Page 38 - WTP VOl. V #9

MA Photograph of My Father Fishing
y father is sprawled on the ground squeez- My father has told me Cousin Tom has a gift for
ing out his dripping socks after a day of arranging the commonplace into an eye-grabbing fishing. His back rests against a cedar tree as he photograph, and a magical way of writing about a looks away from the camera down at his feet. day of fishing with a good companion. Even then, He wears a green felt hat, forest green shirt, and as my father is starting his optometric practice in long green pants. Sticking out of his mouth is
the pipe he smokes after giving up a pack-a-day
Chesterfield habit. His fishing creel lies on the
ground beside him. Though he may have gotten
“skunked” that day, let’s assume that inside the
creel are several fat brook trout resting among
layers of ferns.
Dad has been fishing Rum Brook at the spot where its cold, racing current skids almost to a halt and begins meandering among a tangle of alders and evergreens. He calls this spot his “little hell hole” and enjoys wading into the middle of it, enduring the mosquitoes and the black flies, the mud and the leeches, the slippery footing on logs that roll under when he steps on them. He says such hardships are a small price for those finned beauties with their delectable flesh. I picture my father balancing atop the beaver dams, making short casts to the expanding rings of rising trout as they sip insects off the surface.
Cousin Tom is a boyhood hero of mine. He gets paid to go fishing. But my father cautions me about his line of work. “The typewriter calls him at all hours,” my father warns, “He has deadlines.” Yet ever since the day I watch Cousin Tom wade into
a river, coiled line shooting from his fingers with each false cast, as his fly alights on water dimpled by feeding trout, I know there is no other life. To be sent on assignment to the sunny flats of Key Bis- cayne to cast for the skittish bonefish, or up to the Yukon Territory to lob spoons for the Arctic char, giant cousin to my humble Maine brookies, its vermillion belly flaring in the midnight sun—what better way to spend a working life.
The photograph of my father squeezing out his socks appears, at first glance, to be taken during a candid moment. But I have reason to believe
it is staged. First there is Dad’s distance from the lens, far enough away so that his wiry frame turns into the physique of any slender young man. Then there’s his felt hat cocked classically over his brow, the pipe jutting from his mouth. These things convince me that the picture was taken by Dad’s cousin and fishing buddy, Tom McNally.
Naturally, the daily practice of re-imagining the experiences one has had in some idyllic riparian setting for consumption by the print-loving pub- lic escapes my adolescent sensibilities. Years will pass before I realize that what Cousin Tom does is mostly formulaic; but that the way he pack- ages his stories, with a measure of suspense and a dash of art is uniquely his own; that it has only been through sweat equity on late nights after the fishing day is done that he’s developed a vigorous masculine style that appeals to his readers. Year in and year out he has had to tickle the fancy of legions of mostly men who follow his columns in the Tribune.
I can hear Tom saying, “Now Paul, go sit against that tree and face away from me as you wring out your stockings. Keep your pipe in your mouth and your creel by your side. I’ll take your picture.”
What my father doesn’t mention about this com-
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the nearby town of Millinocket, Maine, Tommy is freelancing stories for all the big sporting maga- zines including Field and Stream, and Outdoor Life. He will go on to become Outdoor Editor for the Chicago Tribune and pen several definitive works on fly fishing.
paul corrigan