A Hike to the Upper Wheatgrass

The following was written on August 16, 2006

Yesterday I started the day at 6:00AM feeling like a 30 year-old.

I took the day off for a fishing excursion with a friend. We drove for 40 minutes then parked and walked up Wheatgrass Canyon above Huntsville, for two hours. With each step, I began to feel my true age but I the anticipation of catching some wild Cutthroat trout kept me going on... and on... and on.

On the track or the treadmill, I can do three miles in 40 minutes. When my friend told me it was only a three mile hike in, I was not bothered...

The three miles were marked by a narrow horse trail that rose from its head near the north end of the Reservoir Causey (called the Wheatgrass area after the creek that feeds it) to our destination; a two mile stretch of the Wheatgrass Creek three miles up the canyon. This was not a stroll for the weak.

I packed light for the trek, carrying my flyrod, a canvas creel with a box with an assortment of flies, some extra tippet, forceps and a bottle of water. I had decided to wade in the same shoes I was hiking in rather than attempt to haul my waders up the trail. It was a wise choice.

The weather was perfect when we hit the trail at about 8 AM, with clear skies and the temperature at 68. It wasn't long, because of my excess weight and the vertical slant of the trail, that my hat was soaked with sweat.

The trail was relentless. Three miles seemed more like ten and I was tempted to ask on several occasions, "Are we almost there?"; but my pride prevented it.

Before the trip some of the people who work for me were teasing me about being up to the hike and jokingly accusing my partner trying to kill me and taking bets as to whether I would make it all the way. There was no way I was going to fail... even if it killed me.

The landmark used to determine the most prolific stretch of the creek was an old, rusted, Model A Ford. I have no idea how it got there to begin with. There are no roads and nothing passable except on foot or horseback. There is no way to explain how it got there but it was there and I was happy to see it.

I took a break while I rigged the rod and drank half my water. I would save the second half for the walk back... I thought.

These kinds of wild creeks are no place for amateur anglers. With every cast there is the chance of hooking a tree or the brush that lines the sides of the creek. The best fish are always resting under limbs in the shade and only the best at casting are rewarded.

I moved to the middle of the section I was fishing and cast upstream trying as best I could to avoid hanging up in something. On the third cast I hooked a 14" Cutthroat; a rather large fish for such a small stream. He was beautiful as wild fish almost always are. I landed him and took a photo, then released him back into the cold water. Then I eased up stream. I saw another spot that I thought would hold a fish and made my cast; but the wind took the line about two feet to the left of my target into a very shallow ripple. I was ready to make the backcast to correct the placement when another large cutthroat inhaled the hopper. Rather than running up stream, as most do, this one came right at me and I had to reel like crazy to hold him. When he saw me he changed direction causing me to use the palm drag technique so he wouldn't snap the 2X tippet. I landed him too and like the first, he was a beautiful, wild fish.

And so it went, me catching a fish and moving up to the next prospective spot.
I lost count of the number of fish I landed although my friend kept an accurate count of his. He landed 13. We waded for only two hours.

I would have stayed a little longer but I got hung up in a pine tree and lost my leader. That made the tippet I had packed worthless so my fishing was done for the day and my friend was ready to return as well.

One would think that the return trip would have been easier since it was almost all down hill; but it wasn't. At least it wasn't for me.

I felt all of my 55 years and then some with every step. Less than half way down, I ran out of water which made things exponentially worse. I had remembered seeing a spring on the trip in and I began searching almost desperately for it on the descent; willing, even eager to risk consuming a few thousand giardia to ease my parched throat (the risk was very low as there was no grazing in the area out side of some elk, moose and deer). A little over halfway down, I saw the spring and filled my bottle, emptied it and filled it again. The water was so cold it hurt my teeth.

We made it back to my truck at 4:30 PM and headed home. Everything I had, hurt and it was all I could do to stay awake at the wheel. I turned my thoughts then, to the trip and the beauty of the hike, the excitement of landing wild Cutthroat trout, the commune with nature and the glory of God's handiwork.

When I got home I took a long, hot shower, several Ibuprofen and I applied some Ben Gay to my legs and hips. Deb fed me and I went to bed. I slept well even though it hurt every time I turned over and woke this morning refreshed and happy I was able to complete the trip the day before and vowing to get myself into better shape for another hike on another day in pursuit of wild trout.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

In 1967 I was attending Franklin High School (right) in Seattle. It was an old relic of a building but possessed a spirit of diversity and tolerance that was decades ahead of its time. The now famous Frank Raines of Fannie Mae fame was twice the student body president and, for the record, once my debate partner before he graduated to Harvard and onward and upward from there. During that same time NFL Terry Metcalf was tearing up the gridiron turf. Franklin had a large Jewish population and it was my first experience being up close and personal with the almost arrogant mantle worn generally by the Chosen People. It was an arrogance with which I was somewhat familiar being LDS and all, but no Mormon I knew wore it so comfortably. Perhaps it was somewhat shinier in September of 1967 for only three months earlier Israel had taken a mere 6 days defeat Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Syria.


I remember seeing a poster with a photo of Moshe Dayan and a caption that read "Hire the Handicapped".


Recently, as missiles were being lobbed into Haifa, I clearly saw this current battle as a precursor to a long and more global effort what might well be that Armageddon that will usher in the Millennial Morn. I had these thoughts protected by my long teeth, knowing I would not be called up for duty but keenly aware that none of my sons are exempt because of their ages. I became intensely afraid for my sons and their sons and could find no solace in the promises of protection in the stakes of Zion. I wondered if any of my thoughts concerning the famous 6-day war had been worrisome for me.


In June of 1967 my only historically driven memory was the death of Jane Mansfield by beheading. In August I remember that Brian Epstein died of some mysterious disease. Now it is all too well known.



I remember that in 1967 Elvis married Pricilla and the first Super Bowl was played. I remember how stupid I thought the song "Somethin' Stupid" was while I was applauding the genius that created "Penny Lane". I even remember that Johnny Whitaker of "Family Affair" fame was a Mormon. But my memories are sanitized of facts from any of the various wars going on, to include the one that was very likely to affect me personally even more than it already had, Vietnam.


I remember clearly about Barbara Sheoken, the only Jewish girl I ever dated; Joe McKinney, my best friend on the Southside and the first person I knew personally, to commit suicide. I recall a fistfight I had had with Paul Abolafia and Dean Witter. I can recall with meticulous precision, my performance as a wrestler, a Judo player and a karate tournament contestant.
I remember a Sunday School teacher whose wife left for another man and Seminary teacher who forced me to read the Book of Mormon, Holly Irick, Emily Torkelson, Earl Dennis, Joe Meadows, Beezer and Lyman. I remember my mother's suicide attempt and institutionalization, fishing for wild steelhead, hiking the Olympic and skipping school to help search for a missing boy - who, by the way, was never found.


From 1970 to 1972 when the focus of my memory changes to reflect my mission experience and the journal I kept, there is nothing on record of my thoughts, fears or emotions concerning war and peace in the world, despite my memory today, of some terrible fears and worries. I wonder if I thought that if I didn't talk about it, everything would go away. Who knows...?


Today it's clearly different. My fears are greater because they are for my sons and daughters and my grandchildren. The reality of the world nearly paralyzes me because it was driven home so clearly that there is absolutely nothing I can do to change things. No president, no political party, no ideology, not even the Church and the gospel it bears, will change the course of the mortal human future.

The Lord tells us that the prepared shall not fear... Apparently, I am ill-prepared.

Fear, Fish and Gratitude

I am older now, than my father was when the picture to the left was taken. He is the bald one with the trout.

At 42 and still healthy and I was 17 and had decided not to go on the fishing trip with him that week, for whatever stupid reason. He died twenty years after this photo was taken and we never fished together during that time. I always had some stupid reason I couldn't.

He suffered the last 15 years of his life with one malady or another from cancer to emphysema, which finally killed him. During that 15 years he was hard to be around. He become more and more bitter with each passing year; growing angrier as his body deteriorated, at God for breaking His promise to ensure my father would walk and not be weary were he, my Dad, to simply avoid coffee, tea, tobacco and booze.

All the plans he had made to spend his retirement enjoying life were trampled down to serial trips to the hospital and to various doctors who would poke and prod and make suggestions my father just could not tolerate. During one hospital stay, I visited and invited him to go grouse hunting with me when he was released. He got mad and told me to leave and never come back because he and I both knew his grouse hunting days were in his past.

On other visits he cruel to my children.

Once, during a private moment with my mother, I asked how she put up with his cruelty. She told me she believed my dad was making everyone hate him so no one would cry at his funeral. I don't think he was capable of that kind of generosity by then.

I am 55 and in pretty good health. I don't often think about not being in good health but when I do, I am filled with fear that I will be exactly like my father was. I believe I will provoke a promise from my best friend to shoot me if I begin to drive away those I should embrace.

So far, when my children or grandchildren are around, they have not missed a chance to go fishing with me for stupid reasons. On the few occasions where they have not been able to go, it was for work or illness or something legitimate. They pretended, at least, that they would have preferred casting a line with their dad or grandpa.

Several of my grandchildren live in Utah. Last Summer I took them fishing. We drove up the Blacksmith's Fork canyon to a small pond behind a little dam on the river where, of the three with rods and reels, only one, Spencer, the three year-old, caught fish. That was because he was so fascinated with taking apart the reel, he left his worm in the water, without jerking it around. He caught two Rainbow trout but was afraid to hold even one of them for a photo.

I should mention that my son, their father, was also there. he spent most of the time watching Hyrum, the youngest, but I was able to give him a lesson or two with the fly rod.

I first took him fishing when he was three. He caught Bluegills by the dozens on his own little Zebco spin/cast combo. When he was about 8, he snagged a large, dying Coho from the Black River, all by himself. I will never forget him dragging the fish up Margurite Lane in Paw Paw, to the house. I didn't have the heart to tell him all the flesh was rotten so I filleted it and stored it in the freezer for a clandestine disposal.

When he was 11, he journeyed with me to Northern Minnesota where we fished together and separately for most of the Summer. It wasn't a pleasant experience for him most of the time for reasons known to the family but not broadcastable here and on one particular afternoon in the boat, he taught me a lesson.

We were in Lake Rabideaux and I was critical of everything he was doing. He suddenly threw his rod down and asked me why I was being so mean to him. I had not good answer but looked inward and decided I was being exactly like my father. I apologized, told him I loved him, and we had a good time the rest of the day.

The best two days that Summer took place on Redgut Bay on the Rainey River in Canada. Sam, the son we're talking about, caught the largest variety of species as well as the largest walleye of the trip but for me, it was camping with him that was the best.

He has four children now, and a fifth on the way. He doesn't fish as much as he would like.

Just yesterday my daughter Erin, also an avid but inactive angler, asked me when we were going fishing. I wish I could have told her I would pick her up early Saturday morning but Athens, Georgia is a long way from Chicagoland.

The wish of my heart is to be together with my wife, my children and my children's children, fishing some clear, trout stream somewhere during the day and gathering around a campfire at night to remember out loud.

Erin is planning the reunion for a year from now but in December, we will be visiting her, Dan and the kids for Christmas in Athens. Maybe Erin and I can squeeze out a few hours and find a pond somewhere. In the meantime, I will make plans for the Summer of '09 by scouting out the stream and the campsite.

Alone...

My office is located in what was once the stake wing addition to a former stake center that was commissioned by Dallin Oaks during his tenure here in Chicagoland.

The building is located in Chicago Heights and it houses one, small ward these days, though it could handle three wards easily with its size.

Most days there are people here using the Family History Center. Today, however, the center is closed and I am alone.

Earlier a potential contractor stopped in to introduce himself and earlier still the missionaries in this district met for a few minutes in the Relief Society room located at the opposite end of the building from my secluded wing.

I have never felt at ease when I have been alone in our meetinghouses. This one is particularly eerie as it is nearly 50 years old and it comes with a variety of ghosts. I have not seen these ghosts but I hear them often. I hear them walking down the dark hallways. I hear them opening doors to classrooms. Once I swear I heard a number of them playing basketball in the gym.

Even though I assume they are good ghosts, I am never quite comfortable when they are playing.

I remember hearing a story, years ago, during the New York World's Fair. One night, after the fair had closed for the day, a custodian entered the Mormon Pavilion to do his normal cleaning and found a number of people, all dressed in white, sitting in the replica of a chapel while someone else, also in white, was speaking to them from the pulpit. He closed his eyes and shook his head and, upon opening his eyes the group had disappeared. When he told this story to someone in charge of the pavilion the next day, it was explained to him that those in the Spirit World are always in need of placed to learn the gospel.

While the story clearly makes no sense and, therefore, must have been invented, something about it still sticks in my craw just enough to make me make lots of noise when I walk around the building. Enough noise to disturb anyone preaching to a bunch of dead people.

I sometimes think about shutting my office door and locking myself in but I always return to the conclusion that locked doors mean nothing to ghosts and that, should one decide to show himself to me, the locked door would hamper my get-away.

I am not generally afraid of things but in this particular phobia, I am not alone. How many times did angels appear to people and began their greeting with "FEAR NOT!"? I hope they said it quietly and calmly.

So far the ghosts here have been satisfied with merely allowing me to hear them. I haven't gone around a corner and caught a glimpse of one just before he poofs himself invisible. Perhaps that's because I tend to close my eyes when I go around corners when I am the only one in the building.

Tomorrow I won't be here very much and when I am, I won't be alone. My next appointment with solitude here is on Friday and then I am off for the weekend when I can screw up my courage again without interference from the spirits.

More Old Stuff

Catching the Vision

Years ago before I began to pretend such juvenile satire was beneath me, I read a section in Mad Magazine what featured cartoons renderings of colloquilaisms. I remember one drawing of a man struggling with a rid and reel as he pulled a very ugly lifeform from a pond. the caption read "Fishing for a Compliment." There were others, of course, and I thought they were all raucously funny.

In my morning prayers today, I asked God to help me help a select group of elders and high priests assigned to another select group of prospective elders to catch the vision of their new assignment. Right there in the middle of a sacred minute, I saw in my mind's eye, the cartoon that would accompany the "Catching the Vision" caption. Reverence, for me, almost always loses the battle when something funny pops into my mind. And it happens far too much.

Rarely do I enjoy a Fast and Testimony meeting without playing a round or two of Testimony Bingo in my head and at least twice a month I mentally add the words "in the bathtub" to the hymn titles while I pretend to listen to a talk that, no doubt, it's bearer invested time, sweat and tears in preparation. Last evening our Home Teachers stopped by for a visit. Brother and Sister Riggs both live and home teach as companions. They are our next-door neighbors and have lived a long, lone time. Both are approaching 90 and he has a difficult time walking. I should not find his wobbling funny. I just shouldn't.

Some people who don't know me well would be surprised at how little I take seriously. At work I have a reputation that is slightly better than that of Attilla the Hun even though during the past 9 months I have not terminated a single soul. (Although I came very close yesterday and based on information I received this morning, I will next Monday)

My wife thinks I get more serious on the Sabbath and it kind of bothers her that I am trying to be someone or something I am not. I tell her that she shouldn't be bothered because I am trying to become something I assuredly am not... a righteous man. Before anyone supposes I equate seriousness with righteousness, let me say that I do not. I do equate approriate seriousness and appropriate humor with righteousness, however, and I flat don't think Jesus would think Brother Riggs teetering is very funny and I certainly don't see him smiling at "I Stand All Amazed in the Bathtub"!

But back to the cartoon in my head that made worthless a perfectly good prayer...

The vision I was trying to catch was like a cloud. I could see it but I couldn't really see what it was. In my mind's eye I had captured the cloud-like thing and was holding it in a bear-hug as it struggled furiously to get away.

I thought of this cartoon several times on my way to work this morning and just before I decided open my blog. It occurred to me that visions are not really different from the cartoon thing that popped into my head. They are always there but generally just outside our grasp and when we do manage to catch one, it wiggles and fights until it gets away. Perhaps that is why Oliver Cowdery could have knelt under the hands of Peter, James and John and then, just a few years later, abandoned the prophet and the Church for a time. Perhaps that is why Sidney Rigdon could participate in the "revelation" and then walk away from the truth only a few years later. Maybe... just maybe that is why I can feel intensly, the love of my Savior while I take the sacrament and, just a few minutes later, scream BINGO! in the recesses of my irreverent brain.

Perhaps someday, I might catch the vision and keep it but part of me hopes that the Spirit of God, like a fire is burning somewhere... in someone's bathtub.

Some Writing from the Past

The Preteen Surfer Dude Meets the Monster Wave

As is very often the case with other things, the best part of being an Army brat was also the worst part of being an Army brat.

Moving so often was a pain in my psyche but moving to Hawaii when I was a kid was a wonderful adventure... It was wonderful that is, after the locals stopped beating the bejesus out of me nearly everyday simply because I was pale with blonde, curly hair.

They didn't stop because they suddenly started liking me or because they became instantly enlightened with regard to their xenophobia. They stopped because, between jujitsu and karate lessons, I began winning more than I lost and it became too risky for them try. So, eventually, some of them, they, the others, those people - whatever - did become fast friends and the same group began my indoctrination into the life of a native kid in a place where the weather is always good enough.

It started with swimming at Kidde Beach, a small private patch of sand nestled in a breach of a large and Lengthy lava reef that stretched almost uninterrupted, from Nanakuli to Makaha Beach. Our house was built on that reef in the Makaha mailing zone but the Nanakuli school district. Mr. Kidde was half Japanese and Half Haoli and he was old; too old, in fact, to even hear the neighborhood gang claiming his beach, let alone do anything to stop us. It was at Kidde Beach that I learned to snorkel and to use a skimboard with as much skill as those who had been skimming since they could walk.

Most skimboards were homemade things, fashioned from 3/4" plywood cut in a circle and waxed and waxed with surf board wax on one, the bottom, side. During a reasonable tide, we would wait for the wave to recede on the beach them run and throw the board so it skimmed across the receding wave and then we would jump on the board and ride it until one edge lodged in the sand and threw us off. Skim boards were the precursors to real surf boards. I still tell people today that it is easier to retain balance on a surf board than it is on a skim board.

When the time came to graduate to a real surf board, my mother simply said no and my father didn't try to convince her, when I asked for my own board as an early birthday present. What they both meant was they didn't want me surfing because they deemed it dangerous but that's not what they said. I learned to surf on borrowed boards, first in the confines of Kidde Beach but then to the long wave runs of Makaha. The goal, however, was to surf the most dangerous beach on Oahu... Sunset Beach... On the North Shore.

When I lived in Hawaii, Sunset Beach was off-limits to all military personnel. Although I knew there was an implied "and their dependents..." On the sign located at the entrance to the beach, but I pretended not to when I was invited by Vincent Akelani's parents on a picnic to the North Shore. I didn't mention the surfing thing to my mother...

I don't remember how long Vincent's board was but it seemed huge. When I saw the waves at Sunset up close and personal I remember thinking it wasn't big enough. I was 11 years-old and scared to death. I was also 11 years-old and way too proud to admit it or to refuse to enter that angry surf once my friend Vincent had ridden a huge wave from way out, all the way to the sand.

I paddled out beyond the break and waited for a swell I thought would be reasonable.

I didn't know it then, but Sunset Beach is famous because the waves are so unpredictable. There is never a break pattern but once your wave begins to break, if you're in the right place, you can ride it with relative smoothness all the way to the beach. The wave I chose seemed nice enough in the beginning but once it noticed I was there, it got really, really pissed off and determined to do its best to kill me.

I stood up but not for more than a few seconds when I was blown off life a dry leave in an Oklahoma windstorm and then, out of nowhere, the wave broke over me. I was taken down and twisted, turned and churned. I didn't know up from sideways so I couldn't swim for the surface and my lungs weren't going to hold my last breath as long as I needed them to.

Just before I drowned, I became very calm. It was odd.

I remember clearly thinking that I was going to die and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. I wasn't fitfully sad about it but I thought it would be chicken of me not to try once more. I thrust out my arms in front of me and sprained my wrist on the beach. I had almost given up the ghost in about 4 inches of water.

When I got my bearings I saw the entire Akelani family cracking up and pointing at me. My trunks had slipped down a little and I was cracking a vertical smile.

I never told Vincent nor anyone else for years that I had almost drowned. That day I did manage to ride two waves all the way in even though I was dumped several more times but never so severely as the first from the wave that tried to kill me. On the other hand, I never returned to Sunset Beach.

When Vincent would invite me, I would always make sure I had other plans and after awhile, Vincent figured out that I was a pansy when it came to Sunset Beach.

The last time I visited Hawaii was in 1981. I drove to Sunset Beach and all the fears I had felt as a kid came flooding back. Just writing about it does the same thing. To overcome this panic, I remember that at about the same time, I was swimming on the Sharks Swim Team at Schofield Barracks and I took a dare to dive from the 10m platform.

The pool rules read that there was only one way down from the platforms and climbing down wasn't it. So I climbed and discovered that 10 meters looking down is more frightening than 10 meters looking up but I "dived" nonetheless. It was an ugly dive and a little painful, but I did it again and again until I had no fear of that platform again. Perhaps if I had returned to Sunset Beach again and again, I would have conquered that fear as well. It's just as likely, though, I would have just drowned.

Before and After

We are obscessed with image.

I am not sure when substance stopped mattering more than image but it might have been with the John Kennedy/ Richard Nixon debates or when "Born Free" won the best song Oscar over "Georgie Girl". Perhaps those events and other like them only maimed the importance of substance and it was the song "Feelings" that killed it.

Yesterday, Labor Day - 2007, Deb and I were at a little family gathering with my sister and her family and some hanger's-on when a shirt-tail relative made a huge deal over my wife's appearance.

"I didn't even recognize you!" he said, "You look great! How did you manage to lose the weight?"... yada yada.

Now, I don't want to diminsh Deb's accomplishment. She has lost a number of pounds and is feeling more energy, etc. etc. But aside from that, she is the same beautiful, gentle, intelligent, witty, shy woman she has been at least since I have known her. I can't recall this particulr man ever making any big deal over her before. It is a little pathetic.

It is pathetic because he has known my wife for decades but knew very little, if anything, about her and it's the "about her" that's so important.

Deb told me later that he fawned so much that she began feeling uncomfortable and found another room to hide in.

In the interest of full disclosure, this entry opened with my personal "before and after" photos. I listed the "after" first because that's who I am, doing one of the things I enjoy doing most. The "before" shot was me when I was an arrogant, 19 year-old posing for a passport photo (I was ordered not to smile, by the way). When that photo was snapped I cared a lot about image because I had little substance of my own.

I remember a quote attributed to Claudette Colbert. She said "It matters more what's in a woman's face than what's on it." She had a pretty good face when she said this, so maybe it was an easy pronouncement for her, but is an important one nonetheless.

As for me, I think I would have no friends if I selected them based on their image and they would certainly not have chosen me if that were the only criteria. My friends are all of important substance. They use their minds, they are devoted to causes, they are deeply committed and from them I learn something at almose every contact. They all have something important "in" their faces.

I once concluded that ugly people who are kind get better looking and pretty people who are mean, get uglier. While there isn't any hard data to support the conclusion, I think, anecdotally, it is correct. What do you think?

The Third Attempt

I have tried this blogging thing twice before.

I like the first format but I forgot the password and no one reads the second attempt unless I personally beg them to; which probably shouldn't matter unless I am doing this to caress my own vanity.

There may, indeed be some truth to that but this time, I am more motivated by three of my children who have blogs of their own and who are marvelously interesting and gifted writers.

I have five children and one wife and all are marvelously interesting but neither my wife nor the two oldest (or if they do, they haven't shared with me where to read them). I suspect that they are both too busy with living their lives to take the time to broadcast the events to the world. Perhaps they are simply more modest that the rest of us.

So now, having slightly exposed my immodesty, I am again joining the bloggopshere because it seems a very interesting way to keep track of both the present and the past.

I suppose I should also warn everyone that I am thoroughly a fisherman. Thus my literary meanderings are colored by storms more violent than they probably really were, greens that are greener than they really were; streams clearer, mountains higher, folks odder, shadows scarier, girls prettier and, of course, fish bigger, than they probably really were. I may even paint a personal picture that is prettier that I really am with the hope that I might become better than I am. So, if by the strange coincidence someone reads one of these episodes that might have been and eye-witness but who remembers it differently, I hope he or she will remember that I am thoroughly, a fisherman.

Also included is a warning that I really try to be a good Christian, which for me also means being a good Mormon, because that's what I am.

I have not always been a good Christian or a good Mormon. In fact, there were times when I was not good at all. If I write offer episodes in this blog that occurred during the times I was bad, they are not to glorify those days nor will they bring me feelings of melancholy. More often than not they will bring feelings of sorry and shame. Thus, I will write them only when I believe there is a lesson to be taught or learned.

Finally, I import some of the things I have written in my previous two attempts that I think might be interesting to new readers.