A Fisherman

Puffs of white vapor twirled upward from my mouth. The temperature hovered slightly below freezing at seven in the morning on a Saturday. The sun was shining. I was walking down an asphalt path slightly above a mighty Oregon river.

A bald eagle soared overhead in a blue sky.

Boats plied the slack green channel, hoping to land a prized fake hatchery Chinook.

A sea lion undulated upriver to feast on fake hatchery Chinook. Traps were waiting to ensnare him for relocation or death. Leave it to wildlife officials to implement their absurd strategies to save the natural world.

Ducks swam near the shoreline.

Gulls did their gull things.

Crows perched in snags.

Black cottonwoods leaned westward with wire mesh wrapped around their lower trunks to protect against beavers from doing their beavering delights.

I looked down to the river and saw a man standing outside his one-man tent. He was surrounded by a dozen geese. His backpack rested near him. His camp was spotless. Remains of last night's campfire smoldered. I stopped to appraise the man and his apparent state of homelessness.

He wore a baggy camouflage jacket and a ball cap of the same design. He held a cup of coffee purchased from the nearby McDonald's. I put him in his late 60s, but it hard to determine with any real accuracy.

I sat down on a wooden bench. The man grabbed something from the ground and lifted it up. It was a fishing pole. He walked down to the river's edge, cast his line, then propped up the pole in the rocks. He stepped back, lit a cigarette or joint, sipped his coffee, took a drag, and stared out to the river, and perhaps, the multi million dollar homes on the other side.

He smoked and drank for a few minutes, then sat down on the rocks. He fished while sitting down.

I wondered: what if he snagged a salmon and reeled the prize in? Well, of course, he'd gut and clean it right there with his serrated knife he undoubtedly carried, filet some filets, feed the entrails to the scavengers, get a fire going, rig up a way to cook the Chinook, perhaps the way Native Americans had done it for over 10,0000 years on this very river until diseases, treaties, dams and mills came along and dispossessed them.

The man sat on the rocks and fished for ten minutes, perhaps longer, perhaps all morning, perhaps all day. I only saw the ten until it was time for me to go.