A 4th of July Fishing Story (Because Sometimes We Forget)

[backinthemangle]

The Water Works
by P. Louys

"This ain't about me, bub," he says with a wry, grandfatherly grin. "You go to puttin' me in your story, you
can just put me down as 'Pops'."

He gives a dry chuckle, one foot propped on a truck bumper on a grassy shelf above the launch site. We gaze
out over a dozen young Americans working a small lake. 'Pops' has been to five of these things now. This is
my first.

Pops and his wife show up early. He sets up the little party canopy, hauls the folding tables and chairs from
the back of his battered pickup, and she begins setting out the covered dishes. Then they circulate among
the arrivals, smiling, talking quietly, helping where they can in a hundred small ways. Pops makes a point of
telling every one of them that the water works. Most of them give him the same friendly, nervous grin that
I did. I didn't understand, either.

Pops grimaces around his well-worn pipe, and his frosty blues get hard. "Them doctors and nurses, them
therapists, they've done about everything they can humanly do for this bunch. They've patched 'em up,
but they ain't been able to fix their hearts." He gestures with a small shove of his chin. "You see that young
man in that farthest kayak, the yellow one, he's workin' that flyrod?" I nod.

"Nurse told me he hasn't smiled in the two years she's had him. Not once." We shift our gazes behind us
where, thirty yards away, a young woman in a blue summer dress leans forward nervously in her lawn chair
beneath the rented canopy, talking softly but intensely with, as he lovingly calls her, 'Missus Pops'.

"I've talked to that little gal, and I reckon she loves that soldier-boy out there 'bout as much as a woman
can, an' she's at the end of her rope. Imagine lovin' somebody that much, and knowin' that there wasn't
one single thing you could ever do again that would bring just the joy of a simple smile to his face."

"Never even heard of this 'Heroes on the Water' outfit, then one day my wife showed me an article about
'em. Guys helpin' our wounded warriors recover, an' doin' it through fishin'? Well, we called up and asked
how we could help." A sly chuckle. "OK, so maybe I brought along a spare rod or two in the truck, just in
case."

Pops has seen more fishing days from beneath his battered old "go-to-hell hat" than most men ever will.
But on these particular occasions, he doesn't even try to wet a line. After "his boys" have shoved off, he
likes to just stand in the shade of this huge old moss-hung water oak and wait for "the magic".

My eyes are all over this small lake, wondering what this magic might be, how and where it might suddenly
manifest itself. And I realize that I don't have a clue. A lot of people are here, and they are doing a good
thing, a wonderful thing, sure.......but, "magic"? I don't get it.

"The magic's already started, son," he tells me. "You can't tell 'em apart, can you?"

I gaze out over the rippling water and see a dozen kayakfishermen, silent and stable as Gibraltar on their
customized sit-on-tops, some paddling, some casting, some delicately working a rod tip. Then I realize
that, for the first time in an hour, my eyes are no longer sadly and stealthily drawn to the prosthetics, to
the missing limbs and the mangled flesh. It isn't the distance, it's the attitude. And it's theirs, not mine.

Fifteen minutes ago, half the men on that lake were at least partially dependent upon others. Now every
one of them is in command of his own watercraft, going exactly where he wants to go, under his own
power, and in the company of others who have earned his respect. They'll catch-and-release today, and
secure the gift of these waters for their children and grandchildren, just as they've secured freedom for ours.

Pops reads my mind. "Naw, son, that ain't the real magic. Not yet. That don't happen till the water works.
Till the water really works." He shakes his head in a wry sort of wonder at yet another of life's mysteries.
"I reckon it works just like lightnin' does," the old man tells me. "Sure, for most of 'em, it comes on slow
and they don't even realize it until later. But I've had fellers out here told me it was like gettin' the Hand
o' God laid on 'em."

"WHOA!" At the sudden shout, my eyes snap back to the far cove, where the bow of the yellow kayak is
suddenly turning of its own accord and a laser-straight length of bright orange fly line connects an enraged
largemouth bass to an arching, gyrating flyrod.

"WHOA!" The shout again, then a short bark of laughter and a few hasty chuckles and "oh-mans". Other
men are back-paddling out of his way, yells of encouragement ringing out, "Get him, brother!" and "Fish
on!" and "You lucky dog!" and "Somebody's goin' for a sleigh-ride!"

The young woman in the blue dress runs up to Pops, practically jumping out of her skin, clutching his elbow
and beaming. "Pops, it works!" she whispers. Her gaze flicks excitedly between the old man's smiling nods
and the young man in the far yellow kayak as he plays the wildly tailwalking fish and his sweet, young,
natural laughter booms out across the water.

The young wife whispers fiercely, tears streaming down her face, "It WORKS, Pops! The water WORKS!"

Pops throws a long, bony arm around her shoulders and squeezes once, and then she's away across the
parking lot, the cool air of morning flooding her lungs, running for the excited gaggle of mothers and wives,
past the row of wheelchairs parked in the shade. And for the first time I realize that every single damned
one of those wheelchairs is exactly as it should be. Empty.

Another excited hoot, from a red kayak this time, a "hook" no longer hidden in some bathrobe pocket, but
triumphantly holding a kicking, dripping, frying-pan-sized bluegill high in the autumn sunlight. The bluegill
is released, rewarding its grinning conqueror with an impromptu lap-shower.

"You're right," I tell Pop, my voice a little funny from a speck of sand the wind must have kicked into my
throat. "The water works."

"Well," he drawls, "I reckon them fish ain't hurtin' a bit, either."

----------

The water doesn't work without Pops and Missus Pops. It can't happen without a thousand people, rich and
struggling-by alike, to kick in the equipment and the expertise, the transportation, the fat checks and the
five bucks from an emptied piggy bank, the pay-it-forward and the can-do and the fullness of a grateful
heart. The water doesn't work without you.

http://heroesonthewater.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Fishaddict]

AMEN!!!

[John]

Great read, with a very cool message.

The water does work for us all.