Grandpa, let’s…

...play baseball, play kickball, I’ll race you to the river, I’ll give you a head start, do you know how to play Uno? I’ll teach you the rules. Grandma Barbara, let’s play Monopoly again. The never-ending energy supply of one James H. Fullerton, our 11-year old grandson, who visited us for five days, boggled the minds of Barbara and me. The time his feet hit the floor in the morning till he tucked himself in for the evening, he lacked only one item. An off switch. During one of our more memorable baseball games, James had imaginary men on second and third with two out. He smacked a line drive that seemed destined to land just over the line where it would have been declared a single. Two quick steps took me close to intercepting the ball’s flight. I was not going to be quite able to reach it, so I dove headfirst. Thwack, the ball hit in the pocket of the glove. I squeezed it tight, as I slid along on the grass. Rolling over, I held the glove up to show James that I had made a clean catch. Barb had been sitting on the front deck umpiring the contest. Sotto voce, so that Jim would not hear, she said, “That’s it, Grandpa, kill yourself over a silly ball game.” As I regained my feet, this was followed by a cry of, “Look at the grass stains you just put on your pants.” Glancing down, I noticed two large green smears at each knee. But, hey, I caught the ball, didn’t I? Sad to say, in the bottom of the ninth, Jim hit three high, long drives that my aging legs and aching knees could not run down. Each fell in areas designated as being triples. Youth and exuberance defeated experience and guile.

As a fishing guide, I am afraid that Jim would rate me on a scale of one to ten as a zero. We went fishing in the new canoe twice: once on the Main Stem and once on the East Branch of the Delaware. Jim had practiced casting on the lawn, using an open-faced spinning reel and a homemade wooden plug without hooks. He has not quite gotten the hang of it but he’ll get there. We went bouncing through a fast hobby horse riffle below the Kellams Bridge Pool that gave us an exciting ride. Unfortunately, on that evening no fish were willing to come out and play. On Sunday we had to return James to Wappingers Falls, so we tried the East Branch, on a tip from Trout Unlimited member Kurt Jellett. Kurt reported hooking a number of large sunfish and small bass in that area. Shortly after we arrived the wind began to blow. Handling the canoe became difficult and it did not make it any easier for Jim to cast a lure. As the Boston Red Sox will be saying shortly, wait until next year. The young man is a fierce competitor no matter what the game. He is not above trying to change the rules in the middle of a contest if he is losing. Sort of like the Gore-Lieberman team in the last election.

At any rate he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed defeating and/or bamboozling his grandparents. If he can wheedle his parents into granting him permission, he is planning on enough time to catch every fish in the river come 2002. Unknown to James, I’ll be practicing up on my hitting technique while we are down in Texas. Hopefully, come next year, it will be grandpa who will be hitting the long drives that fall out where the White Pines grow.

River flows and temperatures have been good on the Main Stem in recent weeks. The Rivermaster has been calling for additional flows to be released every day. I have overheard several good reports while hanging out at Joe McFadden’s Fly Shop. Also, some of the fishermen that I engaged in small talk, while helping to man the Trout Unlimited booth at the Callicoon Farmers Market on Sunday, had success stories to tell.

The Upper Delaware Chapter of T.U. is selling tickets for a lovely, eight-foot, five-weight, graphite fly rod. Only 100 tickets will be offered for this rod. Donations are $5 per ticket. Proceeds will go toward purchasing willows to plant along tributary banksides come next spring. At this date, there are only 15 tickets left out of the original 100. Heck, compared to the odds on the lottery or in the recent stock market, this is a sweet deal. You can’t win if you’re not in the game.