Hoxeyville Part III

Thought For The Day

Cadillac is only about two and a half hours from Saginaw.  Not a long enough trip for us to even begin to tap the energy such an outing creates.  We sang songs, laughed, talked about girls and discussed fishing for trout. The idea of wading in a stream to fish was still a novel idea to me but I was  game.

The first order of business was to look for a place to set up our camp. Michigan has long been a friend to the outdoor types. During those years it was not that unusual for people to grab some shuteye in a picnic area. As I recall we found a nice spot by the river, set up a place for a fire and a tent. We pulled a couple of fallen logs around to sit on and we were ready to set up housekeeping. There was and still is a lot of State Land in Michigan so we didn't worry about trespassing. 

I don't know if you have ever thought about it but a river seems deep just because it's a river. There is a vastness to water that exists in my visual senses. No one ever thinks of the Mississippi River as shallow. It is the Mississippi. That by definition makes it wide and deep and long. You do not need a map or a depth gauge. It is an American epic, therefore deep. Some of that carries over to ones perception of all rivers. Water, it's where we grew from a tadpole to a baby. It sustains our life. It's over 70% of our body and our planet. As Norman McClean said in, A River Runs Through it. "I am haunted by waters."

I was reluctant to get in the river. I didn't refuse, I was just slow to test the wading idea. After a half hour of it I was hooked. Some fifty years later it's harder to get me out than in. We spent the day wading and fishing. It was a blast. We caught a few trout and lost many more. We had the stealth of a rogue elephant with a toothache. The first night was a predictable boys camping trip, hot dogs, potato chips, brownies my mom had made and some kind of carbonated, sugar laden beverage, pure heaven.

The next morning we broke camp and headed out for another spot to try our luck. We had met some people who said there was a river near Hoxeyville, a little town about thirty minutes from where we were camped. We headed for the Pine River, one of Michigan's many rivers that had native trout. We would spend the bulk of the day fishing the Pine. There were a lot of fish, nothing in the way of trophy size behemoths but we never lost our optimism.

Finally, after a really long and tiring day, we reluctantly decided to break from the fishing. We exited the stream and found our way to the local roadway system. Once there we headed back to the car and the promise of a good meal. That was before we saw the girl on the fire truck that changed the whole nature of the trip and our identities. Did you ever wish you were a photographer for Life Magazine or a free lance writer?

©Herb Ratliff, July 18, 2012, All Rights Reserved