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Thursday, May 5, 2011

Fishing Tackle: Breaking Through the Surface of Society

Months ago, I jotted down a note pertaining to early memories about fishing. A friend's father had introduced me to this recreation. But what I remember especially from that early age of eight is the Golden Guide to Fishing. The cover picture, painted no less, is of a spinning reel. The genius of its originality impressed me as direct and fresh as life itself, and I knew I wanted one.

The painting suggested the essence of ingenuity. At the time I used a Zebco 202 pushbutton spincast.

I owned a spinning reel and rod by age 10, bought it myself. A Capitol Sporting Goods store existed a mile and a half away, across Route 1, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, next door to the State Capitol in Trenton. I used to ride my bike and buy tackle.

Sometimes the hard shell of ordinary affairs breaks and bares the sheer magic of tackle, by so simple a process as unwinding line from the fixed spool of my Penn 430SSg, as snazzy to no apparent purpose as that numerical name designation makes me think the caprice of random numbers and lettering goes a long way in America.

After all, I live just yards off U.S. Highway 202, though highways really do have an order-by-number, if random numbering for things otherwise tends to fall into place with intentional patterns. Perhaps mathematician and game theorist John Nash would have positive words for the numbers of the reels we use. Besides, any random series chosen implies that some sort of intention lurked behind the result, which makes you wonder about license plates...

No one can really quite point out the reality underlying the hardcoat surface of society that keeps everything slick and running all too routinely. Don't we all know the disfunction that routine really is. You have to fall into it, taking everything you've heard and learned with you. And then, if you emerge again sane, you might be able to decipher a thing or two better not spoken about too often, and yet it helps guide your own life better than any GPS.



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