Fool's Paradise

I picked up a book at the library's used book sale the other night by John Gierach titled Fool's Paradise. I'd never heard of John Gierach before but I guess he's an accomplished outdoor writer with about fifteen other books to his credit. From the titles, they all seem to be mainly concerned with the subject of fly fishing.

I have a fly rod myself that I received from my brother one year for Christmas. We don't normally exchange big Christmas gifts, so this was really something special on his part. I was really looking forward to trying it out the following Spring but being the fearless dumbass I'm more than capable of being, I took a header out of the top of my garage and broke my arm as well as other things. As soon as I was up and around, however, I was trying to cast the thing in the side yard with a plaster cast that ran from my finger tips to my shoulder on my left arm. Not really the best way to start an operation that requires some dexterity and cooperation between the left and right hands.

I have since learned to do a little better and I only screw up about one in six casts as opposed to about six to one in the other direction when I first started. Of course this is only for casting where there is nothing behind me on the back cast and I'll never be able to do some of the fancy roll casts and other techniques that I've read about. I have caught a few bluegills and a bass or two and it makes a really good cane pole - a type of fishing usually associated with kids but is seriously underrated. Mine's a heavy bass type rod so you can use it like a flippin' rig, fish with a bobber or toss it out like it was intended to fish top water. Even though I rarely have time to fish, I still love to read good fishing stories in general and flyfishing out West stories in particular. Which brings me back to the book.

The author and I are about the same age and therefore share the common ground of growing up in the fifties and sixties and watching the world go to hell in a handbasket ever since. When young, I dreamed about living the life of hunting and fishing but didn't have the courage to break the bonds of my Midwestern upbringing and so I went to work. Kind of a damn shame, that. But the author and I are certainly kindred spirits on a couple of subjects, such as cell phones and reading.

I'm still waiting for Americans to realize that being in constant communication is not an advantage, but a short leash. Cell phones have changed us from a nation of self-reliant pioneer types into a bunch of men standing alone in the supermarkets saying "Okay, I'm in the tampon aisle, but I don't see it."

Those early books made me a lifelong reader, but they also set me up for being a mediocre student because what I came to think of as real books were so much more fun than the dull tomes we were force-fed by the teachers. I don't know about now, but back then public education seemed designed to make children hate books as things that led through hours of drudgery to mind-numbing tests followed by lectures about failure. As punishment, a teacher might require extra reading. What kind of message was that supposed to send?

And of course, if you've spent any time at all around children or young adults you'll be familiar with the "I'm bored" when there's a thirty second lull in the activity or they aren't the center of attention. A good fisherman knows there are certainly going to be lulls, many of them long. "As for those dead afternoons, I've come to think that getting bored only means you've failed to master the fine art of doing nothing when there's nothing to be done: a skill you can learn from any house cat."

Fool's Paradise is about flyfishing and one man's take on where it fits into the big scheme of things. Nothing profound here, but good reading from a man who has found his place and understands how the world operates. For a fifty cent investment, it was money well spent and a great way to spend a cold foggy Sunday morning.