분야
hwp Long ago, when I was a young man, my father said to me...
"Norman, you like to write stories."
And I said, "Yes, I do."
Then he said, "Someday, when youre ready...
you might tell our family story.
Only then will you understand what happened and why."
In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.
We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in Missoula, Montana...
where Indians still appeared out of the wilderness...
to walk the honky-tonks and brothels of Front Street.
My father was a Presbyterian minister...
and a fly-fisherman.
Though it is true that one day a week was given over wholly to religion...
even then he told us about Christs disciples being fishermen.
And we were left to assume, as my younger brother Paul and I did...
that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly-fishermen...
and that John, the favorite, was a dry fly-fisherman.
The poor without Christ are of all men the most miserable.
But the poor with Christ...
are princes and kings of the earth.
In the afternoon, we would walk with him...
while he unwound between services.
He almost always chose a path along the Big Blackfoot...
which we considered our family river.
It was there he felt his soul restored and his imagination stirred.
Long ago rain fell on mud and became rock.
Halt a billion years ago.
But even before that, beneath the rocks...
are the words of God.
Listen.
And if Paul and I listened very carefully all our lives...
we might hear those words.
Even so, Paul and I received as many hours of instruction in fly-fishing...
as we did in all other spiritual matters.
As a Presbyterian, my father believed...
that man, by nature, was a damn mess...
and that only by picking up Gods rhythms...
were we able to regain power and beauty.
To him, all good things, trout as well as eternal salvation, come by grace.
And grace comes by art, and art does not come easy.
Norman.
So my brother and I learned to cast Presbyterian style:
on a metronome.
He began each session with the same instruction:
Casting is an art that is performed on a four-count rhythm...
between 10:00 and 2:00.
If he had had his way, nobody who did not know how to catch a fish...
would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching it.
So it was with my formal education as well.
Each weekday, while my father worked on his Sunday sermon...
I attended the school of the Reverend Maclean.
He taught nothing but reading and writing. And being a Scot...
believed that the art of writing lay in thrift.
Half as long.
So while my friends spent their days at Missoula Elementary...
I stayed home and learned to write the American language.
Again, halt as long.
Good. Now throw it away.
Norman! Norman!
Wait for your brother!
However, there was a balance to my fathers system.
Every afternoon I was set free...
untutored and untouched till supper...
to learn on my own the natural side of Gods order.
And there could be no better place to learn than the Montana of my youth.
It was a world with dew still on it...
more touched by wonder and possibility than any I have since known.
Goddamn it, open up the door!
What the hell is goin on?
- Where are you guys going? - Chickens!
Move out of the way. Get.
But it was a tough world, too. Even as children...
we understood that and admired it.
And of course, we had to test it.
I knew I was tough because I had been bloodied in battle.
Get him!
Dont be a sissy! Come on!
Yeah, come on. Lets see some blood here.
Paul was different.
His toughness came from some secret place inside of him.
He simply knew he was tougher than anyone alive.
Grace will not be said until that bowl is clean.
Man has been eating Gods oats for a thousand years.
Its not the place of an 8-year-old boy to change that tradition.
Grace.
Oh, God...
rich in forgiveness, grant that we...
may hold fast the good things we receive from Thee.
And as often as we tall into sin, be lifted by repentance through Thy grace.
Amen.
Norm, what do you want to be when you grow up?
A minister, I guess.
Or a professional boxer.
You think you could beat Jack Johnson?
I think you could. Id bet on it.
- What are you gonna be? - A professional fly-fisherman.
- Theres no such thing. - There isnt?
I guess a boxer.
Not a minister?
In 1917, World War I came to Missoula...
taking with it every able-bodied lumberjack...
leaving the woods to old men and boys.
So at 16, I did my duty...
and started working for the U.S. Forest Service.
It was a life of timber and toil...
with men as tough as their ax handles...
and more mountains in all directions...
than I would ever see again.
Being too young to join me...
Paul took a job as lifeguard at the municipal swimming pool...
so that during the day he could look over the girls...
and in the evenings he could pursue his other purpose in life: fishing.
