The Scientific Revolution

The book I recently finished, The Clockwork Universe-Isaac Newton, the Royal Society and the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick, I may not have read were it not for the college course on the history of science and technology that I just took. Most history courses focus on political history, but I think to understand today's world knowing the contributions of some great natural philosophy thinkers of the 17th century is more important than knowing the kings of the Stuart Dynasty or the major battles of the 30 Years War, all of the same century.

Of these great thinkers, Isaac Newton was probably the most important. He is the link between the Medieval and the Modern world. During his "miracle years", 1664-1666, he invents calculus and calculates gravity's pull on the moon. His Principia in 1687 explained his law of universal gravitation, "a single force and a single law that extended to the farthest reaches of the universe. Everything pulled on everything else, instantly and across billions of miles of empty space, the entire universe bound together in one vast, abstract web."Although much of his work was fully understood by few of his contemporaries, his genius was immediately recognized. Alexander Pope wrote, "Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, and God said 'Let Newton be' and all was light."

And this genius of math and logic was as obsessed with God as any Medieval monk. Newton's motivation was to understand God and the universe that He created and probably believed that God created him for this purpose. He never traveled outside a small part of England, not even to see the sea although he was the first to explain the tides. He never married and died possibly a virgin at 84. He had a difficult and prickly personality and feuded with many people, most importantly Gottfried Liebniz, a German who was perhaps the second greatest thinker of that century. Liebniz independently discovered calculus at about the same time as Newton.

The feud between Newton and Leibniz was snide and petty and sometimes vicious. I find it somewhat comforting that these towering intellects behaved no better than the rest of us. The Clockwork Universe is an entertaining read as well as educational one.

"Cave of Forgotten Dreams"

Saw this documentary Saturday night at the AFI in Silver Spring. Directed by Werner Herzog, it tells the story of the 30,000 year old art work that was discovered on the walls of Chauvet Cave in France. The cave went undiscovered until the 1990's because of a massive rock which blocked the entrance, and now detailed steps have been taken to restrict access to preserve the artifact within.

The images are quite haunting. They transport the viewer into the expressions of prehistoric artists and provide a linkage with humans of an ancient time. It has been speculated that the site had religious significance to these people, and modern humans often feel a spiritual bounding as well.

Daughter Rebecca, who is studying for a masters in art history, saw the movie in 3-D in New York. I'd see it again if I had the chance to see it in 3-D.

High water on the Patapsco

But fishable. Reading was 2.4 at Hollofield, and I don't think I'd care to fish it when it's any higher. No trout, no bass, but a few bluegills saved me from being skunked. Stumbled and got some water in my waders but didn't get hurt and was able to continue fishing.

It's been a wet spring and very wet in the Potomac watershed. Water level at Little Falls was over 10 feet yesterday.

My Back Yard

When wife Pam retired a few years ago, our roles regarding landscaping reversed. For most of years we've been in this house I've had primary responsibility, but since then it's been mostly her. Whichever has been the case, we've talked over any major changes and disagreements have been rare. Also, the person with the secondary responsibility has always had a garden section which was largely theirs to do with as they wished.

For me, this section has been the bedding area which runs along the property line of our shallow back yard. Last summer, the whole back yard took a beating when storms knocked down some very large tree limbs and the deer fence. Between the immediate storm damage and the resulting deer marauding, it wasn't much to look at and the bamboo project was an effort to make our back view pleasing to us again.

I'm happy with the results of that bamboo work, and nature has its own powers of restoration, fortunately. Now I have to decide about supplementing the perennials, trees, and shrubs with annuals. Although I like the way the garden looks now without them, experience has taught me that by late summer I'd miss the additional color annuals bring.

Recent fishing

Twice this week at the pond. Monday I caught a mess of bluegill in the shallows, and yesterday bluegills and a largemouth about a foot long. Monday's fish came on a SHWAPF, and yesterday's on a yellow foam spider. Both days I started with a marabou streamer looking for trout, but didn't get any because I suspect they're in the deepest coolest water they can find. Lily pads are out and have been for a couple of weeks.

Last week at the Patapsco I caught bluegills, a bass, and a nice rainbow trout. Right after I got the trout, the hatchery truck went by to stock the upper part nearer to the Daniels dam.

Reservoir canoeing

The weather has been beautiful this week and school's out, so Pam and I got out in the canoe yesterday. Enjoyed the day and saw some wildlife.








I was more cooperative than she about posing for a picture.

Good-bye, Gary

Thank you, Gary Williams, for 22 years of Maryland basketball. I forgot my camera for today's farewell press conference, so I pulled this image off the internet.
There were a lot of misty eyes among the thousands at Comcast Center today, and according to the University president, the building will bear your name soon. I think that's appropriate.

Contemplating the relationship of mass and time

The other day I was at the mall of the University of Maryland between classes. It was a little chilly but warm enough to sit comfortably in the sun, and I did so on a bench while I did some reading for my class in History of Science and Technology.

As time for class approached I moved about 50 yards across the mall nearer to the lecture hall where my class would begin in a few minutes. There I stopped momentarily and looked over at the empty bench where I had previously sat. Based on the pictures of myself a few days ago I have a pretty good idea of what I look like, so it was easy for me to visualize myself sitting there on the now empty bench.

I don't remember ever have done something like this before, and I think it had something to do with reading about physics and relativity for the class. A recent news story may also provide some insight:

"A NASA probe orbiting Earth has confirmed two key predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which describes how gravity causes masses to warp space-time around them. The Gravity Probe B (GP-B) mission was launched in 2004 to study two aspects of Einstein's theory about gravity: the geodetic effect, or the warping of space and time around a gravitational body..."

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/05/52-years-nasa-gravity-probe-confirms-einstein-theories/#ixzz1LdIltJm5

I actually don't know shit about this stuff.

Anyway, today I took this picture of the general area from a favorite vantage point on campus. The position is on the hill northwest of the McKeldin Library, overlooking the mall with the steeple of the Chapel visible in the center background.

Saturday at Fells Point in Baltimore

Pam and I met a few of the guys I've gotten to know from the internet. The group originated from a fishing message board which some of us broke with to talk about other subjects other than fishing. We periodically get together for lunch, and previous lunches have taken place in Arlington, Virginia, Washington, DC, and Annapolis and Deale Maryland.

Pam was a very good sport about coming along because much of the lunch activity was drinking beer and talking fishing neither of which she does. Nevertheless, she charmed all the guys, and one of them later posted that "she obviously lost a bet with God" which is their way of complimenting the wife and good naturedly insulting the husband.

We met at a old tavern named The Wharf Rat which is apparently known for the variety and quality of its draft beer. After a few rounds we proceeded, perhaps a little unsteadily, to Bertha's for lunch. Bertha's is well known for its mussels, and it lived up to its reputation, spread chiefly by bumper stickers which it has freely distributed for years.

As fishermen we are drawn to water, so we walked out to look at the harbor and to take a few pictures before heading back to The Wharf Rat for one last round. Pam took the above shot of the group, and Andy, the youngest member of the group took the picture of Pam and myself.

For shad fishing, it's location, location, location

Yes, the location is beautiful. The picture above is looking downstream at Deer Creek from Stafford Bridge. But what I really mean is that specific location on a stream can make a huge difference in shad fishing success, even when the difference is just a few feet.

Today I caught a few fish shortly after arriving in the afternoon but not any after that. This seemed to be true for the other fishermen except for those at the positions shown upstream from the bridge who continued to catch hickory shad at a steady pace all afternoon.

Catch and Cook Trout Fishing

Since I don't believe the stocked trout at the pond survive over the summer, I always keep and eat any trout I catch there. These all came on an olive marabou bead head. Today, I also caught and released a few bluegill and lost a couple more trout.



I like the look of the combination of red buds and white blossoms that appear this time of year.

Catch and Release Shad Fishing

Catching fish and releasing rather than keeping them for food has been described as needlessly cruel. I don't have a good counter argument for this point of view even though most of the fishing I do is catch and release. In many cases, not releasing your catch is breaking the law so to reject the practice is to reject fishing, and this I will not do.

For a number of years, fishing for both the American and the Hickory shad must be catch and release in Maryland. The regulation was passed because the numbers of both species became dangerously low. Recreational fishing was a factor is reducing the numbers of these fish, but the greater problems were commercial over-fishing and the building of dams which often stopped the upstream spawning migration. Sport fishing for shad is probably about one hundred years old, but commercial fishing goes back to colonial times as we know from entries in George Washington's diary in 1760 about netting large quantities. Before the coming of the Europeans, Native Americans along the eastern seaboard caught them for centuries.

Yesterday, I drove to Deer Creek which flows into the Susquehanna River right at the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. I've fished the April shad run in the Rappahannock River, the Patuxent, and, especially in recent years, in the Potomac at Fletchers Boathouse, but this was my first time at Deer Creek. At Stafford Bridge, I met my friend Ken, and we joined other fly fishermen in the stream. I would describe the fishing as steady/slow because every 20 to 30 minutes someone would hook a fish but the action never got as hot as I've seen shad fishing get.

I enjoyed fishing for these strong ocean fish in a relatively small freshwater stream. Water was high and cloudy and the level was 2.71 at Darlington.

I'll Remember April...

And I'll smile.

Warm weather home for our canoe

We've had this canoe for about 30 years, and it's been tied atop various vehicles for trips ranging as far as the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York as well as closer tidal rivers, lakes, and campsites.

It hasn't been used much in recent years, however. At over 70 pounds and 16 foot length, it's a chore to load on top of a car and even more so as I've aged. For fishing, I choose the smaller, lighter kayak. My last kayak trip last fall was to Triadelphia Reservoir and made me remember the day trips Pam and I enjoyed there or at its sister lake Rocky Gorge. I then remembered that those two WSSC reservoirs allowed people to seasonally keep a boat locked in mooring for a fee.

So a few weeks ago, I registered the canoe and paid the fee. A few days later, my son Greg who's young and strong helped me transport it to its new temporary home at Scott's Cove at Rocky Gorge.







I think the canoe enjoys being outside beneath the pines.








I'm looking forward to a number of outings this spring, summer, and fall where all we have to do is throw life jackets, paddles, and refreshments in a car and drive 20 minutes in order to lazily drift and paddle while enjoying the scenery.

Only in America

A girls softball game was being played in the park this afternoon, two local high schools. Playing third base for one of the schools was a girl wearing a Muslim scarf.

There was something heartening about seeing that.

More trout

Although I don't plan to take pictures of every fish I catch this season, since I'm going to eat these anyway it's easy enough to do. These were caught from the pond on black bead head marabou streamers.

Trout for dinner

About a foot long on a bead head marabou streamer from the pond.

Hey Jack Kerouac

I think of your mother

And all the tears she cried

She would cry for none other

Than her little boy lost in a little world that hated

And that dared to drag him down

Her little boy courageous...

Natalie Merchant and Robert Buck of the rock group "10,000 Maniacs" wrote those lyrics in the 1980's, at least 20 years after I read On the Road for the first time. Kerouac is on my mind because I just finished reading his novel Desolation Angels which was written just prior to the publication of On the Road which made him famous.

Desolation Angels never achieved the popularity of On the Road and represents the flip side of the earlier novel as Angels is as dark and downbeat as Road is life-affirming. In it Kerouac has already begun to dislike the Beat Generation which he more than anyone was responsible for creating. I think he detected a faddish insincerity about those who saw themselves as following the Bohemian footprints of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso and his other friends, and the movement declined into a "postured, actually secretly rigid coolness soon to become a fad up to the mass of middle class youth." The depression of Desolation Angels is probably fueled by Kerouac's growing alcoholism which contributed to his death before he reached 50.

He lived most of his later years with his mother who he pictures with love in this book and is why Merchant and Buck's lyrics above came into my mind. Kerouac was a courageous man of almost saintly sensitivity, an athlete good enough to be offered a college football scholarship, a heterosexual whose two closest friends were gay. Most importantly to me, he was a great writer. I'm not surprised his books are still read half a century later, and I believe they will still be read a half century from now.

And the fishermen came...

To the pond for the first day of trout fishing.






The residents had to be tolerant of the
newcomers.

Late winter is a desolate time...

Even when we're two days into spring by the calendar. There certainly have been spring-like days with temperatures in the 60's and even a few days in the 70's, but today is winter-like. Right now, the temperature is 47 degrees which isn't so cold, but the dampness in the air makes you uncomfortable.

Although the weather hasn't been as severe as last year, every winter gives the land a beating and it shows.


However, the budding of the trees gives you hope of better things to come.


Another sign of spring:

The sign indicates that the pond has been stocked by the state, and is closed to fishing while the fish acclimate themselves to their new surroundings. Saturday, the fishing will reopen and the fishermen will come.

Lately I've been thinking about my wife's looks

She is quite beautiful, you see. A few nights ago we had dinner at another couple's house, so I was sitting across the table from her for a few hours. At 64 she is still amazing to look at. A year ago, we went to a high school reunion, and she was easily the best looking woman there. She was very pretty in high school, but there were many other pretty girls in our class. Now, she really stands out.

Now, some will read and think, "How nice. This man really loves his wife, and even though she's aged she is still beautiful to him." That's true, but she is also quite striking to people who are just seeing her for the first time. A couple of years ago she visited me at work, and I introduced her to two men I'm close to there. Later that day after she left, each separately said essentially the same thing to me: "Hey, you're kind of robbing the cradle there, aren't you?" No, she's actually 23 days older than me. About a year ago a guy I've known for a few years became somewhat tongue-tied upon meeting her for the first time.

On top of all this, she has many other outstanding qualities beyond her appearance. She is smart and has an inquisitive mind and a good sense of humor, all of which makes her an interesting conversationalist. She is an excellent cook and a loving and attentive mother to our children. I've been told I'm a lucky man by people who don't even know all this. They just say I'm lucky because they've seen her. They don't know how lucky I really am.

A Fishing Legend

Bernard "Lefty" Kreh is, at 85, possibly the best known fly fisherman in the world. He was born in Frederick County, Maryland and has spent virtually his whole life in this state except for serving in the army during WWII when he fought in The Battle of the Bulge.

Because Lefty is local, I've been lucky to have met and talked with him a number of times usually at events like today at the fly fishing gathering that has come to be known as Tiefest on Kent Island. The event's name is a reference to fly tying which takes center stage, but there are also fly casting demonstrations and lessons such as Lefty is shown giving above. He's probably done this thousands of times, and he's probably given the same answer thousands of times to the question I asked him about knots, the subject of a couple of the many books he's authored. Still, he managed to answer with patience and humor, as he always does.

Back to College

Every Tuesday and Thursday I find myself in the same lecture hall that I was in 45 years ago. Back then, it was a Botany course, and now it is "History of Science and Technology in Western Civilization." On those days I also have an earlier class in "Film in American Culture."

The deal at The University of Maryland is that a retired person over 60 may taken up to 9 credits with minimum tuition plus books and parking. I have chosen to audit rather than taking the courses for credit, so I won't be writing papers or taking exams.

Without the pressures I had as an undergrad, it's pure learning and it's great.

Last Night's Dream

Generally my dreams concern routine, boring actions like buying tires or doing taxes, but last night was an exception.

The phone rang, and I instantly recognized the voice as Marv, my friend who died last May. He said something like, "I was thinking about our discussion about yadayada..." It was common for us to continue previous conversations like that, so the only thing out of the ordinary was that he had been dead for eight months. When he stopped talking I said, "Well, if you can use the phone in the Afterlife, you can probably just come on over, " and he agreed to stop by the house.

As is common in dreams, my house didn't look anything like any house I ever lived in. It was multiple stories with an open stairway, so you could see people traveling between floors. It was from that vantage point that I saw Marv coming up to the floor I was on, but he wasn't moving with a walking motion. He was gliding up not so much like a ghost but more like a person on an escalator. In fact, the scene looked like a department store even though it was my home.

Marv didn't resume our phone conversation. He just settled down on the floor in a corner and watched the other people who had also come by the house. There was music playing as there usually is when we have visitors, and the song had a traditional country feel like bluegrass. I started dancing by myself in an old fashioned style like a hoe-down, and the dream pretty much ended. When I awoke I reviewed in my mind some details, especially Marv's appearance, because I knew Pam would be interested. He was younger looking than I had ever seen him alive, like he may have looked in his early 30's. His hair was dark without any gray and he was slimmer.

Pam has said that she envisions Marv's continued presence as sitting on a couch with her father and the two deceased men look down on we-the-still-living and criticize and laugh at our actions. George is drinking beer, and Marv is smoking marijuana. Maybe Marv settling down silently in a corner of my house in my dream is a similar vision that he is still with us.

Noisy Walk

Nice noisy though, the clinking of ice melting off trees.We had an ice storm last night, and today the temperature hovered just above freezing which made for a gradual emerging.

Tracking Snow

Had a couple of inches fall last night which is a good amount for following animal tracks. The possible presence of a coyote which I mentioned recently got me interested in learning to identify animals by their tracks, and it's a good learning activity to go along with walking in the woods.

The close similarities among the canine tracks makes it unlikely I'll learn to distinguish coyote from foxes or either from domestic dogs. It's rare around here to see a dog without his owner nearby so when I spot a canine track with no human tracks around I can be fairly certain it's something other than a domestic dog. I followed such tracks for a while today, and there were enough tracks where the claws were clearly visible to rule out it was any sort of feline. It could be a coyote, but I'm leaning more towards a large fox.

Although a large fox makes a larger track than a smaller fox, when you are comparing size tracks among different species things are different. A rabbit's tracks, for example, can be larger than a deer's.

Winter is for Walking

It's better now than in warm weather when it makes you hot and sweaty. Last night we had another light snow, and I went out again along Paint Branch Creek.








The green of holly trees stands out among the browns and grays of the winter woods.












...as does the white trunks of the sycamores.

Along Paint Branch Creek

The tiny stream that forms the pond in the park empties into a larger stream, Paint Branch Creek, which meanders through the suburbs and joins the Anacostia River near the Maryland/DC border. The Anacostia bisects the Nation's Capital for a short distance before it empties into the Potomac.

Paint Branch contains brown trout in some of the upper reaches, so I stay on the lookout as I hike along it. No trout sightings, but many animal tracks to keep me occupied despite the quick melting of the snow dusting we received this morning.

New Year's Day Thaw

Temperatures got up into the 50's today. Good day for the geese to swim and for people to go for a walk.

Rocky Gorge Winter

Rocky Gorge is a twin reservoir to Triadelphia where I went kayaking a month ago. Today I walked along its upper reaches in the Brown Bridge area, and there it seems less a lake and more of a lazy river which it essentially is because like Triadelphia it's created by dam which impounds the upper Patuxent River.

Since the surrounding land is owned by the WSSC, the water utility, it is free of development and its forests constitutes one of the nearest wild areas.

Coyote

There might be one in my suburban neighborhood. My next door neighbor believes she saw one. She's an intelligent, level-headed woman, and I take very seriously anything she says. Still, she's not at all an experienced outdoors person, so I reserve judgment.

Twice in the past week on separate occasions my wife Pam and I got a glimpse of what was either a coyote or an unusually large fox. Foxes have been common around here, so we're used to seeing them. What I saw seemed bigger than the foxes we see, but I really didn't get a good enough look for a positive identification. Pam feels the same about what she saw.

A couple of years ago in the parkland across the street I got into a conversation with a woman who said she saw a coyote in the park. Based on other things said, she seemed to be fairly knowledgeable about the outdoors and the the critters that live there. The park is partly developed with ball fields and tennis courts but is also partly wild. Also, it adjoins another park which extends quite a ways along Paint Branch Creek and joins other parks cumulatively creating a wildlife highway through the suburbs.










There have been sightings of coyotes, I believe, in all Maryland counties, so it is more than possible I have them nearby. I'd like to know for sure. While I'm not much of a tracker, I've been studying up in hopes I can learn to differentiate among dog, coyote, and fox tracks. This snow might help but it's melting today. I think I'd better go out now and take a walk to look around.

Books, Movies, Families

A few years ago I read an interesting piece that argued that seeing a movie based on a book that you love is a mistake. The visual experience of cinema is so strong that it will forever replace the images lodged in your head from the book. While I basically agree, putting this into practice is difficult for me because I love both books and movies and generally succumb to the temptation to see a beloved novel on screen.

The novel A River Runs Through It is a good example. It's one of my favorite books not just because of the fly fishing but because at its core it's about family and the pain of an older brother to a troubled sibling and the impotent feeling of being unable to help. I too have known that pain. Author Norman MacLean wrote, "... I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as our brothers' keepers, possessed of one of the oldest and possibly one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting of instincts. It will not let us go." Reading those words gave me some comfort and understanding of one of the major events of my life- the early death of my younger brother Tom.

I enjoyed watching the movie made from A River Runs Through It when it first appeared nearly 20 years ago and watch it repeatedly when it shows up on TV, but a price I have paid is that the actors and scenes from the movie force their way into my thoughts when I try to recollect the pleasures of the original written words.

The subject of books and the power of movies came to mind because I recently read the sequel to Scott Turow's bestseller from 1987, Presumed Innocent. I found both novels entertaining but neither will be significant books in my life. When reading Innocent, the more recent, I came to the reintroduction of the character Sandy Stern from the first book, and my first reaction was, "How can this be? Sandy Stern died." Then I realized: No, the fictional Sandy Stern didn't die. The actor, Raul Julia who played the character in the movie based on the first book died.

Those powerful movie images can be overwhelming. They get into your soul. Maybe that's why the Amish don't like their pictures to be taken.

The Pond's Frozen

Well over a hundred Canada Geese are visiting. These are definitely wilder birds than the semi-permanent ones we're used to seeing. They keep their distance from humans. There are a few gulls on the ice as well.

Prince Edward, a novel by Dennis McFarland

The novel is named for a county in southside Virginia that is best known for closing its public schools from 1959 to 1964 in opposition to racial integration. Most of author Dennis McFarland’s book takes place in August, 1959 just prior to the public school closing and the establishment of a private school for the white students. Although the main characters are fictional, some of the minor characters were real and the place names, such as the town of Farmville, are also real.

The main character, Ben, is a 10 year old boy, and most of the action is told in the first person by him. At times, however, the point of view switches to Ben’s adult voice that fills in the history of what is transpiring round the boy and what is the outcome. The pace of the action is slow, very much in tune of the pace of a hot southern summer at that time.

The closing of the Prince Edward County schools was well covered in the news, and I was 12 at the time and remember it well. In addition, I have visited the county a few times, the first visit taking place in 1966 just two years after the schools reopened. I was there with a friend who had decided to follow his family tradition of attending Hampden Sidney College which is located in the county near where the main character’s family, the Romes, had their fictional farm. My second trip was during his freshman year when I drove down from Maryland for a party. During these trips I met a young couple who were known to my friend because the husband had been a friend of my friend’s older brother while they were students at Hampden Sidney. The young husband was a lawyer in Farmville and killed himself a few years later, I believe. It’s possible that he played a role in the legal matters surrounding the school closing, but I don’t know.

The novel’s main character’s family has little resemblance to the TV stereotype of the 1950’s such as Father Knows Best or on Ricky Nelson’s show. The Romes are chicken farmers, and the mother and father show little affection for each other or display any ability to communicate with their three children. The grandfather is a cruel self-centered man who lives in the big house nearby on the family property. Ben’s attachments are to his older brother and especially to his older sister and to his best friend, a black boy of Ben’s age whose family live as tenant farmers on the Rome family land.

The characters and the action of Prince Edward seem very real to me. Some of the events are unpleasant and may be classified by literary types as Southern Gothic or in the Faulkner mode. I wasn’t able to find out much about the author, Dennis McFarland except that he was born in the Deep South and, based on when he graduated from college, he would appear to be a few years younger than me. That would make him close to the age of his main character in 1959, and since I tend to believe that authors put some of themselves into their characters the vivid descriptions of rural and small town southern life are as he would have seen them at the time. I think I felt a foreshadowing of a future in literature for Ben when he responds to an older woman showing him an Emily Dickinson poem, one my favorites.

I'm going to look around for more of McFarland's books.

Season's Ending

That's probably it for 2010 as I rarely get out fishing in December. It's possible if we have a warm spell, but I've already started to look ahead to the 2011 season and called Angler's in Annapolis about next year's licenses. I want to be legally ready to fish on January 1 because I remember about 10 years ago when New Year's Day was a mild day perfect for winter fishing, and no place was open to get a new license. Angler's doesn't have the new ones yet, so I'll check on line.

Along with looking ahead to 2011, I look back at 2010 with satisfaction. This past season began as they often do with late winter/early spring trout fishing. With April came the shad run up into the rivers like the Potomac, and although I got out and caught a few I'll plan to do it more often this coming year. As the weather warmed in later spring, I began concentrating on largemouth bass and bluegill which is fine, but I really should have taken more trout trips then as well. Summer for me means smallmouth bass, and there was good fishing on favorite waters and new waters as well.

One difference this year over past was the number of trips I took with other people. Two of the best were in late summer and early autumn on the Chesapeake for striped bass, or rockfish as we Marylanders call them. Two of these Bay trips were with professional guides as was the fall catfish tournament. The season ended as it began in pursuit of freshwater trout. Over the winter I'll remember about this year both the good company as well as the good fish.

Steve Martin

I just finished reading his memoir, Born Standing Up- A Comic's Life, and I liked it a lot. It's only funny in few places because he's basically a serious man who's lived a not very happy life. That Steve Martin is not the wild and crazy guy we first encountered in the 1970's is generally well known, so if the book is not very funny nor does it contain many surprises, what, you may ask, is the appeal?

It's an honest book, for one thing. Martin came from what is now called a dis-functional family with a cold and distant father, but there is no "poor, poor, pitiful me" in his writing. Martin believes the lack of paternal approval probably contributed to his drive to succeed in show business despite many unsuccessful early years.

He also doesn't bemoan the sacrifice of privacy that fame brings and quotes an observation that celebrities want fame when it's useful and don't when it's not. He feels he's reached a happy medium on this subject: "At first I was not famous enough, then I was too famous, now I am famous just right." He devotes more space to his early girl friends than his later relationships and marriages. As well as being basically a private person, he may legitimately feel the earlier romantic couplings are easier to understand and put in perspective.

His devotes attention to his first film, The Jerk, and says he immediately loved the social aspect of movie making in contrast to the lonely process of being a stand-up comedian. He praises the director, Carl Reiner, who he says taught him more about being a social person than any other person in his life. He doesn't say much about his subsequent movies. Personally, I like the earlier ones like Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Pennies from Heaven and L.A. Story but have found his more recent movies to be mediocre. I suspect he had a lot of creative input to the earlier ones but since then has been a hired actor. He also doesn't discuss his growing career as a writer except to note that it was his play Picasso at the Lapin Agile that finally won him praise from his father. I went back and reread the introduction, and he does make it clear that the book's focus is on his career as a comedian. That accounts for the omissions about his later life, I guess.

One reason I like memoirs is that they are generally written by someone who has achieved some success who looks back on his life and presents what he feels is significant. With Steve Martin's, it may be notable what he chooses to leave out. I have heard that performers should leave the audience wishing for more, and with his economy of words and understated style, Martin achieves this with his memoir, at least for me.

What's the symbolism in boner pill ads?

I keep seeing a commercial, for Cialis I think, where a couple seems to bump into each other while doing yard work. They lock eyes and get immediately hot.

Ok so far, but then it gets surreal. Their house goes through a metamorphosis into a tent and the picket fence into a boardwalk leading to the woods. A campfire appears. The final shot is the same in all these commercials: The man and woman are outdoors in separate bathtubs.

I don't get it. Outdoor sex is great, but what's with the separate bathtubs? Yeah, the purpose of the product is to put lead in your pencil, but how does a house turning into a tent symbolize getting it on? And those outdoor bathtubs-who the hell sits in a tub outside?

Dry flies on Morgan Run

Have felt the need to catch trout and three recent trips to the Middle Patuxent yielded none. Oh, I caught fish alright, bass, bluegill, fallfish, chubs, but no trout.

So today I headed north on Route 97 across the main branch of the Patuxent up through Howard County and across the Patapsco into Carroll County. When I got to the stream crossing on Klee Mill Road I noticed a surprisingly large number of cars in the parking lot, but my only concern was that my special pool, which I've christened "old reliable", would be occupied by another fisherman. No problem. It's too long a walk for most, and I after the first hundred yards walking along the stream I didn't see anyone.

As I threaded the four weight line into the rod I noticed two important things. The first was an annoying number of bugs crawling up my body onto the back of my neck. The second was rising fish. The two thing together added up to good news: There was a hatch of little black stone flies.

I sometimes think that given how long I've been doing it I should be a better trout fisherman, but I have learned a few things over the years. I know how to recognize this hatch and how to catch fish during it, so I tied on the appropriate floating fly and started casting. The action wasn't frantic but it was steady and included a handsome brown trout about sixteen inches. If we have another bad winter that fish will stay in my memory and help me through it.

Kayaking on Triadelphia Reservoir

Since there probably won't be many more opportunities before winter settles in, I decided to spend this afternoon on this lake which is on the border between Montgomery and Howard counties in Maryland. Although the temperature was mild, about 60 degrees, it was very windy with gusts up to 30 mph. Since fly fishing from a kayak in that much wind is frustrating, I decided to leave the fishing tackle home.


I found a peaceful cove where I could eat lunch out of the wind and take some pictures.


The reservoir was created in 1943 by the construction of Brighton Dam on the Patuxent River. There had been a village of Triadelphia, Maryland which went back to the early 1800's. The town was abandoned following a flood in 1889, and the remaining buildings lie beneath the waters of the lake. Flooding towns commonly occurs when a reservoir is made, and the movie Deliverance contains actual scenes of this process and incorporates it into the plot.

University of Maryland Sports

Big Fan. Saw two of the three basketball games that the Terps have played so far this year, and they won all three.

Big win for the football team yesterday at Virginia which makes them 7-3 with two left. Will be there for the season's final game against NC State.

Backyard Bamboo Project

When last summer's storms took out some trees, we lost a lot of backyard privacy. Even before then I started considering building a screen, and I liked the Japanese touch that bamboo provides. The Big Bambu art project we saw in New York was a final inspiration to get off my ass and begin.

My handyman, Richard, installed the 4 x 4 posts, and I ordered the two inch diameter eight foot bamboo poles and the lashing cord from an internet retailer in Pennsylvania. Then it was just a matter of cutting some of the poles for the vertical pieces and lashing everything together.




The project spread over a couple of weeks because I underestimated the amount of cord and had to place additional orders. I learned rope lashing and knots from the Boy Scouts 50 years ago but never before used those skills on such a large project. There will be some final touches, but it's mostly done.


Another Fall picture taken about a week ago.

Fishing Tournament

Sort of a mock competition among a group that met on an internet fishing board and formed our own board where we chat daily. We don't talk that much about fishing but it's still the common denominator, and yesterday was the fourth time this season that I've fished with various members of the group.

There were about a dozen of us on four boats that went out into the Potomac just a few miles below Washington, DC, and the prize went to the person who caught the largest catfish, a species I normally do not fish for.

The picture above shows Capt Mike and Charlie landing one of the catfish while I look on. In the background, Tip from his boat checks out his competition.
Later we ate and drank at in the parking lot of Fort Washington Marina.


A memorable day ended with a beautiful sunset. Thanks to Fritz Riedel for use of his pictures.