TO FISH OR NOT TO FISH

It’s time to hit the water again and not necessarily at the wheel of a twenty foot boat loaded with every imaginable electronic device that can be installed. No, this is the time when we take to the water in waders or high boots, maybe sneakers or sandals if brave enough or even dipping a toe into a lake or stream from the very edge of the shoreline. It is fishing season so let the fun begin.
For those who willingly brave the snow and cold to fish through the ice all winter I suppose the season never really ended. For guys like me, though, who don’t much like snow and cold or the sound of ice cracking on a winter morning (experts tell me that’s a good thing but I have my doubts) the season ended last autumn as the last of the leaves fell and a chill wind rippled the water. Well, it’s back.
We can take to the water again to the extent we’re able and put out our lines baited with cheese, worms, marshmallows, corn or whatever we can scrounge up and settle back to wait for the first sign that there is indeed life beneath the waves. The bobber moves slowly away from shore, like those big barrels the Great White took in Jaws, and like every good angler we tug at the line, not too hard nor too easily, just so. Generally, we pull out only a hook with none of our bait still on it. Score one for the fish, tricky little devils that they are. But then that’s why they call it fishing, not catching.
The good part is that we are out there, enjoying the company of our families and friends or just by ourselves enjoying the outdoors. Either way fishing season is here and it’s about time.

VOICES IN THE DARKNESS

            When Harry Kalas died the other day (fittingly in a broadcast booth, I thought) it brought to mind that lineup of old time baseball announcers; the men you knew instantly by the sound of their voices, a particular phrase used often and delivered in just such a way --- Mel Allen, “The Scooter” and Harry, of course.

            A long time ago (not so long that the memories have gathered a whole lot of dust) there was radio. Television was a wild dream far beyond the imaginations of most of us, newspapers were fine but generally late with the news and the news reels at the movies always came in a week after the fact so radio filled a huge hole in our information diet.

            On warm summer evenings you could take a walk down nearly any street, listen to the murmured conversations, the tinkling ice in a drink and you could hear something else as well: you could hear America, the voices of sports announcers cutting across time zones to bring us the latest from the ball parks we knew we would never get to save in our imaginations. Each team had its own announcer and the sound of his voice became as familiar to us as that of a favorite uncle. We were tied into the rest of the United States and the next day we would be on common ground with anyone when it came to the runs, hits and errors of the night before.

            Harry Kalas tied that era to the present and made baseball on radio come alive in our minds eye --- it’s fair to say he did a pretty good job on television too. I wonder if there will be anyone to replace him at least in the manner I’ve become accustomed to: a voice out of the night, a voice that tied us all together.