout; I sensed a presence nearly on top of me.

It was a wise old fisherman towering over me. He was wearing a Greek hat and flowing shirt and pants with a captains naval coat curiously similar to the look of the young man I had met earlier.

He spoke in an octave lower than you would expect from God himself! It was lower than you could tune a base guitar even if the strings drooped below the frets and neck.

His blue green all knowing eyes burned in on mine. He impatiently and omnisciently boomed the question to me.

"HAVE YOU TRIED TO CATCH A BIRD BENEATH THE SHORT RIVER BRIDGE?"

Embarrassed, I tried to return the pole to the place I had found it, without him noticing.

Why no, "I haven't" I lied.

"YOU CAN'T!"

he said,

His eyes watered up to a twinkle.

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