Life Is Too Short
by Tim Loomis
What a better time to create an article than the night of a waxing moon. Here I sit in my pajamas, shivering in the wee hours of a December Saturday morning attempting to write a few articles for the January newsletter. The full moon is Sunday night, the 23rd, its 4:00 AM, and I am wide awake. Ok, so what better time to do some work right?
Wait, I already said that. Well, it is only 4:00 AM, so I guess that I'm not that awake.
Around the end of November I was doing some work on my truck and managed to injure the big toe on my left foot. I thought that I had awoken the proverbial "ol college football injury". Back in the early 70's I played a college football game on the newly introduced Astroturf and ended up with what was than called a "sprained toe". Now we know its really "turf toe" and boy, is it debilitating. Anyway, I was scheduled to go on an annual steelhead trip with some other members the 2nd week of December and the toe was still fired up. My doctor referred me to a local podiatrist who insisted that "life is too short" not to do what I wanted to do. He said that I shouldn't let the injury get in the way of having fun. At my insistence, he wrote an official excuse on a piece of prescription paper so that when I told my wife I was indeed still going on this fishing trip (she thought I was certifiable) all I had to do was whip out my official doctor's excuse (kind of like a "Get out of jail free"card) and be on my merry way.
Armed with the best legal drugs my insurance provided I limped my way up to the Trinity River and had a respectable day
catching steelhead. Boy, did I pay the piper a few days later. Seems that toe pain takes a few days to mount up enough steam to make it that area of the brain that detects the pain. My wife made sure that her opinion of my common sense was known throughout the following week. A follow up appointment with the obliging podiatrist confirmed that the toe problem wasn't gout (as some friends has insisted) but rather he found through the x-rays that I had a bone chip (from the earlier college injury) lodged in the big joint of said toe accompanied by some old age arthritis. My original visions of making frequent Christmas vacation trips to the San Lorenzo to fish went up in a puff of reality smoke.
I am reminded of Jim Lazarotti, a member of the club (he passed away a few years back) who was an early mentor on steelhead fishing the San Lorenzo. Back in 2004, on an early morning outing on the river with Harry Petrakis, we encountered Jim. Harry and I had just spent about 45 minutes fishing a deep hole without success and were just starting to move down river when out of the mist approaching us limped a figure that I later described as "Gandolf of the River". It was Jim attired in his traditional Red Ball vulcanized waders holding in one hand his 12' hand made rod and the other hand a long staff. Jim's knees were by that time "used up" as he would say, so getting around on the river for him was a chore. I kind of chided Jim for not calling me earlier to go with him but he insisted that he was doing ok and kind of matter of fact like asked us if it would be ok to fish that deep hole we were leaving.
I looked at Harry with that "here we go" kind of knowing look that said, "Jim is going to fish that hole we just scoured and he is going to embarrass us". Harry and I were about 50 yards away when I heard Jim yelling. We hurried back to the deep hole and sure enough, there was Jim with a huge, silver fresh, buck that measured to around 30 plus inches. Harry took a photo of Jim with me landing the fish that is on page 10 of the 2004 club directory. Even as incapacitated as Jim was at that time, he still outfished me and Harry.
Moral of the story: "Go for it, 'Do it now', 'You only live once', 'Life is too short' ". But don't forget to get a doctor's excuse!
Fish On!