All a Fisherman Needs is a Good Pair of Pliers

 

I am not a “techy.” I’m not even sure I can spell the word right. I can’t even operate my cellphone.

People ask me all the time why I don’t “do” Facebook. Jeeminy Christmas. Why don’t pigs fly?

The most embarrassing thing about it, and the only thing about it that embarrasses me, is that my father obtained one of the first Master’s degrees in Computer Science, and used that degree to run a plant that made space shuttles fly.

One of my brothers programs computers for the federal government. The other two brothers have fingers that “fly” over computer keyboards causing them to make lots of money. I can’t turn one on half the time.

If you’re still thinking about the parenthetical phrase in the middle of sentence seven of this piece, I will tell you that I also don’t think it’s possible to embarrass a redneck. They don’t walk around thinking about the possibility of being embarrassed, about anything. They’re too busy doing things with their hands.

Give me a hammer, a saw, a piece of rope, a shovel, and a pocketknife, and get out of my way: Things are going to move while the brainiacs are thinking about the way to do it “properly.” Hand me a cliché and I might spit at you.

 All a fisherman needs is a good pair of pliers.

My old friend, Brian Loveland and his lovely wife Julie came by the house the other day with bags and bags, Walmart bags, full of summer vegetables. Some of the bags had been doubled, so full were they of luscious summer produce, as fresh as Aunt Gertrude’s new baby.

Once the two of them were in the kitchen at the table, cold, iced tea in their hands, Brian and I began to talk as men do and the two girls as girls do. In an instant, the two couples were separated as if by a wall. “East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,” is what they say. Well, they meet up sooner or later, right?

“Brian,” I asked, “would you like a sprig of mint for your tea?”

“Nah. I’m good.”

“There’s a ton of it right outside the backdoor under the faucet.”

“I’m OK. Tell me about the fishin’ up in Canada.”

And I did. But, quickly, I moved to something I started pondering one windswept, rain bound day Pam and I spent in the cabin up yonder, Pam reading when she wasn’t playing solitaire, and me repairing some fish-savaged crankbaits with my Gerber multi-tool, a marvelous tool of the modern, technological age; one that a redneck can operate, maybe better than a techy.

Some of the baits’ hooks were crimped by fish mouths, try that with your bare hands. Hand me my Gerbers. All I need are pliers.

Others, half my jerkbaits, had bent or twisted line eyes. All of this was fixable with a good pair of pliers, and a little downtime, something rednecks look forward to, as the work is mindless and, as a result, so comforting.

Doing the job, a thought came into my head which could be looked upon as novel, all things considered (kind of a pun), don’t you think? The question was, what tool first came along in man’s development? Far out on the rainy lake, I thought I heard someone yell back, “Who cares!” but I think it was a loon.

“Brian, whaddya’ think was the first tool ever used, or invented?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Oh, I don’t know. A knife, maybe. You’ve gotta’ cut up meat if you want to eat it.”

“I already thought ‘a that. Before you can cut meat up, you’ve gotta’ get it on the ground. You’d need something heavy for that. Maybe a hammer. The first one out of stone, or bone, something like that. Whack! Mammoth’s on the ground. Now hand me that knife.”

“Hmmmm,” Brian said, looking at me intently and knowing the subject was serious to me. “Why are you even interested in all of that?”

“Well, because I am. I don’t know. Look, I’ve got one of those pocket, multi-tools, a Gerbers, that’ll do just about anything except Google-up a beer recipe. Every tool ever invented will snuggle right into the palm of my hand. Ten, twelve different ones of them. How much more than that does a man need?”

“A good fish locator. One with side imaging, in the full color spectrum. All’a that. I’d cut it off right there.”

“I promise you,” I said, “just like the wheel was the be-all, end-all in its day, mankind raced right on past that to the airplane, and the moon, and then cellphones; then computers. Computer’s won’t be the last, either.”

“Maybe not,” Brian said, ”but you know what? You’re still going to have to have a hook to catch a fish. A fish hook is the end of the line.”

“Are you messin’ with me?”

“A little bit. Offhand, I’d say you got out of that cabin just in time. I don’t care how good the fishing was.”

We let it drop there, got out a pocketknife; sliced some fresh tomatoes; sprinkled them with salt and just a little pepper and ate them cherry red and juicy with a fork. The only tool we needed.

© 2016 Conrad M. Vollertsen