Things I learned about/from OMJ
- He once caught a white salmon off Camano head back in the day, it was huge. He ate it but was underwhelmed.
- He was in the service, and spent time as a cook in the 50's. Some of his service was in Greenland. that was perhaps the most exotic place he ever went
- He fished all over the place, generally within 100 miles of Everett for much of his life, but as a kid more often around Bremerton
- His early fishing seemed to have way more salt/bait/gear excursions
- He was a literary critic. He wrote "too many words" about one of my stories on WFF- that still makes me laugh
- He had an ATV in Montana for a while and liked taking it into the hills and checking out the the blue lines there
- He worked at Boeing for a long time, this seemed like a ticket-punch job, not a passion
- Of his favorite thin blue lines he always seemed to come back to the Beckler, Foss and Miller rivers, acknowledging there were occasional bigger fish "in there"
- Towards the end he had a tremor, back pain, mobility issues and was tired a lot. The tremor made tying on tricky.
- He was like 70/30 sorta helpful/not helpful, with the 30% not helpful being, at least for me, psychologically way more interesting.(others may have different breakdown on that ratio)
- When not helpful he was perhaps- and I mean this in the nicest way- unintentionally amusing because of the curmudgeonly responses, particularly to peach-fuzzed noobs
- Any time folks made fun of him for being around since say the Land Bridge to Asia, or Kennewick Man etc he was always a good sport about it
- I do think, like a lot of us, he found connection among strangers on Forums like this and WFF. And as all of us get older, one of the things, above any other health predictor for longevity, social connection remains absolutely imperative. Stay involved in a community- doesn't really matter which one- if you want to age well. Call it what you will but his engagement here and on WFF was a way to stave off loneliness and isolation. Even surrounded by family, and he said this more than a few times, none of them fished, none seemed interested in finding fish..
The same can't be said for all of us.... BUT.... I would bet there are hundreds of us in a similar circumstance, plenty of people around us we work with, love, spend most of our time with etc, but have no interest whatsoever in those time-stands-still moments of exploration that occur with every fishing excursion. At least here he never had to explain it. Not that he woulda ever tried, "too many words....."
- He once caught a white salmon off Camano head back in the day, it was huge. He ate it but was underwhelmed.
- He was in the service, and spent time as a cook in the 50's. Some of his service was in Greenland. that was perhaps the most exotic place he ever went
- He fished all over the place, generally within 100 miles of Everett for much of his life, but as a kid more often around Bremerton
- His early fishing seemed to have way more salt/bait/gear excursions
- He was a literary critic. He wrote "too many words" about one of my stories on WFF- that still makes me laugh
- He had an ATV in Montana for a while and liked taking it into the hills and checking out the the blue lines there
- He worked at Boeing for a long time, this seemed like a ticket-punch job, not a passion
- Of his favorite thin blue lines he always seemed to come back to the Beckler, Foss and Miller rivers, acknowledging there were occasional bigger fish "in there"
- Towards the end he had a tremor, back pain, mobility issues and was tired a lot. The tremor made tying on tricky.
- He was like 70/30 sorta helpful/not helpful, with the 30% not helpful being, at least for me, psychologically way more interesting.(others may have different breakdown on that ratio)
- When not helpful he was perhaps- and I mean this in the nicest way- unintentionally amusing because of the curmudgeonly responses, particularly to peach-fuzzed noobs
- Any time folks made fun of him for being around since say the Land Bridge to Asia, or Kennewick Man etc he was always a good sport about it
- I do think, like a lot of us, he found connection among strangers on Forums like this and WFF. And as all of us get older, one of the things, above any other health predictor for longevity, social connection remains absolutely imperative. Stay involved in a community- doesn't really matter which one- if you want to age well. Call it what you will but his engagement here and on WFF was a way to stave off loneliness and isolation. Even surrounded by family, and he said this more than a few times, none of them fished, none seemed interested in finding fish..
The same can't be said for all of us.... BUT.... I would bet there are hundreds of us in a similar circumstance, plenty of people around us we work with, love, spend most of our time with etc, but have no interest whatsoever in those time-stands-still moments of exploration that occur with every fishing excursion. At least here he never had to explain it. Not that he woulda ever tried, "too many words....."
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