Life is complicated. We own a lot of things that we have to care for. To paraphrase Thoreau, “Do we own our stuff or does our stuff own us?” seems appropriate to me after going through my fishing gear and realizing that I had 40+ years of accumulated equipment that ranged from ice fishing rods to surf casting gear to saltwater fly fishing rods and reels that had never seen the salt.
And then I found this photo I’d taken two years ago.
A man in a truck, yep he had a dog, a pontoon boat and a small trailer. He owned four fly rods from a three weight to a nine weight. Had a vise and minimal fly tying materials but enough to tie up streamers for fishing the local rivers and lakes. And that was it. I asked about his home, “I have a studio apartment that I rent but I’m not there much. Wife passed away five years ago and me and the dog travel about and fish. I don’t carry much more than I need.”
And there it was, “I don’t carry much more than I need.”
So I tried to figure out what I needed. So I went through fly boxes, boxes of materials, rods, reels, lines and all the stuff that I had accumulated and I made three piles, “What I needed, what I didn’t need, what I might need.”
When all was said and done, my wife came out and asked what I was doing. So I showed her the picture and told her the story.
“You don’t have a dog and I’m nowhere close to dying.”
I guess I won’t be buying a truck soon either.
Stuart Van Dorn