Jimmy D. Moore wrote:
I FISH
• because I like to.
• because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful; and hid from environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly.
• because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties and assorted social posturing I thus escape.
• because in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion.
• because trout do not lie or cheat or cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietism and humility and endless patience.
• because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I, for one, do not want to waste the trip.
• because mercifully, there are no telephones on trout waters.
• because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness.
• because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there.
• because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid.
• And finally, I fish not because I regard fishing as being terribly important, but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant, and not nearly so much fun.
AMEN.
--John Volker, Retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice
