Last Man Standing

 

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after."

Henry David Thoreau

(Reprinted with permission of the author, Glenn Busch.)

As fishing clubs go, ours was never large. We started with seven; there are four of us left. We first declared ourselves a club in the fall of 1980, which means we are about to have our 40th anniversary.

None of us knew at the time that we would reach this remarkable milestone, or even that we intended to. We were just seven men who enjoyed fishing and one another's company, and it went on from there. Little did we know that, for the next four decades, we would gather twice a year for fishing, fellowship, and a whole lot of fun.

Let's see: That's two trips a year for 40 years, at five days per trip, which comes to 400 days, meaning we have spent more than a year of our individual lives performing this outrageous semi-annual ritual of male bonding. And throughout those 40 years, none of us have missed more than one trip, and then only for excuses, such as a child's wedding, surgery, an unavoidable professional meeting, or previously scheduled overseas travel. And even then, we felt a pang of guilt for being an absentee. That's quite a record. Although death eventually ended the attendance of three of our number.

I anticipate our fortieth will be one of those bittersweet affairs, like when a family gathers to enjoy a Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday, and the melancholy memories of lost loved ones intrude upon the festive mood.

The four of us who remain will no doubt mark the occasion with some sort of sophomoric celebration and retrograde adolescent behavior. But I am equally certain that the moment will arise when we interrupt the frivolity to toast our three absent buddies.

It's been apparent--at least to me--that the unavoidable question of "how long can this go on?" has been lingering at the edges of our recent gatherings. We joke about the last man standing, but the reality that, one day, the club will end isn't far from any of our minds. How could it not be?

In the early years, we were invincible. We sheltered in tents, slept on the ground, cooked over a campfire, didn't shower (couldn't), relieved ourselves in the woods, got up before dawn, hiked for miles, fished until well past dark, drank too much, and got up the next day to do it all over again.

Today, we are all over 70, and the normal wear and tear of advancing years has made one claim or another on each of us, not to mention that we gave up camping a long time ago.

When we begin this upcoming 80th trip, we will drive up to a well-appointed lodge, where each man will have his own bedroom and bath, and we won't hit the stream before eating a monstrous breakfast prepared in a kitchen with every modern convenience. We will drive to the stream, so we won't have to walk far, and we'll return in plenty of time for happy hour, when we'll sit on comfortable chairs atop a spacious deck while eating hors d'oeuvres and waiting for supper to be served. We'll all be in bed no later than 10.

Forty years is a long time to hang with any group. And I often wonder what's been the cause of longevity. You might think that it's due to having a lot in common. But that's not it. We have as many differences as similarities. Take politics, for example. We are all over the place...so much so that we agreed years ago to avoid the subject during the time we're together. Our interests, tastes and backgrounds differ, too. And if some social scientist were to examine our personality profiles and assign us a compatibility score...well, I suspect we wouldn't be given much chance for success. Yet, here we are, after 40 years.

Over the years, I have fished with a lot of people in multiple places, here and abroad, but I've never had more fun than I've had with my dead and aging friends. So what is it? Why has it lasted?

When I was a working pastor, I experienced, more times than I care to remember, men who had difficulty forming deep and lasting friendships. Is that a characteristic of the gender? Is intimacy a problem for men? Who's to say. But more than once, I was surprised and saddened when a man I knew only casually, mostly in a professional way, would refer to me as his "best friend."

As I sit here contemplating our upcoming trip, with as much anticipatory excitement as I had on that first occasion 40 years ago, I still wonder about the mystery of it all.

It must be the fishing, don't you think? What else could it be?

About the author: Glenn Busch retired to Lynchburg, VA, in 2008, as rector emeritus of St. Mary's Church in High Point, NC, after a pastorate of more than 27 years. It was during the High Point years that he also became a college teacher. While serving as rector of the parish, High Point University asked him to become an adjunct faculty member, where, for 18 years, he taught for the department of religion and philosophy. Glenn and his wife, Kathleen, have two children and two grandchildren upon whom they dote as often as time and distance will allow.