The sun was in my favor. It was low and behind me, and shadowed everything in front of me with that perfect orange. The temperature was just right for open windows. It was a pleasure to leisurely drive the rural Centre County two-laner.

I slowed when I spotted a car on the side of the road. At first, all I saw was the girl standing next to the open trunk. She couldn’t be alone, I thought. And of course, she wasn’t.

A man walked around the corner of the car, carrying two fishing rods he had just retrieved from the back seat. Father and daughter shared a happy word, and although I couldn’t hear what they said, I felt as if I’d been eavesdropping. The man gave a neighborly wave.

I’m sure they had no idea they caused me, less than a mile later, to be so misty-eyed I had to pull my car off the road to find my composure. In one inconsequential incident, that parked car took me back more than three decades. I was that girl. Our family shared its happiest, softest, most gleeful moments along the rivers and ponds of eastern Pennsylvania.

The snapshot no camera ever caught was us on state game lands in Lehigh County — Dad, Mom, a couple of the daughters and their son — each outfitted with a basic spinning rod and reel, fighting off deer flies and mosquitoes, trying hard to be quiet, baiting hooks with worms, probably maiming a mountain of bluegills before throwing them back.

There were no such things as ultralights in our family of rods. My Zebco was big and bulky and in a constant state of tangle. If I still had it, it would probably be a collector’s item. And nobody wanted to be caught dead using the bamboo rod. That was for babies.

What uncles and cousins came along, the expeditions ended in a feast on the grill. Funny, I see us fishing. I remember eating trout and panfish, but the cleaning and filleting isn’t even a vague blur. Poor Mom.

When we got bored with quietly holding a rod, our fathers would send us to look for worms (despite the full coffee can of nightcrawlers judiciously plucked the night before). We kids would turn over rocks and watch the thousand-leggers and insect larvae scatter, try to catch crayfish in flimsy paper cups and chase after water striders.

Never was this done within earshot or water disturbance range of the adults. We learned early on to go to the other side of the pond, or upstream or downstream to engage in non-fishing aquatic activities. Alarm the fish and you could just about make out the gateway to hell. The punishment was pure pain — you had to sit in the car.

It might have been for as long as five minutes, but on the youthful clock, the entire afternoon was gone while you contemplated the error of alerting wily trout to the presence of non-native salmon eggs camouflaging barbed hooks.

Until that moment on the road, I had no idea of the scope of my outdoor classroom. Those days, spent so carefreely on the banks of the Little Lehigh and the Coplay, and at the Copeechan, had shaped my future. My father and my Uncle Andy didn’t just take us fishing. They identified fish species, pointed out breathing mechanisms and probably without thinking about it, taught us outdoor ethics to heed the rest of our lives.

Sadly, I tossed away the rod when puberty caught up to me. My last youthful moment fishing with my dad makes me flinch every time I think of it. It was my 15th birthday, and my father insisted he and I go alone to the game land reach.

I spent the entire time grousing about what I didn’t want to do — fish — and how none of my friends wanted to share my important day. The July morning was beautiful. I was downright ugly.

My father just baited his hook and kept me there until he checked his watch and said, “Okay, let’s go.” I’m sure I said something awful, like “Finally.” He brought me back to a house full of girlfriends and a surprise party.

Thankfully, I found my way back to the stream during my college days. My dad and I got a few more years of fishing in before he lost his sight to diabetes.

Now, I find peace in the stream banks and pond edges. I have a rod, a fine, thin set-up. And sometimes, it’s replaced by a camera. Still, the allure remains the same.

My dad and uncle are gone now. I hope they’re fishing together. And I hope they’ll wait for me.

—-

Published in Pennsylvania Angler, December 1993

Every year, I wait for one special day. It’s the one day I know summer is leaving us behind.

I don’t need a calendar to tell me when fall officially begins. Most of the time, that late September day doesn’t have anything to do with the true change of the seasons. There have been years when late September felt more like mid-August.

This year, I knew autumn was wrapping her arms around Pennsylvania on Wednesday, September 20. Tuesday was hot and humid. Wednesday woke me up with a crisp bite of air blowing in the open window. Even before I was out of bed, I knew this was the day. There’s only one of them each year and this was it.

The sky showed off her steely mix of gray, blue and white. It’s a presentation that only the very best watercolorists can imitate. A graceful wind was blowing, subtle and powerful all at once.

My agenda was set. A walk was on tap. I keep my favorite hooded jacket on the coat rack by the door. It had gone limp through the heat of the past months, but I was refreshed just from the need to wear it.

Naturalists call it stump sitting; defined as the art of being quiet and still, and absorbing the woods. I took up my perch and noted that what I was doing was more rotten-log-resting than anything else.

Silence kept me company, broken only by the occasional thud of an overripe apple falling from an old tree next to me. My nose was getting chilled – not much, but enough to remind me this is what I have been waiting for.

I reached behind me and put my sleeve into a nest of burdock. The spiny balls had already turned brown, so they were at their prime for sticking to me. There is a certain science to removing these burrs from clothing and dog coats, and it requires patience.

Having to pick them off the arm of my coat was only mildly entertaining, so I let my attention wander to a patch of goldenrod. Conducting their pollen-gathering through the flower heads were a number of bumblebees. Because their backs were furry, I knew they weren’t carpenter bees. Theirs was slow motion movement and I wondered if this was a reaction to the beginnings of the change of seasons as well.

My burdock-cleaning chores done enough, I leaned back to make pictures out of the clouds. I blinked a few times to get a bead on a big patch of black on the steely horizon. Led by a speck of bigger, darker black, the swarm held tight together, rolling and diving in a pattern that resembled nothing more than the tail of a kite.

Most of it was a clutch of birds, possibly 100 starlings or more. The single leader — the tail wagging the dog — was a solitary hawk. I have never seen so many birds after one predator. They were intent on chasing the bigger bird from their aerial territory.

The safety of numbers gave them strength until most of the hundred fell away from the chase. Probably ten hung on to reinforce the no-trespassing message. This drama was being played out high in the sky and I had to really concentrate to keep my focus.

Just for a second, the hawk faltered. I could only guess that one of the littler birds must have made contact. In a moment, he regained his wings and turned on his attackers, scattering them. They broke off the chase and he glided away from them, hanging on the current of warm air to propel him past my ability to keep him in sight.

I couldn’t afford the luxury of much more time on the stump, so I packed up my senses and walked back into the bustle of the workday. It didn’t take long, but it was enough time to be sure that fall is finally here.

—-

Published in Harrisburg Patriot column, “Nature Penn,” September 28, 1989