By Some Guy:

The other day I was driving out of town by the golf course. When I got to the bridge I glanced down at the creek bed and saw a couple of boys with fishing poles. I stopped and watched them for awhile. My mind raced back to my own boyhood. Back to a simpler time in my life.

Back to when time meant nothing. When a Saturday morning, a fishing pole in hand, and a creek nearby was an eternity to me. Not a care in the world! It seemed like Monday morning and school would never come. But Monday did come. It seems like it always did. Hard to hold back time I guess.

I suppose I shouldn’t have thought too much about those boys in the creek, but nostalgia took over. Besides, this just wasn’t the typical “kid like” activity anymore. Seems like if it doesn’t come with an electrical cord and a controller kids don’t do it these days.

I was thinking that poking around the creek in pursuit of a chub was a lost art of sorts. These boys were definitely throwbacks from a simpler time. Watching them I was wondering if the same thoughts were going through their minds as when I was a kid. Probably not, I doubt either of those two lads ever heard of Curt Gowdy.

Curt who? Curt Gowdy, you know, THE Curt Gowdy! The famed fishermen from the old 1970’s T.V. show The American Sportsman. On this show trout was king, and Gowdy their master. Each week he would take to the cold water streams of the west in pursuit of the mighty trout.

Growing up I idolized Gowdy and his fishing prowess. Come to think of it, that might explain a lot of what is wrong with me today. Some things never change I guess. It seems T.V. shows in the 70’s could warp a kid’s mindset just like they can today.

Anyway, I always wanted to be able to fish like the great Curt Gowdy. But growing up in northwest Iowa there didn’t seem to be a lot of trout streams. I think the actual number was in the area of zero. But we did have streams. And to a kid a creek chub was just as good as a trout anyway. It wasn’t until later in life that I found out that chubs and trout don’t quite taste the same though. Trust me, trout are a lot better! I’d spend countless hours tying flies and then riding my bike to the nearest stream in pursuit of the mighty creek chub.

My reminiscing was interrupted by the boys coming up out of the creek bank. I yelled at them, “You guys catch anything?” One of the boys held up a bucket and yelled back, “Yeah, and we got a lot of them too!” I was thinking some things never do change. As long as you still have boys, fishing poles, and creeks, you’ll have boys with fishing poles in the creek. But with modern times some things do change.

The boys put their poles and the bucket of chubs in the back of a golf cart and speed away. I was thinking to myself, “Man that sure would have been handy to have one of those things when I was a kid!” Maybe poking around in the creek isn’t a lost art after all. But I do believe balancing a fishing pole and a bucket of fish on the handle bars of a bike while riding still is.