Читать книгу Memories of Magical Waters - Gord Deval - Страница 8

Foreword

Gordon Deval is made of different stuff than I. His senses seem more acute. On our fishing trips, he sees things long before I do. Little things: mushrooms, insects, the flora decorating the riverside, big brown trout sitting in muddy holes. He not only sees things before I do, he sees things I just plain don’t. Gordon points them out helpfully, but I don’t have his eyes. He sees the world in a special way. He sees both the details and the big picture. Gordon can spy the natural world that lies beneath our human artifice.

Gordon’s memory is different than mine, too. Mostly because he has one, I mean, a remarkable one. I think he can remember every fish he ever caught. Gordon can remember the excitement that accompanied each of them.

Gord Deval and Paul Quarrington on the Ganaraska River.

I may have to work harder than Gordon does, but I can summon many memories of the man I affectionately call “The Old Guy.” I can remember the first time I saw him, for example. It was in a school gymnasium, and Gordon was demonstrating a fly-casting technique known as the “double haul.” It’s a beautiful thing when executed properly, a way to shoot great lengths of line. It involves a combination of grace and strength, and I’m still working on it twenty-odd years later.

I can remember the first time we went fishing together. This is actually quite a vivid memory, because of the presence of a ferocious dog and a nasty-looking gentleman who felt we shouldn’t have been fishing a particular section of the Ganaraska River. But that gets back to what I was saying before, about Gordon seeing the world differently than I do. He often misses things like fences and “No Trespassing” signs.

One of my fondest memories—at least, the one that makes me chuckle the most—involves the two of us driving into the heart of the United States of America. Every time we passed a field, Gordon would say, “There’s a nice field.” There was frequently some other reason for praising the field—perhaps there were puffballs sprouting in its middle, perhaps a fox was running along its perimeter—which Gordon would note, although I never saw any of that stuff. I would simply nod, having managed to spot the field. One of the reasons fields are so beloved of Gordon is that they give him space to practise his distance casting; he reigned as Canadian champion for many years. He would also praise any river, rivulet or rill we passed by. “There’s a beautiful stream,” Gordon would grin, no doubt imagining all the beautiful fish that lived in the beautiful stream. So for hundreds of miles, these were his most frequent observations, a proclivity I finally pointed out with a slight tinge of irritation. Gordon was quiet for a long moment. “I like fields, and I like streams,” he acknowledged. “And by god, I love that magazine.”

It is that kind of good spirited liveliness—as well as his memory, and a quick, clean writing style—that make this book by Gordon Deval so delightful.

Enjoy it.

Paul Quarrington

Toronto, 2006