I finished filling the woodshed today. A marathon day of splitting rounds, loading the truck with the split wood, moving it up to the shed, tossing the wood off, then stacking it in the shed. I didn’t plan to finish, really, but once I got close, I got the fever and couldn’t stop til it was done.
An old friend who is a prominent journalist in the state texted me out of the blue. Her sister in law said to give me a call. Did I have 15 minutes to talk about king salmon? I said sure. But I might refer you to someone else who is an expert or more acquainted.
She called not much later, and started asking me questions about the king salmon situation. As we talked, she asked me how long I’d been associated with king salmon. It didn’t take long to think I’m 59 and I got here when I was 19 and started guiding and catching king salmon when I was 20……..so about 40 years! That was sort of a wake up call, I guess. I’m damn near 60.
As we chatted, I realized I had been working with this fish in one way or another and kinda sorta did know something about the situation. More on a bigger societal picture than a scientific one. If anyone knew the specific problem, maybe we could fix it. We don’t, but “we” know it’s not “us” that’s the problem, so we start looking for someone to blame as we fight over the last fish.
By the end of the conversation, I felt pretty good about the perspectives I was able to give her, and she seemed happy for my responses. We’ll see how it comes out. I used to worry about how it would come across in the press when I was a state official. Now I’m just a guy with 4 decades of a little bit of experience associated in a lot of different ways with king salmon, and I like it that way.
I went out after the call and got the last of the wood in the truck and then into the shed. The hip that’s been killing me feels remarkably well today. I realize later exercise good. Sitting bad. So now what am I gonna do.
The neighbor has some firewood that she needs bucked up, so I can start there.
