“I’m sure I told you about this,” insists The Lisa Person several hours before Sophia’s high school graduation party — a gala we’re throwing with her three Best Friends Forever and their families on the deck and lawn of a lakeside house where, every year since kindergarten, our kids have marked spring and fall with ritual gang leaps off the dock. While this squealing ritual puts them into the water I fish most often, that’s not important today. “All four fathers will say something between dinner and the cake. It’s going to be very special, but remember that we’re celebrating and it’s not about leaving, okay. In fact, maybe you better write something down, so you don’t just stand there and sob.”
I’d panic if there was time, and it strikes me that a soupçon of sobbing seems appropriate. No, no . . . I will speak of Sophie’s triumphs — so many — her mother’s role helping her to achieve these, about pride and love, also our appreciation for this village that’s helped us raise her.
To that end, I scribble down paeans in a palm-sized notebook. Soon there’s more than enough for the short time I’ll share. I know this, but can’t help myself. There’s so much I’d also like to say . . . which means I simply must open a Sophie Folder full of fly-fishing stories in which she has featured and starred throughout her life. My son Max has his own; so do Cathy, Eric, and Marc, but this is Sophie’s moment.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for. What’s certain is that within minutes, drums beat softly in the jungle of my office, unless that’s my heart in the darkness. How we dream, mothers and fathers.
How we nourish and nurture, point and push, shepherd, lead, model, and teach. And face it: without naming names, it’s true that those who hope to instill their spawn with a fly-fishing obsession are truly shameless schemers.
God knows I was, also where I went wrong. But it’s not that kind of error I recognize in hindsight. What I see look like sins of a sort, so by the time Sophie is eight years old in print I’m massaging my temple with a warm coffee mug, whispering —
The hubris. The hubris….
It spoils the Apocalypse Now effect when I laugh. Still, There must be lessons here, I find myself thinking, and convinced of this begin to excerpt and compile a small Sophie sampler.
Speaking of hubris . . . this selection begins before she was born, travels through early adventures, and ends here with a moment I hope every fishing parent has shared, or will, some time and in one way or another, whatever the ultimate fate of their efforts.
* * *
Sophia Mariah will get no pastel waders, at least not her first pair, though I may throw a Pink Lady into the mobile of flies that will circle her crib. Imagine that construction urged into motion by the nursery breeze. Better yet, consider that among her first views of the world will be a hatch presented from the trout’s point of view . . . how can she go wrong? It will seem only natural to a child so imprinted when someday I explain her origins:
“Daddy sent his sperm a-spawning on Lovely River Mom. Oh, the way was long, the journey difficult, but at last one brave sperm nestled in Mommy’s redd. He shared with her a secret code, then signed a sacred pact, which is why you must tie me a dozen midges today, before you go to school.”
Sophie will want to tie those midges, of course, knowing that half are for her. She will likely delight to pin a few on Barbie’s vest, crying gaily, “Oh Dad, can I also practice my reach cast tonight? And please, please, can I take some leeches to class, for Ms. Carson’s show-and-tell?”
Never mind spelling and social science: I’ll encourage excellence in entomology, ichthyology, and the physics of casting. And certainly one must learn to read, in order to appreciate Lyons and Leeson and Roderick Haig-Brown.
Balance, you see. That’s what I’ll strive for.
* * *
Sophie and I strolled around the casting ponds. A woman was taking a lesson — likely her first and possibly her last — from a self-certified “instructor” I knew too well. While the student looked to be struggling, it was her teacher who worried The Soph, who at two years and seven months recognizes rude behavior, but considers it the prerogative of people her size. “Why, Daddy?” she whispered as he stalked about bellowing directions and criticism, then she flinched when he seized the rod and started to double haul while announcing to everyone in the area code, “You don’t know how lucky you are to have me showing you this stuff the right way.”
“Daddy, why so loud?”
“Some people are like that,” I said. “Don’t pay attention.”
I did, however, when the “instructor” proceeded to trash a fly-fishing club he’d left following a no-confidence vote against him by members, including me. “I’ll tell you right now, don’t even waste your time with those people!”
Just a bit much, I thought.
“But Daddy,” Sophie repeated. “Why soooo loud?”
“Because the man is a twit.”
“What’s ‘twit?’” she asked, turning her big blues toward me.
She still looked alarmed, which bothered me. So, only by way of providing proper perspective: “Twit. You know that spot under a cat’s tail that you’re not supposed to touch? A twit’s like that, but bigger, and lots more noise comes out.”
A What am I saying? moment followed, then a rush to distract. “Oh look! Look at the squirrel, Soph! Oops, guess he’s gone. Let’s go find a pine cone.”
We found several . . .
. . . and not too much later caught up with the woman near her car on a street outside the park.
She really did look unhappy. Luckily, we had a plan.
“Lady fisher!” Sophie cried from a perch on top of my shoulders.
A tight smile suggested the woman didn’t feel she deserved the title. If ever a student of mine leaves class looking like this,I thought.
“I bet she will be, Sophia. Now why don’t you give her the little card you have.”
“No,” said Soph. “It’s mine now.”
So much for plans. “I’ll give you another one,” I promised.
“No.”
“I will give you two.”
“An’ Gummy Bears.”
“Yes.”
“O-kay. Lady, here is a card for you!” The woman took it. Warily, I thought. “On the back’s an address,” I explained, “also the phone number for somebody from a fly-fishing club you might want to check out.”
Her eyebrows rose when she recognized the name. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Yeah. But we won’t go there. The point is, that there’s many ways to learn fly fishing. Clubs have classes and outings, and usually some folks who teach casting well and . . . gently. Whether or not you’d like this one should be a personal decision. Personal, I think.”
She eyed me closely. “I’ll think about that.”
Suddenly Sophie twisted around on my neck. “Daddy!” she whispered urgently. “Daddy, look!”
I did, spying the “instructor” watching us from a truck parked up and across the street. “It’s twit!” said my daughter excitedly.
“The twit!”
“The what?” gasped the woman. “What did she just say?”
Once is all it takes Sophie to learn a word that a better father would keep to himself. “Well — what she means is — ”
“Twit!” Sophie repeated triumphantly. Then she leaned forward to continue — conspiratorially and with devastating sincerity — “You know, lady. Like the one my cat Misha has under his tail!”
Heat rose into my face. The woman’s expression seemed stuck between shock and laughter. A moment later her eyes lit up, and laughter won.
“Kids,” I said weakly. “You have to wonder where they learn these things.”
“Maybe you do,” she replied tartly. Then, bending toward Sophia to speak in her own whisper, “But thank you so much for telling me that!”
“Welcome!” said Sophie, sounding entirely pleased with herself.
* * *
I know I must be careful, and sly. There’s a trick to instilling obsession, I’m persuaded, an art to successfully imprinting on children the secret code that will create our fishing partners for later years. I think it’s best to begin when they’re young, then keep the pressure oh so light, rather like playing a 22-inch brown on 7X tippet. Take my tactics with Sophia. Her first Halloween, she went as a Golden Stonefly nymph — a “Streetfly,” I called her species, being as we live deep in the heart of Oakland, California.
“That’s cool,” said my neighbors. “So this Streetfly is like — what? — some kind a’ roach?”
“No bugs,” Sophie said the next year. It broke my heart, of course. Lisa had most of a mayfly outfit already cut out, and I had a gorgeous hellgrammite costume on the drawing board. But I took it standing up and waited until Christmas.
“Barbie fly fishes, you know,” I observed while composing Santa’s list.
“She does?”
“Oh yes. Sure. Trout, some salmon, a little saltwater — inshore, mostly. She ties a wicked Clouser Minnow. You know, the fly I said had the Barbie eye.”
“‘Bar-a-bell,’ you said.” Such a memory!
“Barbell, Barbie — whatever.” “But what about Ken?”
“Ken? Oh. Ken’s only a doll and a boy, so we’ll tie hooks to his feet and troll him behind the boat.”
Sophie considers the phenomenon I’ve described. When she finally says “Daddy,” it’s with emphasis, and such obvious doubt I realize that this Daddy’s Girl won’t be anybody’s fool.
* * *
It’s true that since infancy, Sophie has often sat on my lap while I tied. I’d usually get one fly out of this arrangement, then we’d whip up another for her. She favors bright, contrasting colors of marabou and long sweeps of flashy feathers and fibers, though I’m not aware of Atlantic salmon or steelhead sorts in the family woodpile.
The way the system works is that I’ll hold materials in place as she winds the bobbin in circles. Those circles do tend to get larger and larger, however, until at last a single rotation becomes a dynamic windmill motion involving considerable effort and not a little peril. But eventually she says, “Tie it up, Daddy,” and I finish for her, clip off the hook at the bend, then pass the cut edge across a file. The remainder is a fly “fixed” in the fashion of male cats, and I tie it to a light cord, making for Soph a necklace she wears with great pleasure for a few hours.
The other day, it was different.
I had set up a pair of vises on the dining room table as preparation for demonstrating how to spin deer hair. I’d hardly begun when Sophie declared, “Daddy, I want to tie my own fly first.”
I did the “Well all right, but just for a minute come sit on Daddy’s lap” routine.
“No, Daddy. My fly first. I’ll sit here and you just put the string on the hook for me.” I’d little choice. Sophie already held a bobbin in one hand in a fashion suggesting that resistance was futile. With the other, she rummaged through the materials I’d brought out. She found a loose grizzly hackle and tied it in. By the base, curved side forward. “How did you remember how to do that?” I asked, but she had no time for idle chatter. Incredibly, I saw that while concentrating, she had clenched her teeth on the tip of her tongue — like me, like my father, and like Michael Jordon, though his technique is awkward.
Sophie tied on another hackle, this one brown.
“That’s so good, Sophia.” “Daddy?”
“What?”
“Daddy, I’m busy.”
She actually said that. Then she palmered the hackle.
Let be it known that I have no interest in creating a prodigy of any kind, that it was I who argued that we should cut her off from Sesame Street when she started counting to 10 at 12 months of age. Now here she was, still seven inches shorter than my best trout, palmering a fly that might catch him.
She made a mess of it. She recognized that, started over, did a better job, and tied the stem down. She palmered the second hackle neatly after her first, then added two peacock herls and a strand of lime green Flashabou. Finally, with the sharp scissors she’s not usually allowed to use, Sophie trimmed it all to a shape she liked. “Okay Daddy, tie it up. Now another one.”
Sophie ties three altogether. I carefully lavish praise, if that’s possible. But I’m also waiting for her to show some sign of pride, as she does after finishing a somersault or sentence or dancing the Funky Chicken all the way down.
Instead, my Sophia seems rather matter of fact.
“Here, Daddy. These are for you.”
“Why thank you. They’re wonderful.” Sophie looks at the flies, then at me.
Her expression is still . . . sober, shall we say, until she looks away for a moment, nodding as she gazes into the middle distance. At last she gives one nod, touches my hand and says evenly, “Fish with them, Daddy.”
* * *
The day was ending so softly, low light filtering through new green in the trees as the sky filled with swallows. I sat at the oars and helped Sophie step into the little brown boat. I’d thought she’d be nervous, but not a bit; she tucked herself neatly into the bow, snuggling into place inside a cocoon of a pale blue fleece and floatation vest. I passed her a 7-foot 4weight, then had her review the protocol.
“Rule One,” she said dutifully. “Don’t drown. Rule Two: Don’t break a rod. Rule Three: Have fun. Rule Four: Have fun. Rule Five: Have fun. ”
While rowing us out, I told her about the midges we could expect to see hatching soon, the Hexes I hoped would come off later. She listened carefully and nodded at all the right places. By then, we were out from the shadow of the mountain.
I watched Sophie blink at the sun, then tilt back her head, close her eyes, and bathe her face. There were rainbows in her eyelashes, and she could not have looked more comfortable.
I stared a long time, to fix the moment forever, feeling warm and gold as buttered toast. The boat was moving well, light against the oars —
I couldn’t be more comfortable,I thought suddenly.
“This feels so good,” Sophie said softly.“This is so great. Fishing is so great.”
That evening was a reverie, nothing less. The hatches were weak, but they happened, and I had them wired. Chironomids under an indicator picked up two big holdover rainbows that were all Sophie could handle on the 4-weight; after came an 11-inch kokanee that flipped out of the water so many times it looked like something electric.
At dusk, the Hexes started to pop. Just a few, but enough. I switched us to big nymphs and things got wild. We’re talking a rainbow rodeo.
Half an hour later, Sophie leaned back. “Daddy, I’m beat,” she said.
“Cold?”
“Just beat.”
“We can go back.”
“No, no. You fish, Daddy. I just want to watch. Catch another one.”
I’m really crazy about this girl.
* * *
“Are you almost done?” calls the Lisa Person.
No. “Almost!”
“What are you doing in there?” Sobbing a little. “Getting ready!” “We can’t be late!”
“I know!”
I hit Print, then remember something special.
Sophia glides up the deck stairs looking all at once bronze and wavy, happy, excited, and relaxed, so lovely it leaves me breathless. “C’mon Dad,” she says, looping an arm around my waist and smiling. That she is ever fond, expressive at home and in public — has never developed the teen angst that prohibits any show of affection — is a quality that still surprises and delights me. So does a sense of humor that is eager and appreciative, but also keenly tuned to pretense — a tool that’s served her well with the bad boys she’s bewildered and the better one she likes. I don’t know why peer pressure has proved futile so far or explains why her offhand refusals to act out only make her more popular. Of course, like her mother, Sophie loves pomp, circumstance, and beautiful objects. Like Dad, however, she also enjoys simple things, also the eccentric, including people — a fact I’m secretly convinced explains a small part of her successes in hard-science classes where she’s charmed a series of math and physics teachers, also a chemistry instructor who wrote her recommendation for the college she’ll attend in September —
“Remember, we’re celebrating, and it’s not about leaving.”
— And oh what a smile she turns on me now. “Don’t worry, Dad. You’ll do fine. Hey look — in these heels, I can do this.” She puts her arm around my shoulder.
“I just don’t want to embarrass you,” I confess.
She laughs. “You never do.” Then my confident daughter escorts me to an upper-deck railing where the Best Friends and their Dads look out over a hundred smiling faces.
“Speech, speech!” somebodies cry.
Two dads tear up during their first tries, which gives us all time to recompose. The third speaks eloquently of his daughter’s progression from girl to woman, then praises the BFFs and the families that helped raise his own.
I echo him when it comes my turn and add a tribute to The Lisa Person, sticking to the notes in my palm-sized notebook without unfolding the sampler I printed. But I falter a moment before I’m finished, and with Sophie beaming beside me — did I mention she’s gorgeous? — mumble some segue about “life passages” and “challenges of a kind that make it so surprising she’s turned out so marvelously well.”
I straighten up a little. “Looking at Sophia now, you may find it hard to imagine that for her first Halloween, we dressed her as a Golden Stonefly nymph, an immature aquatic insect . . . a ‘Streetfly’— what the neighbors thought might be ‘some kind of roach. ’ ”
Sophia is already laughing as I reach behind me to slip from hiding that something special that’s hung on my office wall for years. Each body segment separate . . . elegant tails and antenna six giant pipe-cleaner legs, and gills of yellow marabou. . . . The wing pads flutter in a breeze off the lake as I hold it up for all to see. “We did, I’m afraid,” I manage to say. “And she survived.” Sophie is laughing even harder, also crying a little while holding up my arm and her outfit with both hands.
Later, editing all this for this space, it occurred to me that all those lessons were not for naught . . . that Sophia Mariah really has taught me a lot.
