Those are some of my flies - in my Trout box. I tied most of them. A few in the back there I just bought in Ireland just to have them. I tied a few flies a little while back. I need to tie some more. What I need to do more than that is fish with some of them. I'd love to fish for Trout too but that's at least an hour away. Generally that's not far, but finding the time for the hour there and the hour back and the several hours in between is sometimes a chore these days. That's unfortunate.
I did fish for a day in Ireland, on a lake, Lough Corrib. I'm not much of a lake fisherman. I prefer moving water, small streams. I know all this is terribly fascinating to like 3 of you. But you know, if I actually talked candidly about all that's going on in my head sometimes, you just wouldn't want to hear all that. So, fishing, I need to fish. I need that to be a part of my life again. It has, in the past, been a big part of my identity. "Alan is a fly fisherman." People, I've had articles written about me in the newspaper. I've met and eaten with very well known and famous people in "my sport." I used to sort of be a "professional" in a sense. It slipped away from me in the middle of life. How did that happen?
I need to make time for it. I will make time for it.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen