This is the next article by Matt “Flint River Correspondent” Walker. I think you’ll agree that it’s a well-written and very touching tribute. Take care,

hawgdaddy

Matt's Father, Ronald Walker

I feel a hand on my shoulder, a slight shake, and a voice whispering, “Get up.” For a second I’m confused, the blanket of deep sleep still heavy on me. Rubbing a hand across my eyes, I see a familiar face and recognize that whisper as something I’d been so looking forward to when I went to bed the previous evening.

It’s very early on a spring day in 1979, and my Dad is taking me fishing.

Instantly I’m awake, scrambling to get my fishin’ clothes on and quietly sneaking down the hallway toward the single light on in the kitchen. Dad’s there – seemingly 9 feet tall and bulletproof – drinking a cup of coffee and grabbing a set of keys. The sounds of crickets, chirping in cages by the front door, are the only other thing I hear as we make for the truck…

It’s amazing to me how many things we take for granted – our health, our families, sunshine on a summer day… I, for one, never knew the world was any different than my own growing up. I assumed every kid went fishing; and liked it. And it never occurred to me, in a million years, that some kid’s Dads didn’t, or wouldn’t, take them fishing on slow weekends.

I don’t know how many people have Fathers like my own. My Dad absolutely loves fishing and, when I was growing up, made a point of involving me in almost all his fishing adventures. He taught me how to rig poles, tie a hook, and how to bait it. When I was a kid, his knowledge seemed almost mystical to me. He could tell, from the way my bobber moved, what fish I was going to pull up before I ever set the hook. When I would complain I wasn’t catching as many fish as he was, he’d smile and say, “Well, son, you ain’t holding your mouth right.” Trying my best to look like him and, indeed, fixate my mouth in the appropriate fashion, I’d catch something and then marvel that he just knew how to do it.

We could pass by 10,000 brush piles that looked like gold mines in our little 16 foot jon boat before he’d stop at the one that was filled with bream and white perch (crappie). He swore to me he could smell ‘em.

My Dad can find fish in the middle of the Sahara desert. I’m just saying…

I remember on one trip, Dad took me salt water fishing at the mouth of Fowl River in our home town of Mobile, Alabama. While I was busy setting the anchor rope (something else he taught me to do) Dad set up the poles and got our bait ready. After casting and catching a dozen or so saltwater catfish – bait stealing, useless scourge of the saltwater fishing trip – I told him there was nothing useful out here and we were wasting our time. He smiled and said, “Gimme your line.” I swung the hook end back to him and watched him attach a piece of cut bait in the shape of a long, drawn out V. He tossed it out and told me, “Cast, reel back very slowly and when you feel something, pause for a second then yank hard.”

Trusting, I did exactly as asked. On my third cast, I felt a bump-bump-bump on the line. I paused and set the hook, watching in amazement as my rod bent over and listening to him howl in laughter from the back of the boat, “GET ‘IM, BOY!”. Three minutes later I had boated a nice sized flounder and began eating the crow my Dad reveled in shoveling at me the rest of the trip.

I never said he was always nice on our trips…

My childhood was a mystical, magical time, and fishing with my Dad was no different. He always outfished me, but never left me feeling cheated. He was better at everything, strong as an ox, wiser than Soloman, and enjoyed smoking cheap cigars while we fished for whatever God had in store for us that day.

But it’s not 1979 anymore. I’m grown and gone. A Dad myself, trying to give my own four kids the same childhood joys I experienced.

And my Dad has cancer.

He’s already slowed and tired, and he can’t do many of the things he used to do – and still loves. We’re all waiting and hoping and praying that everything works out, but we all know that it might not.

Dad never won the Nobel prize for anything. He didn’t write a stirring novel that changed a generation. He never held a public office, didn’t become a war hero, and was certainly never financially the talk of the town. And outside Mobile, Alabama, no one will probably ever recognize his name, or correlate it with something society has measured as ‘greatness.’

What he did do was raise a family, never once putting himself first. He taught me right from wrong, and how to stand up for what you believe in. He told me about God, taught me about women, and showed me, every day, what it meant to be a man.

And he always, ALWAYS, had time to take me fishing.

Whether Dad’s here for another 30 years, or if God decides to call him home sooner, I can never repay him for what he’s given me. He’s the reason I’m here, and much more of a man than I’ll ever be able to measure up to.

And I don’t take that for granted.

Matt

* My Dad’s name, by the way, is Ronald Walker. He and Mom still live in Theodore, Alabama (just west of Mobile), mere minutes away from the best freshwater or saltwater fishing a man could ever want. He has no middle initial, for two reasons:

1) He has an identical twin brother named Donald (not making this up), and Grandaddy didn’t want them to share a middle name

and

2) Dad has 13 brothers and sisters. I think Granny just flat out ran out of names..

If you’re ever in Theodore, drop by and give him a few minutes of your time. Despite it all, Dad is one of those people that just brings a smile into the room with him. And I promise, you’ll never forget him.

Tags: cancer, childhood, Dad, fishing, saltwater fishing

This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 7:00 am and is filed under Commentary, Essays, Other Fishing. The author is Matt Walker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.