Passing down gifts from one father to another

Note: This blog was published Sun, Jun 15, 2008, in The Beaufort (S.C.) Gazette

I don't know how old I was or whether I opened a suspiciously 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 lawnmowers at the Montgomery Ward just up the road from our house.

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 with closed bail and 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 4 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 end. 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.

As I sit in my office writing this, I can occasionally glance at an old photograph of that rod and reel in the small and clumsy hands of maybe a 5- or 6-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 State.

Although I can remember my first open bale reel — a brand called Match, which my dad must have 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 often reminded me.

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 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 of old wood, 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 ever 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 my childhood. The Speed-Kings are baitcasters, and I never recall my dad fishing with those. They make great paperweights, though. The Pflueger "was retired," my dad used to say. It was a present from his bride. 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 maybe I was 6 or 7.

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. Or it could have been my dad's best friend, Lenny.

Man, that photo — my dad's grin is 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 1970s mustache couldn't hide it.

The love for the outdoors and fishing had been instilled in me one Saturday morning at a time. 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 strong connection to my father.

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 that it was packaged with — that is until I had a boy of my own one year ago.

Kostyn Orrie shares the middle name of my dad's first name by no mistake. I have plans for us. 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 one day recently, 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 in a second.

It was, however, not quite 5 bucks. The postage was another $4. Funny thing is that it was only barely used, still with the box. And it's the same exact model that I had back in 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 remember.

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.

As I celebrate my second Father's Day, it's impossible not to tie the intangible gifts that were handed down, those that stay within us, and those that we pass down to the next generation.