johnson skipper 125

I don't know how old I was, or whether I opened a long package tied up in gift wrap one Saturday morning. I don't know if the rod and reel inside that wrap was new or used, if it was old and had been polished by my dad or whether he bought it one night while he moonlighted selling lawn equipment at the Montgomery Ward just up the road from our house.
In fact, I don't remember the first time I cast it or the last time. I wish I knew where it was today.
But I do know the reel was a Johnson Skipper 125, closed bail with the little thumb trigger on it, and it was green and sort of an off-white with a white handle.
The rod it was attached to might have been 3 or four feet. It was a two-piece, though; I remember this because Dad had shown me how to rub the tip of the ferrule behind my ear to get it good and greasy so that it would slide into the female barrel. It, too, was sort of an off-white with a tint of green to it, like an Easter egg that was taken from the green food-coloring dye way too early. It had red threaded wraps around the shiny steel guides.
On my desk at work, there is a photograph of that rod and that reel in the small and clumsy hands of maybe a five- or six-year old boy. But the rod is holding steady because my father's right hand is gently guiding it as we fish off a small bridge over the Erie Canal near a place called Poverty Flats in Central New York.
Although I can remember my first open bale reel — a brand called Match, which my dad thought was Mitchell when we bought it from an old fly-tier who worked out of his garage a mile or so from our house. It was green, just like a Mitchell, and the style of lettering was very similar. Of course the price was far cheaper, and Dad thought we got a great deal on it.
I couldn't tell you how happy I was to have a better reel than the Montgomery Ward Speed-King my dad used; he even told me so.
It's been years since I had replaced the Mitchell, or Match, but I never noticed that it wasn't the real deal until a year or so ago, when I pulled it from an old fishing box that my dad gave to me, and looked at the label. I was half expecting to find a vintage Mitchell from 1972 or so. I found a Match.
I never bothered to search for the brand on the Internet; 35 years later, it hardly matters. I still have that reel, and it means the world to me, even though it doesn't work anymore.
The box in which it sits is an old wooden box, a bit bigger than a shoe box, with a picture of a tall ship shellacked onto it. Inside are several old reels; Shakespeares, Speed-Kings, Pfluegers and the old Match. Each reel has a story, and none every worked for me except the Match, which, of course, no longer works either.
The Shakespeare is the one my dad used for years and years as we plunked from stream to river to pond to lake all over the wilderness of Central New York. The Speed-Kings are baitcasters, and I never recall my dad ever fishing with those. They make great paperweights, though. The Pflueger "was retired," my dad used to say. It was a wedding present from Mom. That one's very special to me.
The one reel that's not in the box, however, is the Johnson. Why did I memorize that model? Why can I close my eyes and feel it in my hand? Why do I feel very close to my dad when I think about it? He's been gone from this good earth for more than a decade, and I hadn't fished with it since I was maybe six or seven.
I do remember the day that picture was taken, although, for the life of me, I can't remember who took the picture. Girls weren't allowed, so it wasn't one of my four sisters and definitely not my mom. It could have been my Uncle Fritz. In fact, I'd bet my life that it was. Or it could have been my dad's best friend, Lenny Sasso. He had a daughter, so, naturally, she never came.
Man, that photo — my dad's grin was ear to ear. It's the way I most remember him: A smile as though it started somewhere far down deep in his soul, gained steam in his heart, and like a full-body exhale of pride and satisfaction, lit up his face. Even the bushy mustache couldn't hide it.
A little boy's memory of such an occasion shouldn't be messed with. So if anyone reads this and remembers something from that day, don't bother telling me; I don't want to know. Because today, it's as close to a perfect memory — one of millions — that I have. It's a close a reflection as heaven as I can imagine.
The love for the outdoors and fishing had been instilled in me by Saturday mornings such as these. And even walking into the garage to look at my fishing tackle hanging from the wall on any given day sparks feelings of pride — a connection to my father that is so strong, it's profound to even discuss, let alone write about.
A social psychologist may link it to the ritual of hunting and gathering, a skill and art passed down from father to son, instilled young as we watch and learn to survive. Maybe that's bunk. Maybe it's just the enormous and swollen pride that my father felt as we hopped in the car on a Saturday morning to adventure off to uncharted territory, free to eat cheeseburgers at greasy diners, listen to the radio loud and bang on the dashboard, trespass on property and fish in rivers that only the Mohawk Indians every fished in, so he'd tell me as he kicked the shale underfoot to uncover a genuine Mohawk arrowhead, as if on cue.
I can honestly say that I couldn't have written this memoir a year ago. While the reel has been on my mind since the day it was presented to me, I didn't know the feeling of pride and heritage that it was packaged with. That is until I had a boy of my own nearly 11 months ago.
Kostyn Orrie shares the middle name of my dad's first name by no mistake. I have plans for us two. And they involve retelling the tales my own father told me when I was just a boy. They involve us ramrodding the unpaved roads of this world until they end at a trout stream or a bass hole, where we will fish, eat wild berries and catch fish.
So today, out of these fond memories and the promises of days fishing together, I searched and searched and found what I was looking for.
A Johnson Skipper 125. There it was, sitting behind the glass of an Internet shopping store. It was listed under the vintage items, and I would have paid $300 for it.
It was, however, not quite five bucks. The postage is four bucks. Funny thing is that it's only barely used, still with the box. And it's the same exact model that I had back in 1969 or 1970.
Despite that my son is too young to use the reel, and even when he is old enough, he might not understand the significance of an old green reel when all his friends have bright gold Penns, my heart will glow.
He may not cry when it breaks, and someday he'll probably forget he even held it in his hands.
But maybe he will.
Either way, I'll make it a point to keep it running, just like my dad did, and when he retires it, I'll put it in that old box and maybe someday, he'll pick it up, spin it in his hands a few times and smile.