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At the Barbershop But, all is well since I just went fishing with my brother and dad. Coming back to me, I decided it was time for a haircut. So, I put some clothes on, a little extra deodorant and wet my hair, instead of a shower. I checked the perma-grin, slid on the shoes, grabbed my coat and was gone. My dear friend the barber who never remembers me was already helping some other lucky customer. I took off my coat, grabbed some pleather, and picked up a magazine, pretending I like to read. Acutally, I was just listening to the conversation. They were talking about something I had seen on TV, and I knew I was ready to jump on the conversation. The barber and the customer continued to bitch about Bush and the war in It all made me a little nervous since I could see what was happening to the person sitting in the barber chair. As I mentioned earlier, it all comes back to me. I decided to continue pretending to read, and wait for an opportunity to cheer things up. When I heard that pause I said, “Hey so are you guys ready to hear a good story?” No one said anything. The barber just turned towards me with a tiresome face, rotating the chair to point the customer in my direction. Not saying anything, they switched their gazes to me. Now that I had the spot light, I proceeded to tell them my fishing trip tale on the St. Joe. Brother and dad picked me up right after work Friday. We drove straight from downtown The rain never let up, and it became that Forest Gump type of rain, where it hits you from all directions. We started fishing and it wasn’t long before I would holler out “Kawka…kawka,” imitating a crow, to let my brother know it was time for more whiskey. We fished for hours, and still hadn’t hooked a thing. Not a good sign, but all day we pushed on, continuing to fish awesome holes, seams, and eddies every place where fish would normally hold. Not that day. I lost my motivation to continue pushing after roughly 6 hours when it dawned on me that we didn’t stash any dry fire wood. That meant nothing to help keep us warm, but most importantly, no fire to cook the steaks we brought. When we pulled up at the campsite the sun had just finished tucking itself in for the day and shadows were only cast by the moon. Oh, except for the fire roaring three-feet high at our site. There were no other cars around, but I still got out calling for the people poaching on our site. No one called back. I checked our tent and hollered for my brother to check the steaks. You know, the important things in life. Everything was in place so we huddled around the fire to deliberate over this mystery. We decided to visit the only neighboring campers with some extra cigars in case they were the culprits. Upon entering their site we heard bellows of laughter. Here sat two guys around a fire with their families in the RV, laughing until one of them said, “So how did you do today?” “Pretty lousy,” my dad replied, “And based on your laughter I assume you guys know something about the fire at our site.” “Oh sure, after dinner we had some leftover coals and decided to put them in your pit with some extra wood we had to spark it up. We saw you guys head up the river and noticed you didn’t have any dry wood around. We thought you would appreciate a fire." Well, they didn’t want the cigars we had brought them and they even gave us more fire wood. Just a couple of thoughtful guys on vacation with their families. We cooked up those steaks in the rain and ate under the tarp, talking about what a great vacation we were on. Amongst all the shit going down, there's still nice memories to be created. I think the barber wanted to give me a free haircut after that, but he didn’t…cheap bastard. Rodney Guamish is an avid flyfisherman from Seattle and a lowbagger who once slept 100 days in a Ford Escort to explore the wilds of Glacier National Park.
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