Last Thursday night I was driving home from work. As it has been all the time lately, the sky was a high gray, threatening drizzle, and the wind was steady from the northwest. I was thinking about the politics of a small community of people. Bitterness, harsh words, personal attacks, long grudges, difference chosen over commonality. I was thinking about some of the things I’d like to say to some people.
I stopped to get my hair cut. The guy who usually cuts my hair is in his 30s, a boxer, from the east side of St. Paul. Blue collar and all that. Though we’ve always gotten along okay, I just think we’re very different kinds of guys. He’s got the flat-top fighter haircut and the fighter nose and the confidence of having taken beatings and delivered them, in the name of sport and who knows what else. I’ve got books and canoeing and a love for microbrew.
And haircuts tweak me. I don’t sit still very well. I don’t make small talk while some stranger is touching me very well.
I get in the chair and after I convolutedly describe the haircut I want, he gets to it. He asks me if I’m going fishing this weekend. Last fall he asked me if I’d been hunting yet and I said, “No, but I went for a hike at the state park last weekend and I saw some deer.” Right.
I say, “Yes.” Then I realize he probably means walleye. Saturday’s the opener. “I’m going for trout though.”
He pauses and says, “Ah, me too.”
Ah.
Then we talk about trout. He tells me about some tiny streams with big trout that aren’t designated trout water and thus nobody fishes. He tells me he fishes with everything, fly rod, spinning gear, and always a bucket of nightcrawlers for when they won’t bite on anything else. He tells me he just loves exploring. And how he always has to go with at least one buddy so they can put 10 bucks on who’s going to get the biggest fish. And that you can’t keep every fish you catch, especially the big ones, you’ve got to put those back.
When I’m paying up he tells me to check out those streams he mentioned but, catch-and-release, huh?
As I’m driving home, I don’t think any more about things I wish I could say to some people.
RSS
4 Comments
The politics and harsh words you speak of in the small community is crazy. I think you and I read the same message boards that can get wild with opinion and nastiness (if I’m on the right page here). It’s hard not to invest yourself in it too much…
what it all reminds me of is this quote by kerouac that i thought deserved its own post a couple weeks back:
i just think it’s really sad to assume that deep down you’re at all different from your fellow man, much less better.
That’s a great quote.
They say that there is more difference within any given group than between two groups. One has to look only as far as his or her family to see proof of this. In these days of polarized opinions it’s rewarding to connect with an unlikely sympathizer. Even people whose views differ radically from our own are really quite similar in that they share the same passion, notwithstanding its lean.
Sorry…rain makes me philosophical. This spring you can call me Socrates.
Enjoyed the story–especially the character you so well described–and the other comments.