Four days before my daughter's fifteenth birthday, and a year after a move, we loaded the canoe on top of the van and headed off to go fishing.
After a day fishing "the lake at the old house."
Fifteen seemed a long way off.
It would be the first time in a year the two of us sat in the canoe together- something we did on an almost nightly basis before the move, when we lived on a twenty-five acre lake that offered a large mouth or crappie on almost every cast. We challenged ourselves at one point to see how many days we could fish in a row- even if it meant sneaking in a few casts in the morning before school. The move was a big adventure, and a successful one, but it didn't provide many opportunities for little adventures.
The canoe sat at the edge of a little farm pond, too small to hold much more than the tiniest sunfish. My son enjoys paddling around it with his Buzz Lightyear pole, but Savannah never took the bait- it wasn't the lake at the old house.
I was surprised and excited when she took interest in heading to the Grand River. When she was little, she enjoyed fishing. Mostly I enjoy catching. If they're not biting, I'm ready to head to the house. But Savannah was always stubborn. If the action was slow, she got frustrated, but she would not quit fishing. I wondered if she had outgrown all that.
The M Hwy Bridge at Bosworth
We paddled upriver from the access, taking the same route steam boats once took from the Missouri to Chillicothe. After stoping at a gravel bar, we began floating downstream, working the bank with a worm and a jig, the way we caught bass in the lake. Cast after cast- no bites. Carp jumped from the surface to mock us, and we were jealous of the fishermen we saw taking fish off trotlines. There was frustration, but there was also comfort in re-engaging in our bickering about who was rocking the canoe, or why it was obvious that casting there would get you snagged.
We didn't do any catching, but we were both glad we went fishing.
When drizzle turns to rain drops, break open the camp box for a tarp, nylon line, and zip ties to cobble together a rain fly. Grab the cooler and the kids. Marvel at how content everyone can be, huddled together in a space smaller than any room in the house. Watching it rain.
Great gifts are usually the result of great efforts, as was certainly the case when my wife sent me fishing in the gulf while she took three kids to the beach by herself.
Before the chartered boat pulled from the dock, laughter erupted when a fisherman in sun glasses continued to ask a kid, who was telling a "one that got away story" to tell him how big it was. The kid kept responding by holding his hands apart. The deck hand and the captain knew the man in glasses, a regular customer, was blind- and a prankster, but the kid didn't. Each time he was asked the question, he took the bait, at his own expense. Over the course of the eight hour trip, I found it hard to not be aware of the man. Of how he baited the hooks with cut squid on his own. Of how he talked Auburn football and trash on his brother when he was out fishing him. Of how he called out predictions of weight to the deck hand for each fish he caught.
I also found it hard to not be aware of how he experienced the day. The texture of the line under my thumb as the bait dropped beneath the boat. The tension of the bent rod during the fight. Warmth of the sun, scent of the bait and snapper, the steady churn of the deisel and rush of water against the boat.
Later that night I took note of how fine my daughter's hair felt as she leaned against me, an act that happens with less frequency as she moves through middle school. We sat in lawn chairs with the thick fillets cooking on a grill before us. The charcoal smoke, the melting butter, and softening onions. We tore off edges of fish as it crisped against the grill and commented on how all the flavors, salt, pepper, lemon, butter, and fish, combined. Our campsite was close enough to the Santa Rosa Sound to hear water against sand. A great moment.
I was grateful for the chance to spend a day out on the water catching fish. And a little perspective.
Before bedtime my son and I took the canoe out. High water from a week of heavy rains gave us an opportunity explore where we hadn't previously, and to escape into our imaginations. On the far side of the lake there is a triangle of shallow water that extends into the woods: The Cove. The cove is where the Monster Fish hunt. We paddled back into the cove, hoping to startle one from the lake bottom, to feel the displaced water rock our canoe. As we paddled to the back of the cove, we realized water was still flowing out of the woods into the lake. A tiny creek, usually a dry bed, was almost to the top of its banks.
We decided to paddle to its source. The channel grew narrow, and the thick grass grew high from its banks, blocking our view to the right and left. The creek made a sharp bend and then the trees enveloped us. The entire way my son peppered me with questions.
"Are we in the woods, Dad?"
"There are not monsters in the woods, right Dad?"
"Is hate a bad word, Dad?"
"Are there snakes here, Dad?"
"Can I say I hate snakes, Dad?"
"Only dragons breath fire, right, not dragonflies, right, Dad?"
I was focused on my unrealistic hope that the creek would spill out into another lake, or Big Cedar Creek.....or Narnia, so I gave a short answer to each question.
"Yes, of course."
Before the creek reached Narnia, it ended, predictably, in a mudbank. Feeling a little silly for indulging my imagination and wasting time, I paddled back to the lake to resume teaching my son to bass fish with a jig and plastic worm, an activity that is most definitely not a waste of time. He wanted to fish from the Big Rock.
When I looked at him later he had set his Buzz Light Year pole down, pulled several feet of line from the reel, and taken the plastic worm from the weighted jig. He stood on the rock and with great concentration threw the jig over and over at a passing dragon fly, pulling the line back in, hand over hand, with each miss. In his mind he was a knight, protecting his castle from the dragon that flew over his moat.
"That monster is trying to get us. Do you think I can catch him like this, Dad?"
This spring I had the good fortune to accompany a fantastic group of students on their senior class trip. If my high school ever sponsored senior trips, they did away with the practice long before I collected my diploma. As a relative newcomer to the district the concept of the class trip intrigued me, and when I was asked to consider sponsoring the class an adventurous spirit led me to agree. What an adventure it was!
The fundraising alone was an adventure, but I saw so many lessons being learned, watching the students plan, prioritize, problem solve, and cooperate their way through a year's worth of athletic concessions and sales drives. Real leadership was developed and real world skills were polished. What do you do when your concession stand runs out of quarters during half time? How do you go about telling your sponsor that he burned off most of one eyebrow in a grease fire, grilling hamburgers?
Finally the trip arrived. We spent five nights in Florida and the kids had so many experiences. They navigated airports and public transportation. They heard families communicate with each other in foreign languages and watched a NASA rocket launch. They visited theme parks and the beach. They rented a surf board. Some of the students had more experience traveling than others, but there were many firsts on the trip. It was a great trip, and the kids represented their school, community, and families in outstanding fashion.
With so many demands competing for time and resources, it's understandable that many schools have done away with class trips. But there are many reasons why it's worth it for schools to provide students the opportunity to travel outside their communities. Schools have the ability to provide travel opportunities that are safe, educational, and equitable.
I don't know when, or if, I'll get another chance to lead a student trip, but I'm glad I took advantage of this one. It was a treat to watch the students explore, make memories, and learn in the midst of a new experience: all marks of authentic education.
For weeks my daughter and I monitored the river level, itching to explore during low water. However, during the winter the temperatures are as low as the water line. Finally, during the third week of January, we caught a break: three days in a row with highs in the fifties.
Our lake at home was still frozen over, so we set off to the creek we use for river access wondering if we'd even be able to put our fourteen foot Old Town in the water. Packing the dry bag with an emergency blanket, extra clothes, and matches, gave me a bit of a pause. Daytime highs were warm, but it was still hypothermia conditions.
Aside from the edges, the creek had no ice, and it was lower than we had ever seen. Access ramps sat exposed in near frozen mud. A bald eagle soared in the bare trees that revealed caves in the limestone bluffs. We had not noticed the caves before; they captured our imaginations.
When we reached the confluence we found our way blocked with ice floes: pieces over four inches thick and several feet across. We wondered how far north these frozen wonders began their journey. My daughter and I worked through the ice, trying to ignore the eerie grinding sound they created as they pushed against each other and the canoe.
We made a quick loop out into the river, surprised by the power it held even at a stage under six feet and then parked on a sandbar that stretched out like a beach. My daughter picked chunks of riprap and threw them at the ice floes, one so thick it shattered the limestone rock. We examined the strange channels the river cut in the sand, while the eagle above examined us.
We marked time by the passing of ice floes and the setting of the sun. The wind began to pick up and the temperature began to drop. It was time to make the two mile paddle back to the truck.
My son and I share a ritual. It begins when one of us, he as often as I, asks the other to go on a bear hunt. The ritual demands an invitation to bear hunt can not be declined, regardless of weather, or time left in a tied football game. If you are asked to bear hunt you are required to respond, "Let's go."
A half mile trail winds through a few acres of cedars on the far side of the lake behind our house. We walk the path with our eyes peeled, carrying sticks. We haven't seen a bear yet.
The name stands.
A November morning with frost on the ground and a stream of division on the news feed makes a bear hunt appealing. At four he is becoming bold enough to run ahead, leading me to a bench at the crest of the hill where I sit and consider the reasons I want to retreat from and engage in society. Along the trail we bust cottontails in the woods and ducks along the shoreline. We examine the workings of beavers and tracks in the frost left by the survivors of last week's deer season. All of it encourages: the cardinals, the cold air, the light reflecting off the cottonwoods.
He's four so he is beginning to run ahead and lead the hunts. But he's four and the hunts still end the same as they always have. His legs get tired and asks to "ride up top," on my shoulders back to the house.
The mile stretch of Perche Creek just upstream from the Missouri is a fantastic place to watch the seasons change. My sit-on-top Wilderness Systems kayak allows me to skim along with the leaves that litter the surface. In late October I miss seeing the turtles, but when the trees begin to shed, terrific views of the limestone bluffs, hidden all summer, emerge.
Stripes on the trunks rising from the bank mark water lines from spring and summer floods, revealing how dynamic nature is. The creek, turtles, and trees seem to relax in the fall, but paddling in and out of the powerful eddies at the confluence reminds paddlers that the Missouri isn't ready for winter yet.
Aside from a dog that rambled out of the brush, looked us over, and trotted off like he was expecting to find someone else, we had the river bank to ourselves. My daughter, who threw a pole and tackle box in the car at the last minute, searched the rip rap for anything that would serve as bait. I stared at the river, considering the swirling eddies that quickly popped up and disappeared like frustrations and anxieties that make a morning spent in a canoe so appealing.
"Dad you won't believe it! Look at this!"
No one else I know has the luck of my daughter. When I turned around she was holding a white carton of night crawlers that had washed up or been abandoned. We spent the morning watching her tight line and snacking on fruit and summer sausage on the dry bag that served as our table cloth.
The Missouri was at eleven feet that morning and we decided to briefly test our strength against the 72,000 cubic feet of water that flowed downstream each second. We paddled out and then looped back into the creek to begin the mile long trip back to the ramp where we parked.
A breeze at our back allowed us to fish and float back without paddling. Almost too quickly. As we loaded up, both of us wished we were still at the confluence of Perche Creek and the Missouri River.
I don't know who was more restless, my four year old son or me, but with temperatures in the seventies on Labor Day morning ,we decided it was a perfect time to make like Christopher Robbin and go on an explore.
Our destination: A portion of the Cedar Creek Trail known as Devil's Backbone.
If Lord of the Rings had been filmed in Boone County, Missouri, much of the action would have been shot here. The ridge, not more than thirty feet wide, with vertical drops on both sides, slips quickly down to Cedar Creek below. Not many places in Central Missouri feature as many rocky outcrops split by gnarled tree roots. We didn't battle any Wargs on our journey, but we did have a show down with a blood thirsty horsefly.
At the base of The Backbone we snacked on an orange while resting on an abandoned steel bridge before making the return trip up the steep trail. Before getting back in the van, we paused and dangled our feet off a limestone ledge two hundred feet above the creek bottom. It was a good moment for both of us.
Morning was the perfect time to visit the French Quarter with the kids. The crowd and heat hadn't kicked in, and for breakfast we love beignets from Cafe Du Monde, a short walk from the public parking on Decatur, which is easy to find from I-10. After shopping the French market and exploring St. Louis Cathedral, we ate po' boys and alligator before cruising Bourbon Street in the mini-van. At Ursulines we hung a left and then took Dauphine toward the Garden district, where we finished the trip by exploring Lafayette Cemetery.
Oxford
Demanding that your children read "A Rose for Emily" at bedtime may or may not be good parenting, but that's how I introduced Faulkner to my daughters before visiting Rowan Oak, on July 6th, the anniversary of his death. The girls were thinking of the story as they walked up the steps to the door and whispered, "This place looks haunted." Our son reached the door first and knocked. When the door sprung open by itself all three mouths dropped. For a moment we thought they were going to run. The attendant, who watched their approach, paused before stepping out from behind the door. He had the same mischievous eyes and smile as our son, and made us feel welcome. In the study, we examined plot diagrams on the walls, written for the books that rest on our living room bookshelf. In a photograph upstairs we searched for the mysteries held in Caroline Barr's eyes. Outside we shared the grounds with the ghosts of Yoknapatawpha County.
Memphis
For our family, learning about Blues Music is an important window into American history. The Rock 'n' Soul Museum was a perfect classroom for all of us. Every minute we spent was a valuable investment of time. Feeling inspired, we crossed the street to the Gibson gift shop where I was able to grab an ax and pick a little.
The kids weren't impressed with my amateurish attempt, so we headed one block over to Beale where we met real blues men and enjoyed great ribs and live music at Flynn's. After lunch we made a quick visit to the ducks at the Peabody before jumping back in the van, which was parked just across the street on South Third.
It wasn't long before my daughter felt the familiar tug and I heard, "Fish on, Daddy."
We walked through chest deep troughs carefully holding the rod and reel high. One hundred yards from shore we found a sand bar. There the water of Bay St. Louis gently lapped against us at our knees on its way to the beach where the rest of the family played.
My oldest daughter and I surveyed our surroundings. To our left the bridges carrying cars and trains to Pass Christian arched into the air. To our right the coastline worked its way toward New Orleans where we spent the morning shopping and dipping beignets in cafe au lait. Behind us the sun began to set over multicolored beach homes on South Beach Boulevard . All around us small fish made double leaps over the surface. Sea gulls and pelicans patrolled above.
A plastic crawfish on a .5 circle hook dangled on twenty four inches of leader below a large popping float. My daughter was excited, and though I tried to feign confidence as I assembled the rig, I was too. We grant ourselves expert status in our canoe at home where we bass fish, but this our first experience together fishing salt.
We began working the next trough out, and though our first few casts yielded no result, it wasn't long before my daughter felt the familiar tug and I heard, "fish on, Daddy."
As we waded back to shore to show off the catfish, all of ten inches, she had a smile and the confidence to ensure this wouldn't be her last catch from the bay.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Posts
