[Originally posted at Street Prophets and at my personal blog on June 7, 2011. After some thought I have decided to share it here.]
———
First, ostensibly, for trout that, half-hidden, flashed and glimmered opalescent in mountain streams; from too-crowded national parks to his favorite "secret" place on a river in a remote corner of eastern Idaho, my grandfather and I would cast flies and he'd talk to me.
I say "he'd talk to me" because I was brought up under the old-fashioned notion that "children should be seen and not heard"; this, on top of my innate shyness, and combined with a boy's lively curiosity, made of me a practiced observer and listener. I recall little by way of specifics — this was, after all, close to fifty years ago — but the overall burden of his conversation, which ranged from the nature of fish to (tempered to a child's understanding) the nature of God, and usually delivered with humor, has stuck with me; and, like fingerlings in deep, invisible currents, precepts were hatched that would rise to the surface at a future season when there was good bait.
Read More