Douglas S. Long

North Raleigh United Church

Vacations are wonderful except that I often find myself preoccupied with the sermon that is to come shortly after I arrive back at home. It's an occupational hazard. I have learned to prepare, as much as possible, the sermon I will preach when I return, before I go… get it close enough that a couple of hours can finish it off. That may sound easy for some of you. Some people can set their sights weeks in advance of a speech or sermon and attack it with a clear mind and full heart. I am not one of those people.

Truthfully, I have a hard time 'working up' a sermon until a day or two before I offer it… (and it is, almost always for me, an offering.) So I did my best to prepare a sermon before I left last week… and I confess its wasn't half bad… good enough in fact to preach… someday, with a little fine tuning… but not today…

No, try as I might to prepare for where I would be, I find that this morning I am somewhere else… somewhere I could not know 10 days ago. Life is like that sometimes.

I am actually today, between two rivers… last week the family and I spent the majority of our time on a river near Asheville and after the service today I leave for a week leading a Jr. High Youth camp at John's River, north of Lenoir. This is not an inconvenience for me. I love rivers… I love the flow of the water, the current that sweeps all things smooth, the fish that dart beneath the surface, the otters and muskrats that appear as if by magic, the turtles and snakes that sun on rocks, the egrets and herons that wade in the distance and kingfishers that swoop swiftly by… …but this past week I realize I learned more than I have yet understood…

This is not a particularly pious sermon. The scriptural truths remain obscure. But something significant enough happened that I took most of the precious little time I had after arriving home late Friday until this morning to try and put it on paper. I'll try to explain, but you'll need to listen with your heart.

I spent last week with the French Broad. Not to make you to uneasy about your minister's vacation, and for Alan and those others of you unaware of NC's geography, the French Broad is the name of a river that runs from its headwaters south of Brevard, N.C. through Asheville and then west eventually merging into the Tennessee River.

My prior experience of the French Broad was largely that of passing over it on I-40, or driving along it on a little section of Highway 191 near its intersection with the Blue Ridge Parkway. Few times had I actually plunged my hands into its waters, or stepped from its grassy bank into the cool, silty water.

We arrived late Friday night, well past the light of day. I don't know if you've ever had the experience of arriving at a strange place at night, I suspect we all have, and wondering what view daylight will bring. We had followed my brother-inn-law in a convoy of cars over from the other side of Asheville, and though the trip only took about 20 minutes, there were so many twists and turns, we had no idea where we were. In the darkness, in a strange place, far from any Food Lion, we decided to stay put until the next morning. We knew we were on a river… could hear the water below us down the sloping hill, and saw an aerial picture on the wall inside the rented house we had just entered (The house was amazingly homey and clean, very much like the owners had left just so we could have the use of their home for a few days. Reading glasses were beside the bed. Binoculars on the porch. Pictures of the family who once thrived in this place on every wall and table.). …but it was late, and pitch black outside. We had no idea what surrounded us.

The aerial picture we saw when entering showed the broad expanse of water below us. …And, sure enough, out the window we could see a lantern burning down the hill, and an occasional glimpse of a person casting into the night. Some in our group were spooked by this, and truthfully we felt a little invaded. He was on our property.

My sister-in-law, when she scouted the house out, had informed me that it shared the river's edge with a trailer park. "They are well kept and at one end of the field," she assured me. "The house is at the other end and not right beside them." We had driven through the dozen or so trailers when we came in…. sitting so close to the driveway you felt you would not be able to squeeze the car through.

The lantern and fisher person was at the river in front of the trailers.

Clearly we were staying in the house once occupied by the trailer park's owner, and the disparity in size between the house we were in and its mobile counterparts was extreme.

More than a few comments were made expressing the hope "that the people living in the trailers didn't bother us while we vacationed." We watched the lantern that evening to make sure it didn't encroach further towards us.

The first glance out the kitchen window on Saturday morning was both comforting and a little disconcerting. The river was there, just as the aerial shot had indicated, an unobscured view of a long grassy slope leading down to the wide, brown waters. What was disconcerting was the small, but noticeable spots of foam flowing on the river's surface. "'Harmless' discharge from a factory upstream," I was later told. …with the added clause… "course none of us really believe it's harmless." The foam was not severe, but it was there. The French Broad has no doubt changed in many ways from the time European settlers first arrived.

Saturday and Sunday went smoothly enough… as smoothly as days can go with five families with four little ones and at least 15 different agendas. We played all day in the sun and water and saw hardly a soul in the process.

On Monday morning I was fumbling in the water's edge, the only easy entrance into the river for several hundred yards due to the overgrown banks, looking around beneath the rocks for crayfish, thinking I might use them for bait on a fishing expedition a little later, when I realized there were two men standing on the bank eight feet above me. Spinning rods in hand, they were far ahead of me in their efforts to lure a few fish into their keels.

I assumed they wanted to sit on the bank, and cast into the waters I was presently stirring up.

"G' Morning," I offered. "Am I messing up the water here where you want to fish?"

"Oh naw, we wuz just fixin to wade out here an walk down stream." His voice and manner were easy and calm. Sunglasses protecting his eyes, small cloth cooler strapped to his shoulder, light tackle in hand, …he looked and sounded like someone perfectly at ease with the river. He nimbly clambered down the steep bank, the other much larger man following with more difficulty. "This is some of the best fishin' on the river," he continued. "You can catch 10 or 15 bass some days between here and the fishin hole down the way at the other end of the field there. Just pull your plug right over this grass and one'll pop right on. Why, there's one just jumped. Go a head and catch it, Roger, 'fore I beat you to it…" and, as if all in one motion he had joined me in the river and begun casting his lure.

I never heard more than a grunt from Roger… but this other one was, almost like the slow moving current, a constant, persistent and easy flow of words.

"You had any luck yet? I was down yonder the other night when youins came in."

(It had been a while since I had heard the term 'youins'… I love it. It is, to me, an instant sign of authenticity. No care of grammar. No put ons or pretensions. Just real communication.)

"Why, I was catchin crappie… and my wife hung a 25 pound turtle. I had to wade in and wrestle it out of the river."

I was trying to figure this fellow out. A 30ish year old, athletic looking man, he was as comfortable in the river as the rocks around me. Every cast seemed perfectly synchronized with his conversation, the speed of the water's flow, the gentle breeze around us. He was moving easily in the water just above his knees… not an simple thing at all if you've ever tried walking in a river. This was no smooth sandy bottom, but a mixture of sand and weeds and slippery rocks whose size varied dramatically. None of this appeared to faze him. It was almost as if he knew where the rocks and holes were by heart, so deftly did he move among them. I realized I was intimidated by his prowess. ..and yet, there was something totally disarming about his manner. He was giving me all sorts of useful information, …what the fish were biting, where to put our kayaks in upstream, when they were expecting rain and how that would change the river… information which I was grateful for… and I was surprised he was so forth coming with it all. Usually folks are tight-lipped with their angling secrets. This fellow was offering everything he could.

"Here's the plug that'll work best." He pulled it from the water. " See the way it glitters when the sun hits it. Tears 'um up. They can't resist it. Anything with red on it'll work…

Seen any women come down without their tops on? Sometimes they'll float right over to you and ask for a beer. Why you'll see everything on this river."

(I hadn't… but I kept a closer eye out from that point on.)

He lifted the tip of his rod and swung the lure back towards him, and, in the only less-than-perfect moment I observed, allowed the treble hook to barely catch on the inside hem of the long and baggy shorts he wore. Even this seemed natural as he gently removed it and cast again.

"Well I can tell you that's the last time I'll wear these uns in the river," he continued. "I wear 'em long though to cover a scar I don't want to get much sun on."

(It was a strange comment, I thought, until he continued by lifting his right pant leg up enough for me to see a portion of the scar. It was, in fact, not so much a scar as a huge mangled mess. The entire front portion of his thigh was missing and the undulations of scar tissue were obvious even from my perch now on the bank almost twenty feet away.)

"Holy smokes," I exclaimed (We had not yet moved into the intimacy of more manly expletives). "What in the world chewed you up like that?" I blurted.

"Huntin' accident. Got my leg blowed off with a 30 aught. The skin's just too tender to let the sun hit it, so that's why I'm wearin these long things. …Roger, if you don't catch that one that wuz jumpin I'm gonna have to throw over there and catch it for you." He turned his head slightly back toward me… "Go get yer rod and come on and go with us."

I thanked him for the invitation but declined, explaining that we had already planned to float a section of the river with the kayaks that morning.

"Oh, by the way," he added as I was leaving… "The community is having a bon fire tomorrow night. We do it every 4^th of July. Gonna burn that big brush pile at the end of the field. We'll have few fireworks and some cold ones. Youins come join us."

I thanked him for the invitation but explained I wasn't sure what our group would be doing for the Fourth.

I left a little amazed at the fellow… so friendly… so easy going… so wounded. A little later I was explaining the leg wound I had seen to my brother-in-law, a medical doctor in Asheville as we watched the fishermen retreat from the river and walk across the bank from our high porch. The stiff legged limp was heavy. What had been negligible in the river was unavoidably noticeable on land.

...and, our group was less than thrilled to learn there would be a community party in the field the next evening.

Late the next afternoon, July 4^th, a horse shoe game brought Roger and his talking friend back over. I learned his name was Jeff and, though he and Roger were winning handily, after just a few throws it became apparent that Jeff would rather be fishing.

"These stobs is too close anyway," he explained. "Ned put 'em this way. He's a college man. Give him a book and he knows it all, but these stobs is just too close."

"You want to go fishin'?" he asked. "Now's the time they'll bite."

I accepted and moments later we waded into the river at opposite ends of the field.

The community gathering had already started, and there were several folks sitting along the banks talking and laughing and watching us. Though the river was wide, easily 150 feet or so, the depth rarely exceeded four or so feet. Each step however could vary in depth by two or more feet as the unseen boulders presented themselves (With the heavy silt, the clarity of the water was about 12 inches.). I was having trouble keeping my footing, and imagined slipping awkwardly into the water while the locals smirked at the poor flat-lander attempting to fish. I tried hard to cast just under the tree limbs, close enough to lure a waiting fish, but not close enough to snag a tree… another faux paus I imagined the bank patrol would enjoy. I watched Jeff downstream, gliding through the water, joking from a distance with his friends on the bank. I fished down current until I met him. Together we slowly walked back toward the shore where the party-ers gathered, casting in conversation. I listened mostly. Jeff talked.

"Caught a 7 pound small mouth right over there beside that stump. Got him in the freezer so I can mount him. You shoulda seen me holding up my rod tip, yellin' for somebody to bring a net, draggin' this leg back across the river. It wuz a sight for sure, it wuz….

"You get to fish much in Raleigh?"

I explained I fished occasionally.

"What do you do?"

I hesitated. You have no idea what a conversation stopper explaining my profession can be.

I even debated what term to use. In the rural mountains, 'preacher' is the term used most often.

"I'm a minister," I confessed.

"Well…," he pondered quickly, "that's OK. Somebody's got to do it…

My granddaddy was a preacher. He wuz a hard 'un too. He'd a told me I was headed for hell fire for sure. Good man though. Got mad at Momma for not wearing a hat to church. …going to hell if a woman didn't wear a dress. A hard man. He wuz a hard core Southern Baptist type, he wuz.

But I don't believe all that stuff."

"I don't either, Jeff," I assured him.

"I don't know what I am. I know I don't fear nothin' in this world but Jesus. If'n I could quit my alcohol I'd about have it licked, I reckon… but with the pain I got in this leg it's either pain pills or beer, and I ain't gonna get mixed up on them pills again."

I asked him if he was deer hunting when he was shot.

"Yeah, we wuz down in SC on some land my family leased for huntin' and a guy that didn't have permission said he mistook me for a deer. I don't know how, 'though. I didn't feel nothin.' My leg was pretty much gone. The femur blown right through, hip dislocated… They took muscles and veins and stuff from my stomach and vitals and grafted what they could… said it was a miracle I lived. …Four years ago. I get about 1000 bucks a month on disability. Put the guy who shot me in prison… said it wudn't the first time he'd shot somebody. Heck, I reckon he's still in prison.

Hey, you wanna go to Fontana Lake tomorrow? My brother's going to take me up there. Come on and go with us. My granddaddy told me God gives you an extra day of life for every day you fish. I fish every day."

I thanked Jeff for the offer but explained Wed. was the last day our whole family would be together.

Neither of us got a strike that evening. I doubt I would have remembered it if I had.

It was getting dark as we exited the stream into the 12 or so people that formed the community gathering. Children were twirling sparklers, the kerosene laced bon fire had just been lit. Way across the field my nieces and nephews were engaged in a separate celebration. A man I had

never met pushed two fist fulls of bottle rockets and small firecrackers in my hands.

"Take these to them kids up there," he nodded toward my family group, "and let 'em shoot um off."

I was stunned by this stranger's generosity. I shouldn't have been by this point, because Jeff hadn't stopped talking all the while…

"Come on back down after a while and go catfishin' from the bank with us if you want. They's in here longer than yore arm. Might catch us another turtle."

Friday morning, 7:00 am. Jeff and I were back in the river for one last attempt before I had to head back down the mountain.

"I lost my license right at the end of the driveway when they had a license check set up… Don't know why I didn't let somebody else go out. Now that's a divorce happenin'. Fish were biting that night too. Missed it all….

Met my wife now in a restaurant. I just saw her and decided I wanted to talk to her. She's 51. I'm 32. I figure, shoot, what difference does that make?"

A fish struck at his plug, one I had bought for him the night before. "These plugs is good!" he exclaimed. I, however, had yet to have any action.

"Don't worry," he assured me, "it's the one whose not catchin' who always gets the biggest fish."

I remarked that my father-in-law had managed to not have a strike his entire trip.

"Where's he this mornin'?"

"He left for Phoenix yesterday."

"Phoenix!! Gollee he's probably still on the road!"

"No, he flew," I explained.

"Man. They ain't gonna get me in an airplane. If I can't drive there, I don't go. My wife wants to go to Hawaii. I told I'd do it as soon as they built a bridge."

I was curious about the community and the house and the relationship of the two.

"How long have they been renting out this house, Jeff?"

"Why, youins is the first!" He acted surprised that I wasn't aware of that fact.

"That must be hard on the community," I responded "… wondering who's going to be coming into their space each week." (I felt intensely guilty that earlier in the week I considered that I might be inconvenienced by the trailer folk.)

"Yeah, well some were talking about it and were a little worried a serial killer or sump'n might end up in there. You never know. …but I 'spose Ned'll be checking references and all of who can get in." (I didn't tell him that 'Ned' knew very little about us.)

"His brothers is mad because he's renting out his Moma's house but he bought them out so there's nothin' they can do about it. None of 'em live around here anymore anyways.

She ain't been dead but a year. It was just last year, July 5^th, the day after the bon fire.

Ms. Samuelson and them was all at breakfast, and she wuz talkin' 'bout the way Jerold was cuttin' butter… most folks slice it from top to bottom but Jerold goes crosswise… and then she was dead."

I was lost in his conversation when the small mouth grabbed my lure and plunged beneath the waters. Jeff's eyes lit up as we watched it submerge then explode through the surface and fling the lure into the blue sky.

"See, you wudn't skunked," he was absolutely gleeful. "We both saw it take it under and jump. That counts. You never know what this river's gonna bring you. Man that wuz a nice one."

It didn't matter that we hadn't caught a trophy. It made no difference that we came from different backgrounds, or that we would return to largely different worlds. In the river, we all walk with the same tenuous steps, feeling our way through the uncertain footing, accepting the offerings the current brings, doing our best to anticipate what awaits us 'round the next bend.

"You ever come visit yore brother-in-law, come go fishin'. You don't have to rent no house. Just drive up in my driveway 'n park. I'm here most every day."

When I close my eyes now, I see Jeff as I first did. Night surrounding, lantern by his side, casting, ever hopeful, into the cool, life-giving waters.

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