he was a fireman. I've taught firemen how to deliver babies. so I have a very fond attachment to firemen. because of their - such a generalization - very good hearts. no kidding. never met one who didn't - after all he had seen and done and been through - still have the kind eyes of a man who has true compassion - not pity or sympathy or even empathy - but compassion. a passion for seeing that things go right. for whoever he comes across who needs him. I'd say the same for fire women, I suppose...just never met any. the point is that it's good that he was a fireman for so much of his working life. because that work is important and righteous...and good....
I've been in human services all of my life. nursing for twenty five straight years. teaching for seventeen. I've known blood and guts and people's pains and sorrows and human needs and wants. I've worked hard to help everyone who crossed my path, to learn how to take care of themselves and the others they had to care about. to handle human problems well. or I've taken care of them if they were truly unable. so I know that part of the work of a fireman.
but I've never risked my life battling flames and heat and fumes and buildings coming down and rescuing people from fires. from heart attacks. strokes. births that didn't reach the hospital. burns. breaks of bones. blood in need of staunching right away. death happening without much recourse. losses of limbs and lives right before my eyes. one emergency visit after the other in conditions unknown until you get there. for over twenty some years...but, he did....
then: he's a fisherman. a fly fisherman...do you know how hard it is to be so good at fly fishing that you teach people how to do it? I was always a spin caster myself, so I can tell you how difficult this skill is. See, when you spin cast that six-pound-test monofilament line with its lure tied to it, off your spin rod with it's nice, maybe automatic, spinning reel...well, you use three wrist movements. they take some practice to do well. you hold the rod at about a ten o-clock position in front of you. you use your wrist to bring the tip back to about twelve-thirty, kind-of behind your shoulder. then you snap your wrist quickly to bring it back to ten o-clock at about eye level. at that same time, you straighten your index finger, which you've had crooked around the line. this action snaps the lure off across the water. about fifty or sixty feet away - if you trajectoried the lure with the right momentum - the lure hits with water with a gentle plop or splat. so then you turn the crank on the side of the reel, reeling in the lure with a minnow-like wiggle or swimming motion. leaving about a few inches of the line with the lure hanging below the tip of the rod, you make another cast. unless you catch a fish, of course. I've sat for hours doing this when I was younger. with my dad as a kid. then, with others. for years. it's good times.
fly fishing is not this. it is an Art. with the capital A. I have never ever been good at it. not even close. I would give a great deal to be able to learn from a master. which he is. here's the difference. bear with me here...this is important...ok: the lure is now just a hook dressed up in silver bits like tinsel, and feathers. it's like a tiny body of a minnow with wings of a fly...it takes maybe ten or more of them to weigh as much as one lure on my spin tackle. these are called streamer flies. since they weight like feathers, they have to be cast completely differently. first you have to have a weighted line to deliver this bitsala. the usual cast is about thirty feet. this thick fly line is attached to a leader monofilament. this leader makes the fly look like it's not attached to anything - like it's a real insect in the water....ok. so you tie the fly to the leader. you pull ten or so feet of the line out beyond the tip of the light fly rod. the you pull about thirty feet of the fly line off the reel and hold it, coiled in your left hand (if you're right handed, I guess...) then you start up a quick back-and-forth flicking motion, using your right forearm and wrist, moving the tip of the fly rod from straight out in front of your face to just past your own vertical stance. you're making a tight, elongating arc, which is called a casting loop. the arc is flattening, of course, parallel to the water behind you and in front of you. you actually do this three or four times, without letting the fly or the line hit the water...releasing some of the coiled fly line with your left hand during the finish of every forward stroke. when you go for the fourth cast, the fly, leader - which may sink 'wet' - or rest 'dry' - nice and gently on the water, about thirty - forty feet away. you retrieve the line the same way the spin fisher does, I think. only: the fly kind of skits around more naturally...like a real living minnow or insect would. when the fly is about ten feet from the boat, you start your cast again.
so. what's the point. well, as you can read and maybe imagine: fly fishing is very, very hard for most to master. you have to really want to be just as much like nature as you can be and still be a human separate from being a minnow or an insect or a fish. you want to feel 'fish'. 'water'. 'insect' with all your might. deep inside somewhere. somewhere the rest of us rarely go. it's going to take years to learn to do this style of fishing well. you're going to learn to read water. read weather. read river and lake and pond banks. understand fish. what they eat. when they eat. where they eat. how they eat. with much more intensity than the spin fisherman does. I have not yet had that intensity or patience or presence with the natural world. but he does. that's the point.
this is the past of the Road Song Man. I don't know his personal past at all. he was married once and has two grown sons and maybe a couple of grandkids. he's fond of women. he had some women who were important to him. especially when he had cancer (I think it was cancer) of the prostate gland. which is a bad deal to handle: he had a lady then who helped him through that. he is still very fond of women. I'm not sure what he wants to have in relationship to women at this point in his life - in his late sixties...he must have many friends...but he has many acquaintances as well...it's not like he's close to everybody in some hippy-dippy way...and his God is Nature. he's said as much....
he spent his time when he was supposed to be in catechism class, as a kid, down by the river. learning all about God there. to watch one of his videos about animals - like the one about beavers - is to hear someone talking personally about worship. matter-of-fact, natural worship...of the world just as it is - the natural world, that is...separate from where thousands of humans are all together...I respect him for this....
then there is his dog. a standard poodle named Sand. he is very close to this animal. and she is very close to him. they are best friends. she is a really intelligent and fine looking creature on this planet. she makes and keeps friends for him. she keeps him company all of the time. they are inseparable. she is a good thing in his life. and he in hers. I think they are lucky to have this. he is close to the animal world and she is close to the human world. they are worth the relationship to eachother. and their relationship to the world that they share together....
so...as far as I know it - which isn't far at all - this is my understanding of the past life of the Road Song Man. there's a lot more I don't know at all. but these bits are a lot to know about the 'light' side of this man...the side where he is a man of the light. I don't know his dark memories in his life. the places and ways and people with things did not turn out well. the times he may have been unkind or cruel. or when he lied. when he was disappointed. when he was a disappointment. I know nothing about that. so Part One here is the shiny side of this coin. the ways he is a good and fine person. the ways he is an artist in life. I'm calling this Part One. there's more to this story, and I'll tell it best I know how. a person doesn't become a man on the road lightly. he doesn't sing lightly either. singing is very personal. very true. going on the road is very brave. very risky too. you've got to give up a more settled life. there are reasons for that. Part Two will be what I know about this part of the story. it's only what I know. only: really a 'part'. still it's a good story to tell.
so then. I will tell it.
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