Memories of Dad
The other morning, I woke early and got out of bed. In reality, Dorene kicked me out for making too much noise. I removed myself to the recliner, and being the week before Father’s Day, I began to reflect on memories of my dad.
My mind drifted back to the many fishing trips that we had together. Two of them stood out. Dad had a great friend, Kenny, that he hunted, fished, and played golf with for over fifty years. I was able to join them on two of their trips.
I remembered the stories that Dad used to tell about the trips he and Kenny took. One of my favorites was how Dad got the nickname, “Doc.” Dad and Kenny packed up their boat with fishing gear, camping gear, and their golf clubs and headed to the Colorado River. After they played a few slot machines outside of Las Vegas and a couple rounds of golf in Utah they arrived at the river, heading upstream to camp alongside it. One night Kenny woke my dad up and said, “I have a fly in my ear! It’s still alive and is driving me crazy!!” They were miles from anywhere and could not go down the river at night. After several hours of this, dad finally had an idea. He heated some of their cooking oil and slowly poured it into Kenny’s ear, killing the fly. Kenny always called dad “Doc” after that. Dad and Kenny took this same trip many times until they were in their late 80s.
When I was in high school, probably my junior year, Dad and Kenny were planning a fishing trip to the east side of the High Sierras, north of Bishop, California, in the Mammoth Lakes area. They asked if I wanted to go. I jumped at the chance.
We took off on this three-day adventure with all of our gear necessary to camp out and fish packed in Dad’s station wagon. We drove the 4-1/2 hours and pulled into a camping area just north of Bishop. We set up our camp, ate dinner, and went to bed. The next morning, we headed to Benton Crossing, a favorite fishing hole along the Upper Owens River that feeds into Crowley Lake. We were the first ones there and began to fish the hole above the bridge crossing. We started to catch fish immediately. In those days the fishing limit was ten per day, and that didn’t take us long. I limited out first. It was the only time that I remember out-fishing both my dad and Kenny.
The second trip was many years later. I was in my mid-30s. Dad and Kenny were planning another one of their trips to the Colorado River and asked me to go. This was going to be a fishing and golfing trip to the place where dad had gotten his nickname, “Doc.” We headed out with all of our gear packed in Kenny’s boat. We stopped along the way for a couple of rounds of golf and finally arrived at Lees Ferry, 15 miles below Glen Canyon Dam. This was the place along the Colorado River where we were to put in the boat. Kenny’s boat was not large enough for all of us to go up river at one time, so we packed the gear in the boat, and Kenny and I headed up river. About half way to the dam, Kenny dropped me off on a sandy beach where I set up camp while he went back down river to get Dad. This took all day.
The next day we began to fish. What a trip! I estimated that in those three days of fishing we caught over 70 fish that were two pounds or better. We did not keep all of them, because the limit was ten fish per person in possession. We ate a lot of fish on that trip. I caught my biggest fish ever, a 7-pound rainbow. Again, beating both Dad and Kenny.
I had to get back to work, so we packed up and headed to Flagstaff, Arizona. We played another round of golf, and then I took the train back to San Diego, California.
Dad and Kenny headed back to the Colorado River for another trip up river. Dad was not going to let me out-do him again, and he caught a 7-½ pound fish. I have both of those fish mounted on the wall of our great room.
With tears in my eyes, I miss my dad.