Streamside To Curbside

Streamside To Curbside

By Ronald Borst

Jan 17, 2012

 

The man turned on the light-switch flooding the darkness with white. The girl blinked awake looking up and said, Is it cold? Yes, he said. She rubbed her eyes. She said, Is there hot cocoa? Yes, he replied. Leaving the warm covers, she rose with a shiver in the old clammy house, with its cold air, perpetually cool in January. He had her winter clothes laid on the end of the bed, like always. Thermal underwear and wool socks, wool pants, and a college logo sweatshirt. LBCC it read in white letters, framed in a black and orange. A fleece jacket and water-proof boots. Pink crossed with black woolen gloves and matching coat.

     She dressed quickly and brushed her hair. He went to the kitchen and made wheat toast. The girl ate cereal with vitamin D milk while he loaded gear into the warming jeep.

She slept most of the way-the early morning ride usually made her sleepy-waking occasionally to curious bumps in the road or a bright light. The man pointed the rig out of town and up the mountain gingerly through the darkness. She felt a draft of cold crisp air. Opening her eyes, she could feel the slush beneath the tires. He liked the half open window's cool morning swish on his half-bearded face. Where are we?, she asked. Logsden, almost to Moonshine Park, and the big river gorge, he said.

The trees were dusted white and the road held no fresh tracks. He smiled as he drove, admiring the beauty. She was wide awake now and sat up to gaze at the winter scene. The man smiled and steered the wheels into the snowflakes sparkling in the misty sunshine, flickering and fluttering like fireflies. A sure fine day, she thought, many trips before it had rained and mostly kept on raining. Not today, just pretty flakes of awesomeness. Soon they came to a 'y' in the road and he slowed the Jeep. She rolled her window down and felt a soft wet flake drift onto her cheek. In the split of the Y stood a sign, not a state-like bright green one, but rather, a carpenters creation-complete with the carvings of a fish, presumable a salmon. The sign read: LEFT MOONSHINE PARK, RIVER GORGE RIGHT. He asked, Which way. Right, she answered with sureness in the words. She remembered well. He steered the 4-wheel drive towards the right and eased it onto the snow banked dirt road. She sat up as high as possible in the squatty Jeep and watched the narrow road snake its way upstream alongside the cascading waters. The truck crossed Bobcat Bridge and the riders glanced down at the river. Pretty, he said. I love this place, she said. The road continued to carry them up the mountains of Douglas Firs and glistening ridges, stands of soaked conifers and watershed valleys. He slowed the Jeep crossing a bridge at Stronghold Creek and pulled off the road on the other end of the icy, snow blanketed span.

      Yes, she said to nobody. Is this it? Yes, he said. He climbed out and opened the hatch of the Jeep. He looked around in the first-light. He went back to the front and grabbed his stocking cap, the cold air upon his hatless top. Can I have a snack, she said. Yes, and he reached in one of the packs and brought from it a donut. She took it earnestly and then he opened a thermos and poured her some. Hot chocolate, he said. Think it will snow a lot? No, he said. She had finished the pastry and was holding the cup with both hands, the warmth spreading into her little fingers. She could smell the sugary hot drink in its steaming, boiling and twisting in the air below her nose. She smiled as he unloaded their things, his breath visible like the chocolate in the chilled mountain air. Two poles with spinning reels loaded with 8 pound test. She remembered a classmate that came along a year or two back, asking what test meant and that he didn’t like tests. Rubber boots, His, then hers. He handed the girl her gloves and a cap that read I FISH WITH MY DAD. Pink. Go figure, he said. She looked up, What? Nevermind, he said. He pocketed his buck knife blade and pulled two packs from the jeep.

      As the man opened the pack, the remains of a six pack- plastic carrier and all- lay across the logging road in the ditch, visible and ugly and entirely out of place. Mumbling unprintable words he set the pack in the 4-wheel Jeep and walked across the crinkly white one-lane road and picked up the trash, disposing of it in the Jeep’s own trash bag. Who does that, she asked him. Does what, he asked. Leaves their trash here, she said. I don’t know, the man said, Let’s go fishin’.

In his pack the tackle. Boxes of jigs, lead and steel sinkers, spinning lures, bobbers, swivels, and yard. Red, orange, pink, black, and chartreuse. A box of terminal tackle with hooks, split-shot, and snap-swivels. Two pair scissors, needle nose pliers, a club and a survival knife, just in case. Which scissors are mine, she asked. The red ones you can use in the river, but they go in my pack. What goes in my pack, she asked. The food. She smiled then laughed at the prospect of having such available access to the food. I control the snacks, she said, feeling as privileged as a high-school sophomore with the keys to dad’s truck. They finished the drinks and planned the hike. He poured himself some more coffee as she put her thermos lid back on and they talked of a route along the river. He then locked the jeep and they slung their packs onto their shoulders. The man helped her put her gloves on. Black and pink matching her coat and cap. Of course, he said. What? Nothing. The tow picked up a pole apiece and headed towards a visible and known trail that leads to river.

They descended down the not too steep trail and crossed a small creek of bowling ball boulders in their knee high boots. He led them downstream purposefully. He seemed to know exactly where to veer left and turn right, when to duck thorns and how to step across wet river rock. She moved a little slower, more engaged in the scenic beauty of the place, and she could never remember the places on the trail that they had been. She stopped and adjusted her pack, staring up at the dusted white forest, and then continued on. A short while later she stopped again and this time spotted a heron above. Silent. Wings motionless. Still he soars, she said. What, he said, glancing back. That bird she said and pointed the way. That is a heron, he said. He knew things she thought, and she trusted those things. The two walked perhaps 30 yards and the man stopped, laying the pack on the rocks and the pole against a tree. She did the same. She assembled her pole and checked the drag by pulling some line out. The pole she felt sentimental about, an old fiberglass hand-me-down, seven feet and limber as a noodle. It had been a 10th birthday present from grandma. He had paired the classic pole with a nice reel and it was her present for learning the stream, every rock. She had learned to cast lures perhaps even as fast as him. The experience excited her senses. As it did him she studied the homemade spinner. Purple, she said, good for clearish water. Yes, he said. He watched over her as she made her way to the stream, stepping on the rocks and over puddles. She knew what, when, where and how. As she approached the green water she slowed, minimized her movement into a cattish stalk. She stopped and lofted the shiny lure slightly downstream, and across the river. She let it work down a ways and reeled in. Then repeated. He watched her from the shadow of an aging cedar, the trees canopy larger than a small yard, as he readied his own pole. The wind chill is stinging my face. She didn’t hear. And my fingers are cold. No reply. Absorbed in the casting of lures and the pleasant static noise the river makes, she heard none of what the man said. He could not remember being so easily chilled.

He joined her at the river’s edge and he cast similarily. The lure landed midstream. He let it sink and reeled it slowly back. The rythmic balance etched into their memory. He watched her fish. Simple. Efficient, he thought. The old man cast again, sliding the red and gold spoon into the icy green of the eddying pool and letting it flutter downstream. She watched as it disappeared swimming to the depths, vanishing into the murkiness, the pole-tip vibrating the lure's every action. She then cast in close proximation and when her line grew invisible in the current's center, she felt a tug. Not the kind of pull that an impeded lure on the rocky bottom would make, but rather a live tug. A fish tug. She set the hook rearing back as much as a teenage girl could. Fish on, she said. Good job the man said. He reeled in his own line and set his pole leaned on an alder. Another leap and the gunmetal gray back of the fish crashed back to the water sounding much like lightning in a quiet canyon. She stood on the slick, moss covered rocks, pole pointed up towards the blackish snow filled clouds. The pole-tip pulsed the steelhead's darts and dashes and dives. The line cracked and sliced the water and girl and fish tested wills. The all of 10 pounds fish raced around the hole as if there weren't a tomorrow. For a moment she thought the fish might get the best of her. Every time the line would dive deep, hunker down, then with alarming energy burst into the oxygen air and explosively return to the water, she thought it more doubtful to land this beauty steelhead.

Her heart was beating fast now, nerves and excitement collided in a racing heartbeat. She wished her friends to this place that very moment, to witness her task and her skill. She lowered the tip and reeled, keeping the line taut. Then she raised the tiptop, and gradually closed the distance between her and the quarry. Her arms burned with fatigue. Her temples cool and moist. Sweat had seemed impossible just minutes before, she thought. Another leap. In a few more minutes and a couple more acrobat jumps from the steelhead, the girl had the fish corralled in a shallow pool on the river's edge. The man reached for his back pocket bringing forth needlenose pliers. His bootsteps splashed the graveled water as he approached the catch. Adipose, he said. Native? Yes, he said. We have to let it go? Yes, the man said, but you did swell and it is a very nice fish. Yes it is, isn’t it?, she said. It surely is, he said as he removed the hook with a surgeons savvy and cradled the fish to the water. One sweep of the tail, a splash and the fish was gone. He extended his bony, weathered right hand. She took it and the two shook. She smiled at the thought of being included in this adult act. He smiled satisfaction and fetched some apple juice from the pack and offered it to her. She shook her head, No thank you she said. Some cocoa. Yes, she said. He opened the thermos and poured. The pair sipped the drinks and gazed at the mountainside, watching sporadic flakes drift sideways aimlessly in the canyon wind, landing in the treetops. Feet cold, he said. No, the girl answered.

The two fished some more in that stretch of river, ambling downstream and casting softly as they walked. Soon the man stopped his casting repetition, and just walked along the muddy bank, the sandy wet swishing and splashing in his steps. They had walked a hundred yards or so, inspecting the rivers flows, and then stopped under a winter oak tree, bare and skinny, waving in the wind. He gazed at the stream. He watched the emerald water boil around slick, moss covered rocks, gathering on the lee side and moving on. He studied the river bottom for movement, any sign of a lurking steelie. The man had witnessed fish here before. He moved quietly slow, cautiously and deliberately from the cover of the massive oak. He led them along the sandy bank to a bedrock bend intertwined with alders, the trees thriving on the waterlogged canyon floor.

The river was louder now, narrowing and compacting itself to pressurized rumbling whitecaps. Around the bend a towering bluff echoed the thundering sound throughout. They talked louder here. You remember this? Yes, she said. Directly opposite the bluff, she studied the blue-green water, remembering a monster 20 pound steelhead she had hooked 2 years prior. That fish had won, escaping before capture or a picture, and a release back to the wild- the fish did that part on its own. She had stopped walking, and adjusted the pack and turned to the river. She cast the spinner, floating the shiny metal to the cliff wall where it landed almost silently and sank and began to swim. The blade descended into the emerald depths, fluttering its shiny dimples. The lure entered the two foot zone along the rocky riverbottom within sight of a fish, where the spinner was attacked aggressively and symptomatically eaten, in the process impaling two of the trebles three hooks into the dense cartilage jaw of the attacker. In a moment’s time, the kind you don’t notice-like the space in between knowing you are about to wreck your car, and actually wrecking the car- the fish had went from the furthest of water to the surface, leaping airborne into the mountainside air. She watched in jaw-dropping awe. The man turned around at the explosive sound of re-entry to see the girl, pole yo-yo-ing back and forth, her lips curved into a wide smile. She had found another fish, a quarry the man had passed by. Surely the child was listening during lessons, he thought, watching her expertly corner and handle the steelhead, a savvy steelheader indeed. The man smiled at the girl’s calm, entirely at task she was, quiet and efficient. The fish airborn again and they both watched the chrome steelhead twist its muscular torpedo torso and crash back to the water. The fish swam and disappeared. The line zig-zaging across the water. Then nothing. Her tight line had vanished. She reeled slowly, a puzzled look about her face, the slack line dangling around her feet. Reel, the man said. Then again louder- REEL. She reeled faster and the tightness in the line returned and so did the weight of the winter steelhead. The same ‘pump and reel’ technique and in moments the fish was in close. Swaying softly in the slow current the fish rolled onto its side and paused. As the girl approached to land the fish so did the man and he again removed the hook with the pliers. The girl held the fish in a cradle grip and admired the colors on the fish’s scales. She counted the black unround spots on the fish, but not all of them. The man held out a tape measure to the length of the fish and said, Thirty-Five inches. She leaned to the river, bringing the cradle to the water and gently sweeping the fish, caressing the gills with the water. With a soft splash and a whip of the tail, the fish swam off to the river, continuing the spawning journey up the centers of the stream.

They sat under an enormous spindly aging oak and the man opened the pack and emptied their lunches on the huge roots. The pair talked as they ate, comparing favorite cars and lure colors. They laughed about boys and discussed school. And even nail polish. Safe out here in the woods, he thought about that subject.

When they had finished eating, the two packed up all of their gear and slung the packs onto their shoulders. The sun had crossed above them now and wouldn’t be long until it started to descend into the backs of the mountainsides. The snow showers had ceased and the two walked, casting in time.

After traveling a short distance the man looked up sharply, movement high up in the canyon treetops downriver caught his eye. He focused skyward and steadied his eyes. Gliding. A hawk, he said. He stopped walking and the girl did too. The large bird was sailing through the sky coming towards them, riding the canyon air right at them from 50 yards away. Not a hawk, the man said. An eagle, golden eagle, he continued. The two fishing buddies remained still when the golden eagle flew by twenty yards above, the brown and gold streaked feathers a flash across the white winter sky. The great bird continued upstream and perched upon an old Douglass Fir snag one-hundred feet up. Wow, she said to nobody.

The man laid his gear against an alder and the girl did the same. He reached in his pack and fumbled his hands around until he felt the binoculars and then pulled the lenses out. He focused the glasses on the huge raptor and then handed the lense to the girl. She took it and swung it on the bird. She watched for a moment and then offered the man a look. Look at the eagle eye, he said. She stared at the eagle again. She noticed the huge ivory beak and guessed its size. She noticed the gold streaks of feathers on the crown of the great bird. But mostly she saw the eyes. The fiery orange stare was surreal and made her feel alive, like she belonged in that place at that moment. It was the first time she had felt part of the earth. The moment was unforgettable and would resonate within the girl forever.

Climbing onto a marbled old fir stump to get a taller view, she stood up and raised the binoculars. She panned the viewfinder along the river then downstream. At the end of the fan-like pan, when she was focused downriver, she doubled the lenses back. Something bright, unmistakable, and she focused in again. Seeing the color she steadied the glass, and reds and blues, contrasting with the earthy tones dashed with white, came in to view. The green-gray-white disrupted by the bright out of place color. It was a distance, maybe two hundred yards, but she knew what this was. A transgression.

The girl grabbed her pack and her rod and started off downriver to see this offense. The unnatural color, the proximity of those colors to the ground, from far off she felt she knew what it was and it changed her attitude from the alert, aware and joyful fishcatcher to an angry bumblebee. She muttered under her thoughts, What the....she didn’t finish. She was not allowed to use those words but she knew enough to know this was a good time for it. She was now within a hundred yards. The man followed, slower, stopping to cast occasionally. As she walked she thought of who left this? And why? That was the real question. Why? Appalled that somebody who was here in this beautiful place had left traces, she led the man down to the spot where she first saw the wreckage. She stopped and glanced back at him fishing, and then looked at her reflection in the shallow water along the sandy bank. She saw herself and smiled, the soft fog rippling the reflected smile in waves. She loved this place and no matter what, it was a good day. She continued walking the snaking banks of the green water until she was close to the crime.

The man was soon right behind and he set his gear leaning on a fir tree. They both stared at the trash on the sandy foot-printed river edge and stood there silent. The winter wind broke the silence and they both shivered. Diet Coke cans. Lunchables wrappers. An Almond Joy wrapper half buried in the muddy sand. Empty packs of Danielson Tackle. A styrofoam bait box, a plastic grocery sack rustling inside its inside it’s lidless compartment. Who does that, she said. I don’t know. It makes me mad, she said. Me too. They stood there for longer than they had intended, saying nothing. Then the girl said, Do we have any garbage bags? No, he replied. Can I use my pack, she asked. You bet, he said. She knelt on both knees and emptied her pack. The man took the items and put them in his pack, causing it to bulge at the seams. She gathered the trash, depositing it into the now empty backpack. He did too. Latex glove. A cellophane wrapper. An empty Marlboro box. They had almost filled the pack when the ground looked natural again. I’m amazed, she said. Why. Who would do that, she said again. I don’t know, but it won’t be the last time, he said. Not if I have anything to say about it, she said. The two carried on down the river, almost silent as they cast and walked.

The afternoon had started to fade, the shadows grew darker as daylight had a foreseeable curfew. They didn’t hook anymore steelhead and when they came to a large bedrock ledge crawling out of the canyon wall he set his pack down and rested. We have perhaps one hour he said. That’s okay, she said, we can fish a bit more on the way back. They sat for a spell and tossed a few pebbles in the water, giggling at the tiny stone splashes before they headed back.

On the hike to the Jeep, the girl walked ahead as the man fished a bit. She wondered aloud what her teachers would think when she told them of a winter day in these woods, the weather’s sting upon her face, the bite in her bones. What would they think of me catching two dandy fish. And how they would be horrified at the dumpsite. She saw two mergansers flying together. Watch out for litterbugs she warned them out load. Yeah, and tiny steelheaders. She whirled around to see the voice. Only you, she chuckled at being snuck up on. He played games like that with her, far more fun than his arithmetic and his ancient Romans.

They came to the trail up to the bridge where he had parked the Jeep. They climbed the trail and crossed the concrete structure. He raised the hatch and the two loaded the gear into the rig in a neat, organized pile. I’m going to start a club, she said. Oh yeah, what kind? A club where nobody litters, she said. How you gonna do that, he said. I’m going to make a Facebook Page and invite everybody I know. I’ll get my friends to help me. He closed the hatch, the two entered the Jeep and buckled their seatbelts. When they had gone a few miles, descending snowbound hills and switch-back roads, she said, You don’t think it will work. No, he said, too many litterbugs to get ‘em all. I don’t like it any more than you, he said, but get used to it. No, she said. Yes.

She thought about what he had told her and wondered if it were true. The man never lied to her. But he seemed sure of the litterbugs. ...Has to be a way she thought. We will see, she said, her voice straddled with tones of defiance, begging to stop the littering nonsense.

All the way home the girl contemplated a calvacade of ideas, some ambitious, some realistic, and all remembered. The headlamps descended the mountain crossing Running Elk Valley and turning towards their home. It was dark now, but once back in town and under the city lights, she could see his face. If I had a club, she asked, would you join? Without any hesitation, the man said.

In the driveway he flicked off the lights, shut off the key and exited the tiny, cramped four wheel drive. She hopped out, still spry with a child’s energy after hiking and fishing all day in rugged country, and disappeared, bounding into the house, proclaiming her savvy steelheader skills. He wished he could bottle that youthful stamina, as he was undoubtedly wore out. He un-loaded the gear, and snuck a cigarette. When he finished putting the tackle away, he stood in the driveway, smoking in the dark, satisfied with the day, proud of the child. A moment later he washed his hands in the sink by the door and went inside. He smiled at his wife and winked, grabbed the newspaper and fell asleep in his old recliner, still clutching the front page.

She sat on her bed, the lavender spread pulled back. The fake silk she new wasn’t real, but nevertheless made her feel wonderful laying across its softness. She typed the keys to start her club. The keys on the laptop flowed like the Golden Eagle flies, filling the file with ideas, names, and solutions. What a club it became, she called it Streamside To Curbside, and they joined in masses. Ordinary people signed up faster than a second disappears. Politicians signed up and so did their cronies. Activists joined by the thousands daily. Entire schools joined in. They came from all over the world. She asked for volunteers armed with trash bags to swarm our natural areas and make amends for some dim-witted men. Make This Happen became the creed of the movement. The girl grew. Into a young woman, then a college student, and on to motherhood. During that entire time she never lost the fire to realize her dream sparked by that fateful afternoon. She seemed as if she were in a never-ending phone call to people or organizations that hadn’t joined. But it was so much more. Footwork. The girl hustled, tirelessly going on cleaning hikes, beach clean-ups, boat rides, and fishing with youth. The club grew too. By the time she graduated college, the club had one million members. When her first child was born, named River, the club had ballooned to ten million. Once, she started a grade school speech with the question: How would all of you like to be in a club that goes fishing and is free? The gymnasium erupted with cheer. Never tiring, never retiring, she enlisted even more. As many as she could. New neighbors and the grocery store jaunts were as good as any recruiter. As she grew older the creed became Never Surrender, a tune from her youth remembered. In her later days Streamside To Curbside had made its way around the world. The club had offices on every continent instructing folks how to preserve earth’s future, clubs in schools teaching the virtues of massive recycling, and became active in global efforts such as cleaning up the oceans, rejuvenating our forests and eliminating plastic waste.

On her grandson’s first birthday, the family spent the day in the pristine conifer mountains of northwest coastal Oregon, doing what she loved most, casting homemade spinners from hand-me-down poles and sipping hot cocoa.

None of them saw a single piece of trash on the river that day.

 

KEEP WATERS CLEAN -- PACK IT IN, PACK IT OUT! THANK YOU FOR NOT LITTERING!