“I’d love to go fishing with you again son...”

Those heart-rending words echoed in my ear as I talked with my dad in his far away nursing home. I live in Colorado, high up in the mountains, and dad still lives where I grew up, in Coos Bay, Oregon. Now though, he lives in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair, and feeling every one of his 85 years.  

“How can I take him fishing?” I thought to myself. I’m a long ways away, and he’s in a wheelchair. Then I thought about the pending trip my wife Lanna and I had planned earlier this year. Her parents also lived in Coos Bay, and since they were retired, we had decided to help them out a bit by replacing their furnace, and had planned on flying out to be there during the installation. 

Of course we had planned on visiting dad, but I hadn’t thought of the fishing until I heard his plea. I had grown up with a fishing pole in my hand, thanks to him. Could I do anything less than try my best to take him fishing one last time? Talks with friends that visited him leant me to believe that dementia, and debilitation was taking its toll. Perhaps this was to be his last year.

We flew to Coos Bay via Portland, Oregon as planned this last May, landing in the early afternoon and greeting Lanna’s parents as we exited the airplane. We had actually landed in North Bend, Oregon, just next door to Coos Bay, who shared the airport. Within an hour or so of arriving at my in-law’s house, Lanna and I rushed over to see dad. 

He had known we were coming, but with all of the times he had asked when we were going to arrive, I had despaired that he would remember. As we walked up to the door of the nursing home however, I could see him in his wheelchair, just inside and peeking out the side window. He had been there for hours, waiting for us. Hugs and kisses, and lots of talking followed, but I could see the immense changes since we had last been there nearly two years before.  He was much thinner, his hair was snow white and in a buzz-cut.  The easier he said to take care of it.  But mostly it was his eyes that haunted me.  

We could see him come and go as we talked. He would be quite glib, funny,  or joking one minute, then stare off into space the next, and have difficulty in concentrating. His memory, in the past an awesome thing, even for minutiae, was missing large pieces from our mutual past that at one time had been very important to him. I could see Lanna tearing up, watching this gentle, kind old man drifting in and out of recognition. 

I had seen it before when mom was dying of Alzheimer’s. In this very place, I had watched her drift away, and be gone for hours sometimes, but on her return, she would cry. She knew what was happening then, and it frightened her. Dad doesn’t have Alzheimer’s, but the dementia has some similar effects, and the resemblance was awful. We left him there with a promise to return each day and visit.  Timing them around the construction at the house, and the painting we were doing to keep Lanna’s folks off of ladders.

The next day I returned alone to visit, and again found dad sitting just behind the window, waiting. “Where have you been?” he asked. “I’ve been waiting all day for you.”  

Although I had told him I would be back around 2 pm, the nurses confirmed that he had stationed himself at the window right after breakfast, and left only for lunch, immediately thereafter returning to his post. Thankfully dad has always had a good appetite, and has always thoroughly enjoyed food. I couldn’t imagine how I would have felt if he had skipped meals waiting for me.  

We moved into the lounge area, currently deserted, and just talked. As was dad’s habit in recent years, the reminiscing was of the things he could still remember. Boy Scouts (dad had been a scoutmaster for over 25 years, earning the Silver Beaver award. And somewhere along the way I had earned Eagle, much to dad’s pride and delight), hunting, camping, and of course, fishing.  

We talked about some of the trips we’d taken to Oregon lakes, and the fish we’d caught. In between stories, dad would drift in and out, sometimes repeating what he had just said, sometimes forgetting and going on to another tale. My heart was breaking. Although I was the youngest of three, with my sister and brother ahead of me, I was always the closest to dad. My brother Don had died in a car accident in 1974, and my sister was nowhere to be found. This was not unusual for her, so I am all that dad has of his family now. The grandchildren are a long ways away, and the great grandchildren are all too young to understand.

During this visit, Minetta, a long time friend and companion of dad’s after mom died, stopped in to see him. Her constant visits are likely what really keeps dad going, I think. So we sat and talked, the three of us. 

Soon the conversation was spiced a bit when Minetta said, “Your dad has changed his mind, and wants to be cremated instead of buried in the cemetery.”  

Dad had purchased the plot many years before. And he had even bought his headstone and placed it there. The only things missing were the end date, and him. I won’t say I was too surprised because dad had always been pretty practical, and so when I asked him why, he simply said “It’s cheaper, and I don’t want to take up space.”  

“OK,” I said, “where do you want your ashes placed, in the grave?”  

“No,” he said, I want them scattered on Takhenitch lake. That’s my favorite fishing lake you know, and well, the fish there have fed me for many years, and now it’s my turn to feed them.” Then he laughed. With tears rolling down my cheeks, I laughed too. You just couldn’t keep this old man down.  

Then turning, he whistled at one of the nurses in the facility and said, “Hi beautiful, got a date for tonight?”  

And she answered, “Oh Earl, you wouldn’t know what to do with me.”  

“True”, dad said, and sighed. (Did I mention that when a write-in vote was taken in February, to choose a king of Valentines Day, it was dad that was selected?)  

I decided right then that I would indeed take him fishing that Saturday, regardless of the obstacles. So I got his attention and told him I would take him to Takhenitch on Saturday, and we would have a great time. He looked at me and said, “Son, I’m not sure I know how.”  

Nearly choking, I told him not to worry, that I would show him how, and anyway, his instincts would take over. “9 am,” I said. I would pick him up then, and we’d go. That cheered him, and from then on the stories were tales of our fishing days.  

“When are you picking me up?” he asked for the umpteenth time. “9 am”, I answered each time.  

I could see he was worried. He told me he was so afraid he would over sleep and miss the trip that he might just have to stay up all night. “Not to worry,” I told him, and walked over to the nurses station to borrow a pen and piece of paper. On the paper I wrote,

Fishing

Saturday morning

9 AM

I’ll bring the worms.

Tom

 

Then I wheeled him to his room and stuck the paper on the wall next to his bed. He couldn’t miss it.

The following day was Friday. Dad was sitting behind the window again, and we sat, talked and rehashed the same story’s we rehashed on Thursday,  …and Wednesday. Today too he asked me several times when I was picking him up on Saturday.  

“9 am,” I replied. “Don’t forget to look at your wall. Its got the paper to remind you. And besides, I’ve talked with the nurses and they assure me they will help make sure you are ready.”  

This seemed to satisfy him, but he still looked worried. It was so sad to see him this way. Dad had always been big (six foot two), and although very strong, he was a gentle man. I sometimes look at the pictures of him when he was a young man, working in the Oregon logging woods for a dollar a day, falling trees 12 feet in diameter with a whip saw. 

I always envision dad when I hear the Ray Stevens Haircut song, when he sings “I’m a logger, up from Coos Bay, Oregon. Just about the toughest man there is alive.” Dad was always a man of the outdoors. Rugged and self-reliant, he could hike all day, get his deer, and haul him back. Now he sits dejectedly in his wheel chair, waiting to die.

Saturday dawns bright and clear. Frankly something I had only hoped would happen, since we are talking about the Oregon coast. The odds favored overcast and/or rain, but Mother Nature seemed to know that dad was coming to get some of her fish again…and she approved!  

Yep, he was sitting in his wheelchair behind the window, but this time he had a jacket on and a pretty neat round straw hat to keep the sun off his head.  He looked pretty natty actually.  I went in and told him I needed to go check him out at the nurses station.  

He nodded, eyes bright, and said, “I know. Tell them I’ll bring them some fish.”  

When I talked with the nurse, she told me that dad had gotten up at 6 am, pretty unusual for him these days, and insisted on being dressed right away so he wouldn’t miss the trip. They even had a little trouble getting him to go to breakfast, but sausage and eggs won out and he ate. Then he wheeled himself to the window and waited. 

I bundled him into the car, and placed his wheelchair in the trunk alongside the two fishing poles I had borrowed from my father-in-law, along with his fishing box, and we headed to Wal-Mart. I needed to get us both a one-day license, and some power bait. Some people say that power bait is cheating, because it works so good, but I wanted every odd in my favor that day. You see, even though the trip and attempt at fishing would be all either of us really needed, catching a fish or two would just make things that much better.

Takhenitch lake is about 35 miles or so up the coast from Coos Bay, just beyond the quaint little town of Reedsport. We arrived at the lake at about 10 am, and I proceeded to get dad into the wheelchair, and wheel him out onto the boat dock. The lake nestles itself into, and around, the intensely green hills of this small section of the coast.  The lake is public, but the land around it is owned by a lumber company, so there are no houses or cabins to be seen ,except for a small dock and boat rental at the far end of the lake.  

The trees and brush are so thick, that it grows right to the waters edge, eliminating any possibility of walking the shoreline to fish. This means you fish from the dock or a boat, and since dad,s condition eliminated a boat, I decided we’d just sit on the dock and still-fish. There was just a slight breeze to stir the surface of the water, and although warm, the sun was not too hot. In fact, it was like Goldilocks and the small bed. It was just right.  

The dock was long and L shaped, extending from the shore about 100 feet before taking a sharp right for another 30feet. I wheeled dad out to the L, and on it for about 5 feet, then locked his wheels down. It took only a few minutes to prepare the poles with hooks, sinkers and bait. Power bait, of course. 

Then I cast out for dad and I, and handed him a pole. He looked at it, smiled, and settled back in the chair to wait. I looked around me, savoring the moment, and remembering all the times we had fished this lake. Little had changed, except the nice new dock. The trees and brush looked the same, and off in the distance I could see one of the three wooden railroad trestles that crossed the many arms of this convoluted little lake as the tracks wended their way north and south on the coastal line.  

For years we had taken boats over to these trestles, tied up and waited for the trains to pass over. Their weight and vibration would cause insects, living in the wood, to be knocked loose and into the water. The fish knew this and would come swimming when the trains went by. We, of course, capitalized on their eagerness, and harvested our share of Blue Gill, Perch, Catfish and Trout. Now that was just memory, but still it looked the same.  Behind me was the greenish water, lily pads, cattails, and tree debris that makes such good bass water. Ducks were abundant, and you could occasionally here a lake loon crying out on the lake somewhere. This was what I remembered, and it was easy to see why dad would love it so.

We sat and talked for awhile, but the fish were not cooperating at all. Soon we both became hungry so I told dad I would run up to the fishing shack at the end of the lake and get us a snack. I asked him what he would like, and he said anything, he was starved.  

Then I said, “Now watch my pole too while I’m gone, will you?”  

“Of course,” he said, eyeing my pole as it leaned against the rail just to his left. I moved it closer so he could easily reach out and grab it. I drove to the fishing shack, and settled for a couple of candy bars, and a couple of bottles of Lipton Iced tea to wash them down. Then I headed back to dad and our fishing poles. 

I parked the car, and walked out to dad, sitting in his chair, but I noticed that he was moving around a bit. As I came up behind him, I noticed he had his pole in his right hand, and my pole in his left, so I said “What’s up dad?”.  

He turned to me and said, “I have a fish on both poles son, what do I do?”  

“Well, I’ll take this one," and I took my pole from his left hand, leaning it back against the rail, fish and all, "and you keep that one and reel him in!”  

He looked at the pole in his hand, then he looked at me, and with strain on his face he said, “How do I do that?”  Then he looked at his pole again.  

With tears in my eyes, I showed this grand old man, how to reel in a fish. The same man who had taught me how to do the very same thing so many years before. How sad to have come to this point in his life. Yes, I know it happens to most of us, but it hurts just the same. 

Well, dad managed to reel that trout in, and I hoisted it out of the water.  Trout get pretty big in that lake, and this was no lunker, but 15 inches, and one pound of Rainbow trout is something to be happy with. And was dad happy? Oh yes, the happiest he’d been in over ten years since he had last held a fishing pole.  

“Now that’s pretty good,” I said, “but it’s just a start. We have some more to catch today.”  

“And I’ll catch more than you son,” he said.  

And he did! We each caught one more trout in the next two hours, both about the size of dad's first one, although mine was slightly smaller. Of course, he let me know that I still wasn’t old enough to out fish him.

I just put the pictures I took of him holding that small stringer of trout, eyes wide, smile even wider, into an envelope, and mailed them to him. I hope he’ll put them on his wall so he can show his friends there that these are the fish he caught when his son took him fishing.

This may have been the last time dad will ever go fishing, and now he again sits in his wheelchair in the nursing home in Coos Bay, waiting until his time is up, but he has a new bright memory of fishing again with his son. And I have a memory of fishing again with a wonderful man who deserves all I can give.

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