Harry Middleton - The Earth Is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Flyfishing, Trout & Old Men

Copyright 1989 by Harry Middleton

Foreword copyright 1996 by Russell Chatham

All RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.

Originally published in hardcover and paperback by Simon & Schuster, New York, New York in 1989.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Middleton, Harry.

The earth is enough ; growing up in a world of fly fishing, trout, and old men / Harry Middleton. 1st Pruett Pub. ed.

p. cm.

Originally published: New York : Simon and Schuster, 1989.

ISBN 978-0-87108-874-1 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-87108-965-6 (e-book)

1. Middleton, HarryChildhood and youth. 2. Children of military personnelUnited StatesBiography. 3. FishingOzark Mountains Region. 4. HuntingOzark Mountains Region. 5. Ozark Mountains RegionSocial life and customs. I. Title.

CT275.M5136A3 1996

976.71053092dc20

[B]

95-43024
CIP

Cover painting by Thomas Aquinas Daly
Book design by Studio Signorella

WestWinds Press

An imprint of

P.O. Box 56118

Portland, Oregon 97238-6118

(503) 254-5591

www.graphicartsbooks.com

To Kelso Sutton and Nick Lyons,

two who love the good Earth and the good word.

And, at long last, for Norwell,

who pulled the pin for God, country, and the men he

admired mostthose who marched to the Garry Owen:

7th Cavalry Regt, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

It was shortly after reading Harry Middletons The Earth is Enough that I made the decision to give up trout fishing. Since fishing is one of the things my life has been largely about, perhaps this might indicate the vitality, resonance and power of this book.

I discovered Middleton later than most, a function of my suspicion of all things new, especially books, and especially squared books of fiction or books with fishing in them. I was aware of this author, but put off reading him, a gesture not unlike circling a sleeping rattler for several years. Now, thinking back, I dont recall exactly what moved me to try. Maybe it was the quotation at the books beginning by Loren Eiseley, someone I profoundly love and respect. Middletons own preface was good, too. So, I thought, one page couldnt hurt anything, what was I afraid of? A page it would be then. It was a good one that soon became two, then three, then a blurred rhythm of reading and turning, turning and reading. Everything was there as it should be, the timeless craft of the old, arm in arm with the freshness of a new vision draped around the fundamental constants of life, death, love, God and family.

This is a book about love for all things that matter. In this case, one of those things is a simple fish, brook trout to be specific, brook trout living in Starlight Creek which runs through a poor Ozark farm. It is a book about a boy, three men, and a dog; it is the story of youth and age, and of learning. Like A River Runs Through It, this tale is based on fact, shaped by fiction, and the grace of it comes from the seamless combination of the two. Unlike MacLeans book, which is inevitably ruled by an abiding Scottish sternness, Middletons work is something of an organic loose cannon, the texture plush and full of real surprises. In common with A River Runs Through It, the elements of humanity, time and place are made rich and true and innervating through genuine passion.

This insistence on passion as the driving force is why, after reading The Earth is Enough, along with Middletons other booksThe Starlight Creek Angling Society, On The Spine of Time, The Bright Country, and Rivers of MemoryI made the decision to give up trout fishing.

I started trout fishing when I was about ten years old. Even then, I knew the little eight-inch rainbows I caught were actually baby steelhead too young to travel to the sea. I yearned for the day Id be old enough to drive so I could get to them there. When that day came, I climbed into the rusty 1949 Ford I bought for fifty dollars, popped the clutch and laid down twin lines of rubber in the direction of Eureka. I found the steelhead alright, and in the doing of it discovered the king salmon that is the fish of my soul. Not a waking hour has passed in the last forty years that I have not ached to be with these fish whose spirit is so like my own that we are connected like Siamese twins, only instead of at the hip, its at the heart.

I have never once felt that way about trout. Ive spent forty-five years catching thousands of trout and Im not going to be so perverse as to claim it wasnt enjoyable. The thing is, I no longer have any extra leisure hours to spend casually. If I trout fish at all now, its to be with my six-year-old son, Paul, to watch him learn. What Harry Middleton showed me is that if it isnt in your heart and soul, if the essential passion isnt there, dont bother.

Its been said that we pass through life with a diminishing portfolio of enthusiasms. My problem is having had so many to start out with. Now, at the age of fifty-six, I have painting, my four beautiful children, fly casting, writing, friends, wing shooting, printing, family and extended family, cooking, and Marusia, the light of my life, not at all necessarily in that order. The problem, if you want to call it that, is there is no time left for things that dont matter. Years ago, after watching someone waste endless hours on some pointless project, Tom McGuane observed that the fellow obviously believed the average human lifetime to be ten thousand years. Im treating it as if there were less than a minute to go.

Middletons passion is manifested through intelligence, sensitivity and compassion to create a profound ode to the earth and to mankind, governed by respect, gentleness and humor. At all the appropriate moments this story will make you weep convulsively, burst out laughing, and cause you to ache with longing. The sadness is that these qualities certainly contributed to the doom of their creator. Passion and soul, the dual sources of everything valuable and meaningful, are not very hot commodities in our largely puritanical, calvinistic, money-driven republic. In a society like ours, layered with ennui, greed, aggressive ignorance, dispassionate, poor-quality living, all soaked in a gooey solution of snake-belly-grade voyeurism a la Oprah et al., the sensitive frequently dont make it.

Shortly after reading all of Middletons books the first time around, I called Jim Pruett, publisher of this current edition (whose urging to read them in the first place I ignored) because I wanted badly to get off a congratulatory letter to Mr. Middleton and I needed his address. Too late, Jim said, he just passed away. Im only going to whine for a minute because, as Jim Harrison is fond of advising whiners, Go tell it to Anne Frank. To which I might add Dylan Thomas, or Rilke, or Calvin Kent-field, or Ray Carver, or Richard Hugo, or Don Carpenter, or Richard Brautigan, etc., etc. Self-pity wont get you a packet of ketchup at the cheapest restaurant on earth. But it still hurts to know that Harry Middleton rode the back of a garbage truck every night during the wee hours to put groceries on his familys table. All too frequently, in addition to endless money problems, many artists have difficult personalities and/or drinking problems, three omnipresent occupational speed bumps, any or all of which can be fatal.