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Sunday, July 25, 2021

Raritan and South Branch Farewell

This outing seems to bring a long history of fishing with my son to an end, as he goes back to Boston this afternoon and then on to settle in California in weeks, but I'm sure we'll fish again. Maybe even in New Jersey. In any event, I've fished New Jersey with him since he was two, 20 years ago. Though I've mostly been into literature all these years, I began taking him on explorations at six months, orienting him to science. 

Why not literature instead? I did read him all of Blake's work and from other books when he was little, but I felt inclined to introduce him to science. When I was little, science was my interest, and it came naturally to steer him in that direction. 

After I took him to Round Valley when he was three, during the drive home, we had an intensely long and detailed conversation about evolution. Many other discussions since. And now he goes and joins a team to build the world's first nuclear fusion reactor. Or let's hope it gets built.

It never was a one-way street. Matt got me back into fishing seriously, by insisting we go several times a week. That led to the blog. We fished more often than I do now back then. Today he beat me six to one. Three smallmouths, three largemouths for him. One smallmouth for me. None were better than average steam bass.

We began in Somerville long before dawn, where a garish electrical sign warned: River Closed. No Trespassing. But a friend from work told me he spoke to a police officer who told him it's OK to fish. They just don't want another party trashing the spot. Matt got a smallmouth on a popper. I missed two hits on my Torpedo and something large broke surface, swirling behind my big Rebel Pop-R. It behaved more like a pike than a smallmouth, but I'm sure it was a smallmouth....though, of course, I don't really know.

I had another spot in mind not too distant, on the South Branch. My Torpedo got hit right away by an average smallie, which didn't get hooked. Matt got one on his popper, and I missed a hit on a Senko. Not much was happening here, and though nothing's happened for me this year in my favorite stretch, to deny ourselves a try would have been foolish. That's where Matt did best, on a Zoom worm, and I caught mine on a Senko. 

Typically, he tries something other than what I use. And rather than sticking to my side, he's always venturing off elsewhere. It's been that way all these years, and on frequent occasion he either does better than I do, or puts me on a better path. 

He just now showed me Reptiles and Amphibians, the Peterson Guide he's taking to California, dozens of Post It stickers marking pages of special interest from when he was little boy, though he was reading graduate-level books on science in the seventh grade. 


  

Matt's back to the past as the river flows.

 

4 comments:

  1. You will fish together again! Really touching article. So psyched he is working on fusion energy. The economic disruption that will occur when fusion energy supplies the grid will be a painful transition, but in the long run, mankind will benefit.

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    1. Thanks! He felt certain we'll fish in Jersey again. He was already drawing up plans for California. This one had a deep finality to it, after those 20 years. It is the end of us fishing while he's under our support, and maybe the end of it while he lives on the East Coast, if he never moves back. Never thought of the grid transition, but I guess we'll get that...if his company actually succeeds. Told me he's assigned to measuring the density of the plasma in a way never done before. When he mentioned density & plasma, I immediately said that's got to be problematic to measure, doing my best to describe how, and though I forget my words, they drew some concurrence from him leading into discussion. I can't do math but I see stuff.

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  2. Makes me think, though, come to think of it. Years ago, while it was Matt's turn at practice fly casting, I picked up his calculus book, opened a page at random, read the vector problem, and by the time he came over with the rod, offered him a correct solution. I never took calculus. When I "see," however vaguely, how to measure plasma, I'm already constructing primitive math in my head, a model. I guess....

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  3. That will be quite a challenge. And, yes, you don’t need all the skills to solve a problem to brainstorm a path to a solution. In fact it is often helpful to have someone who is not skilled in the tools that will be used to solve a problem participate in a team brainstorming session, to avoid getting mired in details too early in the process

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