Trout Fishing in the Great Beyond

David Oliver McGee (1931-2010) was our father, for a little while.  He lived an interesting life, full of vexations, small triumphs, and major malfunctions.  All in all, he would rather have been fishing on some small stream somewhere, preferably in the mountains of Virginia.

We did not actually meet him until adulthood, due to his having divorced our mother while we were still very, very young.  And the fact that he even lived that long is, frankly, astonishing.  He was diagnosed in the 1960's as "paranoid schizophrenic", which was the psychiatric equivalent at the time of, "Dang, we don't get it.  This dude sure is messed up, though."   We strongly suspect that he was actually suffering from an acute combination of thyroid malfunction, malnutrition as a child, environmental toxicity sensitivity, and being an introverted and sensitive man in a world dominated by patriarchal (even Roman) militant sensibilities.

Our current little nuclear family owes its fatherhood dynamic to literature and PBS children's television programming, because David Oliver McGee was, sadly, not present; and even if he had been present, he may not have been the best role model.

He was, however, an outstanding grandparent.  After having met him 14 years ago, he was all attentiveness and adoration.  He was proudest, we think, of being able to regale his fellow residents of the retirement community where he lived his final years with stories of his granddaughter's unflappable opposition to conformity and authority.  He never met the grandson who bears his middle name, but we're pretty sure he would have loved taking him fishing some day.

In fact, our little excavation project (the pond, pictured to the left here), was in some measure an homage to David, with a nod to Hollis Jack Mints, who deserves his own post some day.  Granddaddy Mints had catfish in his pond, which is what we are also going to be growing, but Papa Dave (though he enjoyed catfishing) would have preferred trout.  We have no doubt he would have loved hanging out by our backyard pond, though, helping his grandson with a cane fishing pole pull in a big fat yellow cat.

It was not meant to be, though.  Papa Dave died this week.  We had been making arrangements to move him from San Angelo, Texas, to a nursing home facility here in College Station where we believed the nutritionist and the physical therapist were competent and could have gotten him up and fishing again.  A lifetime of hard living was just too much, though.  A man who survived homelessness in the cold northeast, and the rigors of oil field work in the hot Texas sun, could not survive the depression of burying his wife of the last 8 years this past December.  So it is with most elderly men -- they rarely survive their wives by even one calendar year.

Papa Dave may have had the last laugh on the demons of despair, though.  Our friend Rosie, who is also worthy of her own post, though as varied as her life and interests are, we don't know what we would say, brought us dinner last night, after she heard the news.

She's never met David, did not know anything about him. 

But she brought us a beautiful dish of trout and polenta.

Happy fishing!