He was fifty-six at the time, and by the time I wrote this, he was eighty-one and still fishing. His grown son and grandson would tag along by then to make sure Tom didn't catch more than he could carry. By my computations, Tom would be ninety-five if he's still alive. But that's not the gist of this story; it's about two men who shared a river they loved, several times down through the years, in peace and silence. That was a long time ago. I was thirty-one when we first saw each other; twenty-five years later, I memorialized that meeting. Today, I'm a grizzled river rat of seventy; well over half of my life has been spent in my idyllic spot on the river. Tom was pretty deaf even way back, so our talks mostly consisted of hand motions with Tom holding up his catch. He didn't like bass, I did, so he'd wade over to give me a couple of good ones, maybe even drink a cold beer in quiet companionship. You can't buy memories like that, sometimes makes me wonder what the rich guys have done in their lives that makes them so haughty. Take a hike, Mr. Businessman. I'll keep lessons from men like Tom in my memory bank. Hell, you know what, I'm far richer. This is Tom's story.

   THE OLD FISHERMAN

Met an old guy weekends ago,

Was many years ago, in truth.

He was bent and getting deaf,

Me? Hell, I'd not yet left my youth.

He was friendly, so was I,

We shared the river both in peace.

Times went onward, summers flew,

Golden years never seemed to cease.

I saw him today; he's fishing still,

Deaf but friendly as one could be.

I thought how I had aged since then,

Now I'm the old man others see.