This appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera. Thought you might all enjoy Gordon's view:
SIGNS of the TIMES
The Gospels suggest that we too may be an evil and adulterous
generation forever seeking signs. Whether we are evil and adulterous--
for which there seems ample evidence-- we surely are busy seeking
signs, signs of economic recovery, of health care reform, all kinds of
signs of a finer, more generous, healthier, peaceful national life-- A
life reconciled with the good earth-- or signs of ever more evil….
Looking for Signs…. Well, this summer I saw what were for me two
compelling signs, signs suggesting, hinting at just the restoration
we need.
On Saturday morning, the eighteenth of July, I drove up Boulder
Canyon, past Boulder Falls to where the canyon floor spreads out into
a flat, known as Rogers Park. There were people all over the place,
all over a half-mile of the stream that Boulder Flycasters had
projected to restore to something like a natural trout stream and
picnic area that had earlier been destroyed in the hey-day of the
Corps of Army Engineers and destructive county road work. Rocks were
rolled, pools rebuilt, the stream re-confined to its proper bed--
providing a haven for the trout which have been wild in that water for
four generations-- and for the new angler who wants things simpler,
closer to home, yet elegant.
Well, one hundred people, young and old, foreign and domestic,
anglers and non-anglers, girls and boys stealing glances at each other
as they dug in the rocks, were all over the creek bed digging,
planting willows and all sorts of riparian vegetation-- to complete
the project in fine style. Not one of those people working so hard in
the stones, digging and planting, could have the slightest personal
investment in the project, no prospect of personal gain, that is. But
what was gained was a profound correction for past sins against the
environment. An investment in a trout stream that most of them would
never themselves fish. Some were not even residents of the USA, but
who, as visitors, had come to believe in an idea. "The best fishing
begins and ends with an idea." is the motto of THE BOULDERCREEK ANGLER.
What I want to hammer home is that in my day, such a project would
never have occurred to us; and if it had, we would have dismissed it
as impossible, if not foolish. We did not back then see so clearly or
so far.
As I watched all those souls at work restoring "my" creek, I
thought that indeed we now have learned something, felt something, and
swung into action on behalf of that idea. And the trout in their
gratitude hurried into that rebuilt, restored section of stream, there
to prosper. Surely a SIGN.
And only two weeks later, over on the Planet Bluegrass music
festival grounds on the North St. Vrain, another local creek, above
Lyons, there took place the annual "Cane Conclave", like an old
fashioned down-home, home-grown get-together of people who made and
were interested in bamboo "cane" fishing rods, old tackle generally,
and just people with much in common visiting happily together. There
were maybe two hundred attending, relaxed, casting fine rods, fishing
the creek, buying, selling, and trading, enjoying a great lunch,
absolutely and utterly out from under any suffocating corporate
presence and control. This easy, simple, yet deeply satisfying event
had escaped entirely the rapacities of our time. It was surprising in
its "old-fashioned" novelty; and, I noted, at a place dedicated to
Music, to which anglers, significantly, found their way to post their
SIGN.
Both of these events had found the perfect space for their
staging of new/old ways, the one for restoration, the other for the
aesthetics of craft. A Finnish theatre director once admonished me to,
" Get the space right and everything is possible."
I believe that these two Boulder County moments signal the
beginning of what could be the New Period in American fly fishing, if
not of American life. We shall be NEW or we shall be deadly old.
So many deserve so much credit for the hard work of planning and
making these two great days of high summer happen. They should all be
named and celebrated. What they did was restorative and visionary--
the sturdy work of their own hands. Two signposts of renewal in the
summer of 2009.
SIGNS of the TIMES
The Gospels suggest that we too may be an evil and adulterous
generation forever seeking signs. Whether we are evil and adulterous--
for which there seems ample evidence-- we surely are busy seeking
signs, signs of economic recovery, of health care reform, all kinds of
signs of a finer, more generous, healthier, peaceful national life-- A
life reconciled with the good earth-- or signs of ever more evil….
Looking for Signs…. Well, this summer I saw what were for me two
compelling signs, signs suggesting, hinting at just the restoration
we need.
On Saturday morning, the eighteenth of July, I drove up Boulder
Canyon, past Boulder Falls to where the canyon floor spreads out into
a flat, known as Rogers Park. There were people all over the place,
all over a half-mile of the stream that Boulder Flycasters had
projected to restore to something like a natural trout stream and
picnic area that had earlier been destroyed in the hey-day of the
Corps of Army Engineers and destructive county road work. Rocks were
rolled, pools rebuilt, the stream re-confined to its proper bed--
providing a haven for the trout which have been wild in that water for
four generations-- and for the new angler who wants things simpler,
closer to home, yet elegant.
Well, one hundred people, young and old, foreign and domestic,
anglers and non-anglers, girls and boys stealing glances at each other
as they dug in the rocks, were all over the creek bed digging,
planting willows and all sorts of riparian vegetation-- to complete
the project in fine style. Not one of those people working so hard in
the stones, digging and planting, could have the slightest personal
investment in the project, no prospect of personal gain, that is. But
what was gained was a profound correction for past sins against the
environment. An investment in a trout stream that most of them would
never themselves fish. Some were not even residents of the USA, but
who, as visitors, had come to believe in an idea. "The best fishing
begins and ends with an idea." is the motto of THE BOULDERCREEK ANGLER.
What I want to hammer home is that in my day, such a project would
never have occurred to us; and if it had, we would have dismissed it
as impossible, if not foolish. We did not back then see so clearly or
so far.
As I watched all those souls at work restoring "my" creek, I
thought that indeed we now have learned something, felt something, and
swung into action on behalf of that idea. And the trout in their
gratitude hurried into that rebuilt, restored section of stream, there
to prosper. Surely a SIGN.
And only two weeks later, over on the Planet Bluegrass music
festival grounds on the North St. Vrain, another local creek, above
Lyons, there took place the annual "Cane Conclave", like an old
fashioned down-home, home-grown get-together of people who made and
were interested in bamboo "cane" fishing rods, old tackle generally,
and just people with much in common visiting happily together. There
were maybe two hundred attending, relaxed, casting fine rods, fishing
the creek, buying, selling, and trading, enjoying a great lunch,
absolutely and utterly out from under any suffocating corporate
presence and control. This easy, simple, yet deeply satisfying event
had escaped entirely the rapacities of our time. It was surprising in
its "old-fashioned" novelty; and, I noted, at a place dedicated to
Music, to which anglers, significantly, found their way to post their
SIGN.
Both of these events had found the perfect space for their
staging of new/old ways, the one for restoration, the other for the
aesthetics of craft. A Finnish theatre director once admonished me to,
" Get the space right and everything is possible."
I believe that these two Boulder County moments signal the
beginning of what could be the New Period in American fly fishing, if
not of American life. We shall be NEW or we shall be deadly old.
So many deserve so much credit for the hard work of planning and
making these two great days of high summer happen. They should all be
named and celebrated. What they did was restorative and visionary--
the sturdy work of their own hands. Two signposts of renewal in the
summer of 2009.
