The Virtue of Anger

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

--H. L .Mencken

All right, so mine is not the voice of moderation. The asylum doors have been flung wide open and bitter experience reminds me that a calm, benevolent patience is not always the best course when faced with serious threat.

The Au Sable River was discovered on July 26, 1953. By me. On my tenth birthday. On that day, as a life passage of sorts, my father lifted me from the comfortable meander of small streams to the wide roll and more lustful mewing of "the river." No guide ever stood as close to a client as my father did with me that early morning near Perry Creek flat. My cheap waders ripped on thorns even before we waded in below the creek mouth, and I lost a small fly box almost immediately thereafter (flies cost a quarter then and the specter of financial ruin directly attributable to fly fishing made its first appearance). I slipped, fell, and was quickly righted and steadied by strong hands. My waders did not fill due to the convenient slashes at both ankles. I do not remember feeling cold.

Trout were rising in the tail-out and I caught two rainbows of about eleven inches on a small Adams. They jumped! They were the first rainbows I had ever touched and I then thought them superior to the browns and brookies of Houghton Creek. More trout continued to feed, but none of these had any interest in my clumsily cast flies. When we waded ashore to return to our cabin on Island Lake they were still eating, taunting.

"Can we come back tomorrow?" I pleaded.

"No. We have to go back to Pontiac tomorrow," my father answered and patted my head.

A well of frustration mixed with excitement and no small measure of youthful pride. I had caught two magnificent, leaping, crimson-sided trout on a dry fly, but now faced several miserable days before the family vacation officially began. A juvenile version of fly fishing paranoia took grim hold. Would the fish still be there? Would someone else catch and kill them? Could I get my father to take me to the river - every day? Did I have enough flies? I was addicted. The river owned me for life.

Although it continues to be the topic of spirited discussion at family brawls, I officially "grew up" and passed into a frenetic world of commerce and greed with moves to Minnesota, Manhattan, back to Minnesota, and so on. After years of reasonable but pleasureless corporate success and an ever heightening sense of personal anxiety it seemed appropriate to look more deeply and critically into my own cup. Empty.

It is probably not in my best self-interest to provide much detail on how and why I came to return to Michigan. Suffice it to say that my catch and release philosophy extended to love and fortune and, thusly unfettered, I returned home to the Au Sable valley, to Oscoda County. I was born, raised, and loosely, liberally educated here and it is now my intent to grow old and die here.

But home is clearly not as it was. Even the most bubble-headed optimist recognizes change with mixed emotion, that not all change (read progress/development) is a positive force. Voltaire reminds us that "Optimism is the madness of maintaining that everything is right when it is wrong" and to my muddled brain and jaundiced heart he could well point to the blithe spirits of some of our conservation and angling communities as prime examples of that sentiment.

An optimist points to the National Guard as a source of community pride and income. A realist sees disdainful arrogance and a total disregard for one of the most beautiful rivers in the world. An optimist reports that the Canoe Marathon has no adverse effect on the river, but the realist notes the incredible garbage piles at race viewing points and hears of potentially deadly near collisions between night-training racers running without lights and wading anglers. An optimist boasts of the protection afforded to wild and scenic rivers, but any realist in a reasonable sensate condition knows that all it takes is money to get an exception for construction or alteration.

My high anxiety has returned with a prickly, neck-tapping fear and it is not paranoia. Paranoia is defined as "the baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others" (Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged, my italics). And I do distrust the motives of politicians, soldiers, and promoters.

Our river needs rest and it needs friends. It needs and deserves a respect for its capacity, not to pleasure us but simply to survive. There is a limit of tolerance for canoe paddles and wadered feet, for tennis shoes and beer cans, for the deadly toxins of war.

Last year, my nephew, godson, and namesake, had a pressing need to float and fish, but more importantly, to talk. It was July 5th, not a peaceful date but the need was urgent and we drifted slowly from Parmalee toward the Whirlpool at Cherry Creek Road. Canoe flotillas and inner tube armadas made fishing problematic at best, but we were there more for the talk and it really didn't matter. Families waved and asked if we had caught anything. Children squealed and splashed. Twice I noticed canoers going out of their way, with great exertion, to retrieve floating plastic bottles. We exchanged salutes and grins and thumbs up. Robby caught a brook trout and we solved a serious problem. A pretty young woman "flashed" us as she and her equally lovely partner paddled by. It was, all in all, a pretty good day - uplifting, demonstrative of a growing awareness of the value of the river. The people in the canoes, particularly the rented canoes, behaved admirably. So far.

The turn into the inky flat above the whirlpool produced a sinking feeling. Three battered (private) canoes were lashed together and loosely piloted by six profane, very drunk men in early middle age. The trailing inner tube supported a crumbling Styrofoam cooler and was itself trailed by several bobbing cans. We plucked the cans and pulled into the landing to a chorus of slurred salutations. Robby, mindful of family history, admonished me to stay calm.

And calm I stayed. We trailered the boat and tubed our rods as the slur brothers staggered and gagged and fell on the shore. One turned a boom-box to full volume and flopped on his back while another lurched toward a vehicle parked, amazingly, in the shade. I noted with great satisfaction that they were all terribly sunburned. "Whukina fugga boaizat?" asked one as he jerked forward for an official inspection. He turned, much like a scaly, twirling dancer from the mind of Dante and fell - facedown into the river. At least his torso and head were in the river. His feet flopped on the sand and his arms jerked but did not push up. He vomited. He was drowning.

His friends were busy with their own personal bodily malfunctions and seemed not to notice. I stared and stood still. Calm.

Robby yelled "Uncle Bob - goddamn it!" and rushed into the water to pull the man out. He laid him on his back and the man gurgled and spewed and breathed deeply. His friends pronounced him "fit as a fiddle" and we drove away.

After a few minutes my very grim nephew asked in a shaky voice, "Were you going to let him die?" Then, a minute or two later. "Well - were you?" We were nearly to M-33 before I answered.

RWOL

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