Round Valley Reservoir Visit with my Wife at the Club Meeting

My wife, Patricia, and I went to the first of the two annual Round Valley Trout Association barbeques at the reservoir this year. We have family membership, but our son, Matt, hadn't got home from his internship job solving math problems for a company making specialized batteries.

Randy, the club President, and I talked about the reservoir's heyday with club membership at more than a thousand and huge turnouts for tournaments with boat, motor, and trailer giveaways for first prize. "We had to bus people in..." from a remote lot. He named the place. I forget. "There'd be 300 boats out there!"

If you want to join, we're more than 400 strong today, but above all, take it from my wife. "These are really nice people. One of them made Sadie a turkey burger." That's our black Lab. And Trish? She doesn't even fish, but she came to one of the barbeques last summer, and is convinced now more than ever that she wants to attend more. For such a low-cost membership fee, it's worth it just to get the newsletter and to contribute to the reservoir's trout and baitfish stocking, but come to a barbeque or a meeting at the American Legion Hall in Whitehouse, New Jersey, and feel included.  

South Branch Rockaway Creek on Another Convention Day, Whoopee

A couple of days ago, I headed to Round Valley to do a photoshoot, wasn't surprised to find authorities at the main launch entry. Whoops, I forgot to bring my fishing license, which would have got me in, so I drove on by and on down whatever County Road that is, South Branch Rockaway Creek, Whitehouse Station, in mind. I figured I might as well try a little photo shoot there.

So I got a shot I like, the rest deleted, and headed home, along the way figuring I sure have no blog post in this outing. But today I went back in the internal archives a couple of years, just sort of taking random impressions of what I've done, and after I had opened "Potting Killies and Catching a Redfish," imagined HBO comedian Bill Maher making fun of the post as an example of how dumb all this is, and I laughed, not because it is dumb; if I thought so, I'd stop doing it, and it's not that I don't know a lot of people more established than I am think bloggers are flakes. I laughed because, what the hell, if I took it all too earnestly, yeah, I might start getting--dumb. I mean, sure, anyone can imagine Bill Maher's mock-conservative voice on that redfish post, and it sure can seem really dumb. Television can do just about anything to a mind, which is why I watch so little. But everyday life--hey, if I ever make a million dollars, I'm not going to live the "high" life, as if I outclass the simple things that, well, frankly don't burn so much energy and make it likely a lot of the penthouses in famous cities will have foundations below sea level, or let's just say a photograph of a place can compel a response. Because they do, in fact. But is the photograph really better than being there?

So, yeah. Bill Maher came to mind, I laughed. And then, as if in reply to the master--I knew I had a blog post after all.