A Fishing Break
Streams commentary has been on a needed break these last days. I've been fishing. I have just returned from the big annual fishin' trip with fraternity brothers, a trip that has been made now for the last 28 years without fail. Not that I've been to every one of those, but I try. There is something about the continuity and being with guys that you've known since you were 17 years old that is comforting. If you are guessing, I've known this group for 36 years now. We've all been through good times and bad. Divorces, addictions, health problems, richer and poorer, but the fishing group survives.
I welcomed the break after a week and a half of continuous war news. At the Greenwood Ranch, there is no television and no cell phone service. So we had to resort to something that modern men don't get enough of.....long periods of conversation with real time to contemplate what is being said including enough time for silent reflection in between. Having lived in Dallas for a good portion of my post army adult life, I also get to catch up on what's happening in that big city and to find out that after being gone for 12 years, really it's still pretty much the same without me. I learn that many of my old friends are in the same jobs and careers, eating at the same restaurants and that the traffic is now even worse than in my days there. I try and explain that it takes me five minutes to get to work, I come home for lunch and that I can be on an airplane thirty minutes after leaving the house. I am met with those looks that say I'm making this up to justify my life in a smaller city. I am not. I love my life here, but I sure do love seeing those old familiar faces once a year.
Streams commentary has been on a needed break these last days. I've been fishing. I have just returned from the big annual fishin' trip with fraternity brothers, a trip that has been made now for the last 28 years without fail. Not that I've been to every one of those, but I try. There is something about the continuity and being with guys that you've known since you were 17 years old that is comforting. If you are guessing, I've known this group for 36 years now. We've all been through good times and bad. Divorces, addictions, health problems, richer and poorer, but the fishing group survives.
I welcomed the break after a week and a half of continuous war news. At the Greenwood Ranch, there is no television and no cell phone service. So we had to resort to something that modern men don't get enough of.....long periods of conversation with real time to contemplate what is being said including enough time for silent reflection in between. Having lived in Dallas for a good portion of my post army adult life, I also get to catch up on what's happening in that big city and to find out that after being gone for 12 years, really it's still pretty much the same without me. I learn that many of my old friends are in the same jobs and careers, eating at the same restaurants and that the traffic is now even worse than in my days there. I try and explain that it takes me five minutes to get to work, I come home for lunch and that I can be on an airplane thirty minutes after leaving the house. I am met with those looks that say I'm making this up to justify my life in a smaller city. I am not. I love my life here, but I sure do love seeing those old familiar faces once a year.
