It's Flattering

Funny how it goes, just when I needed it the most I had some old friends show up and help me gain some perspective... help me to kind of reconfirm what I've been doing all these years. With turning 60 in a few weeks weighing on my mind I've been kind of ruminating over the last 30 years or so...ya know, just what have I done ? What did I create ?  What good did I do ?  After all, for the last 31 years every summer all I've done is chase salmon and laugh a lot, just have fun.  So lately I've wondered if maybe it's been a life squandered and maybe I should find some meaning before its to late, maybe another job.....Well....Enter Larry and Elaine Reiter from Loup City Nebraska.

That's just part of their wonderful family that came to fish with me. Larry last fished with me 24 years ago. he was part of a group of guys lead by my old friend Don Dzingle that came many years in a row to harvest silvers. The family wanted to do something special to celebrate Larry and Elaine's 50th wedding anniversary and he wanted to do Alaska and to share the wonders he'd found here on the Kenai river with his kids and grand kids. When they put Elaine in charge of the travel plans the first counsel Larry gave her was this..." the first thing you have to do is find  Jeff King".  

Naturally I explained that we're under a Catch and Release emergency order and that we needed two other boats so I could only really cut them so much of deal. Elaine was unfazed, she told me they wouldn't 'quibble' over anything and they just want to see what Larry's seen and she new that they would have a good time with me, and the river....and boy did we ever. That's a pic of Larry, Elaine and their son Troy and his wife Wendy taking pictures of  a Kenai River double feature.

Our boat didn't catch a fish but I think Larry would have rather seen his grand daughter Colby catch one anyway and she sure did. My friend Keith helped her catch and release this nice King, her first fish ever. That's pretty darn cool.

The Reiters could have gone anywhere in the world and they chose to share part of their special occasion with me, I'm honored. And as frankness goes with friendships we had this exchange....Larry's a cancer survivor. They found it after he had waited until his was 66 for his first colonoscopy.  When I told him that for whatever reason I still haven't  had one he made me promise to get that done. And I will. Shortly after that as I recalled my stricture emergency a couple years back and he admitted that sometimes he gets dense food stuck in his throat. Well, I told him what it was and explained that it's just a matter of time until his does what mine did.... he promised to see the doctor and Elaine winked at me....maybe I am doing some good.

Me and this moose have a lot in common. They always do it, like there's something better on the other side, he knows there's not but still he  has to look. He doesn't hesitate, he just goes. It's what he does, it's part of being on the river, you gotta go have a look, everyday is different, every chance, every effort just might  make that surprise you hope for, maybe the grass really is greener, maybe, you don't know unless you look. And when things work out the way they do sometimes....well, maybe a nice cool swim and a look at the other side helps you make sense of it all, maybe. That swim just might give you perspective and that's all....but that's enough.