Happy Father's Day!...And a fishing story.

Aunt Lois, Grandpa, Grandma


I may be late, but the sentiment is very current! Yesterday I spoke with my dear Daddy and got some great old stories, some I had forgotten the exact details of so I am writing them down. You can skip over any part that bores you since this is past history!

After my mom and dad were married dad was going to take forestry and there was no forestry program in Wyoming at the time. So he was going to go to Ft. Collins where they did have one. He and mom lived on the farm and worked with my Aunt Fern and Uncle Ed and then they moved to Laramie so dad could go to school. He was working at the Diamond Horseshoe truck stop as a mechanic at the time to pay for the tuition when an old friend of his dad's came through by the name of Eddie Bassin. Eddie was related to the Adam's that had the Adams dairy in Rawlins, and this family lived across the street from them when they lived on 11th St. (Dad's family home was condemned by the city so they could build a school house there. They later moved farther out of town.) So Eddie asked dad how much he was making and tempted him with the wages that they were paying out at J.C. Dad says it was this same Bob Adams of Adams Dairy who started up Western Nuclear. Funny, since Gentry and I were talking about how that the decisions we make when we are so young and inexperienced are what lead us to look back a few 20-30 years later and make us say....what were we thinking....or, I sure lucked out on that one... or whatever. I need to ask dad if he ever regretted not going to school.

A side track, and my dad always has one, is a fishing story, and can you believe- "The one that got away." Seems this Mr. Bassin, my Grandfather and another friend of my Grandfather's a certain Dr. Button, who was the local dentist, would often fish together. Let's see if I can capture Dads train of thought here... Seems Dr. Button was interested in making lures and made Dare Devils in his shop. They had a mold, and he would get sheets of copper and stamp out these lures. Dad says he still has some somewhere. (Side tracked again....Dr. Button's wife was the one that introduced my grandmother to the gospel although the Dr. was not interested.) Back to the story, Grandpa, Grandma and the family were fishing on the Platte River east of Rawlins (with Dare Devil lures of course) and Grandpa had on a beautiful rainbow trout of remarkable size for a river trout, estimated to be about 8 lbs., and he had his old reliable reel. This reel had been oiled up and was all ready to go but grandpa was quite aware that a fish that size could just tear the hook out so he was gently "playing" it, trying to get a better hold on him. You can't just horse a trout like that out of the water, and he was trying to tell his wife and children all this as the trout kept coming up to the shore. Grandma tried to grab the fish and missed, he told her he had it handled, but the next time it came up to shore she grabbed his line. There was no more "give" anymore, and the fish tore out the lure and swam off. Grandma felt just terrible! Grandpa on the other hand had a great "fish that got away" story and this time he could blame his wife! Guess it's true about the fisherman's wife getting too greedy....ha.