TIGHT LINES
SHOCK AND AWE
with Andrew Spencer
People who read my column are no doubt by now familiar with my neighbor, Bea Leger. On the 30th of December, Bea celebrated her 94th birthday. And for you trivia geniuses out there who have a penchant for math, that means that she was born 260 days after the Titanic sank. And trust me when I tell you that both events have carried with them similar shock waves.

As something of a belated birthday gift - and also as a way of trying to get her to keep quiet - we arranged for the delivery of a one-year-old pug named Joey who was seeking a new home. At the time, it seemed perfect: Joey needed a new home, Bea was desperate for a new dog. Her pug Sassy passed away several months ago, so the fact that Joey was a pug made the whole situation seem that much more Heaven-sent.

So Joey came to the house for what I had naively termed a "preliminary visit," so that Bea could make sure she liked him. I knew ahead of time that Bea was going to take one look at Joey and immediately decide that he was her new dog. Ever since Sassy's unfortunate demise, she's been bugging anyone within ear shot to get her a new dog. We kept telling her the right one would come along, but she was impatient. Case in point, there was that unfortunate pit bull incident. But she learned her lesson that time. Or so I thought, anyway.

Bea and Joey

So Joey comes in, and Bea spontaneously achieves Nirvana without even going through meditation stages or studying the teachings of the Buddha. The look on her face was one of sheer joy, and that joy caused me to overlook some warning signs. Joey is, to say the least, kind of an active little fella, which goes along with the whole being a year-old thing. And Bea is not quite active by anyone's definition of the word, which goes along with that whole being ninety-four thing. People with less of an attachment to the situation said they were concerned, and I brushed them off. This was going to work. It was fate, so it had to work.

Fast-forward to the next morning. Bea calls to say that she doesn't think she can keep the dog. Joey's previous owner was kind enough to come by and retrieve him, and managed to find him a new home with another pug lover who was more capable of keeping up with him. And while the story ends happily for little Joey, little Bea was heart-broken. But we all learned a very valuable lesson from the whole thing, and that was that we have to be aware of our limitations and always prepare to deal with things in light of those limitations. And, when you get right down to it, it's a lesson that you can apply to fishing, too.

Free to good home: one segue, good with kids, needs lots of love.

You see, friends and neighbors, fishing is a sport often pursued by solitary individuals. And often those individuals either think they're invincible or don't prepare for scenarios that might arise. Case in point, my brother John - who is the single most avid angler I've ever encountered - was fly-fishing a couple of years ago in Colorado, a state that he knows slightly better than the back of his hand. He has spent a good part of his life hiking the woods and fishing the rivers throughout the state, and his familiarity gives him a sense of security. One day, that sense of security rose up and bit him square in the backside, and came painfully close to costing him more than just a little ego bruise.

John was fishing on an early spring day, when a sudden rainstorm came up. So he started to walk back to his car, got a little disoriented, and ended up falling down a cliff and breaking a couple of ribs. Given that he was just going out for the day, he wasn't dressed for an overnight trip in the mountains. He hadn't taken his cell phone with him, and he hadn't given his wife any idea of where he was going to be fishing. Long story short, he came within a few hours of developing hypothermia and, potentially, dying out there. Thankfully, his wife had the sense (which John seemed to be lacking at the time) to call the Forest Service, who found him and took him to the hospital.

The moral here (short of being married to my sister in-law Haden) is to always anticipate what might happen. This doesn't mean you need to bring a Sherpa with you to carry your survival gear when you head out on your kayak to fish Long Pond. But tell somebody where you're going and when you plan to be back, and keep an eye on your surroundings. It doesn't matter how experienced you are and how good a swimmer you are. A single second of bad luck can ruin a lot more than your afternoon.

So be safe out there, and if you happen to see a stray dog running around, don't bring it to Bea's house. She's swearing off dogs for the new year.

Tight lines. I