There’s Something About Molly

They say there is something about a daughter that melts a father’s heart.  Well it’s true.  We have a six year old fireball named Molly that does just that.  She loves to run in from the mailbox after school, through the barn doors and into “my office” only to scare me like she did yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that.  Then the first thing she asks is, “daddy will you push me on the swing?”  I hung a swing several years ago from a huge 150 year old Live Oak in our yard and gave it a lot of rope so it will get her into “space”, as she likes to call it.  Now, I get her as high as I can and she stands up for the ride.  What a nut!  We have a good time on walks to the pond or working on my fleet of old 4 wheel drive vehicles.  She hands me tools, ask questions and genuinely seems interested….for a while at least.  Sometimes, when daddy can’t figure out how to get that last screw seated or finds a gasket still leaking, it’s best that she is doing something else…. somewhere else.  Matter of fact, its best that anybody around me should probably just walk away and not make eye contact.

Anyway, Molly is an independent little thing as she always has to do everything all by herself; from getting in the car to putting on her shoes.  What is scary is her natural ability to dance like we DID NOT dance back in the glory days.  When I take Molly and Will to school in the morning, she is “getting her groove on” in the back seat!  Oh my…we have our hands full and we are scared to death of the teenage years to say the least.

But for now, she still likes for me to cuddle when she goes to bed and read a couple of books.   Of course she says she already knows how to read but wants me to read for practice.  She turns out the light and curls up and grabs my arm and squeezes it as hard as she can and says, “I love you daddy”.  Wow….all my cares go away for just a bit.  Just long enough for our beautiful little girl to fall asleep in my arms.  For that moment, my mind is clear of all the crap we all carry with us throughout the day and it  just all takes a timeout.  I would like to tell you the peace of that moment stays with me, but I’m sorry to say it fades away like everything else and I'm soon back to reality while my little girl sleeps.  But, I know I have a very small window to enjoy those moments and I try my best to keep them close to my heart and let them feed my soul.  All this stuff called life isn’t easy, but you have to take the good when you can and embrace it like a daughter hugs her father at bedtime.  It is a blessing.   Molly, thank you for sharing those moments with me and may you never stop melting your Daddy’s heart.

Love,

Dad

Sixth Grade Science

The other night our son Will asked me to help him study for his science test he was having the next day.  In usual fashion, we go through the questions at the end of each section of the chapter for review.  He is a smart kid and knows most of the answers, so I try and trick him up, but like I said, he is a smart kid.   This particular chapter was on Mollusks, Arthropods, and Echinoderms…. bugs and stuff for the rest of us.  We got to Section 3, “Insects” where it discussed the metamorphosis, a fancy word for the growing cycle of an insect, and then it dawned on me, this is a great lesson in fly fishing! 

When you are fly fishing for trout, you either fish a dry fly on the top of the water or a nymph underneath the water.  Sometimes both…. which is called a “dropper”.  Which fly you use depends on so many different conditions that it takes a lifetime to learn; hence one of the wonderful attributes of the sport.  Anyway, once we reached this point in the chapter, I ran and grabbed my fly boxes and gear and explained the similarities of what was in the book and what was in my boxes.  The book explained the logic and progression of life while I explained why trout like to eat certain things at certain times.  I told him about being on a stream in the evening when the miracle of “The Hatch” occurred and I was surrounded by thousands of caddis being born right out of the water.  What an amazing sight!  What is even more amazing is when you find the fly that matches the hatch in your box, tie it on and then the fun really begins.  I continued to explain how trout rise to the surface to eat these freshly hatched morsels and you just hope that you float your dry fly right on top of them.  My personal favorite is a #14 Elk Hair Caddis.  It has always been reliable and most of all, I can see it.  Fortunately there was one Caddis left in my box, as the last several hundred I have owned are hung in trees limbs somewhere in a stream or river of my past.   Will got a kick out of that one, but I know it's just a matter of time before he gets hung in a tree and I sure hope he has more patience than me.  God help him…

We finished up the questions at the end of the chapter and we both felt pretty good about the next day's exam.  I don’t know if I was correct in my fishing logic, but to an eleven year old boy who loves to fish, it was the gospel.    

Wm