Jerry Hamza - The Zen of Home Water

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Hamza

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Mona Lin

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-5889-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-5625-0

Printed in the United States of America

I was surprised, as always, by how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibilities.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

I have never been good at standing still for long. I have always placed myself in life situations where I get to leave. My work in show business kept me moving. Later, two terms as president of the Cat Fanciers Association had me traveling to corners of the world I would otherwise have never seen. It seems if I stay still too long, things in life attach to my soul, the way a lamprey diminishes a trout. Luckily, I have never had much trouble slipping out the door.

When the weight of life, the heavy oppression in the yoke of everyday responsibility accumulates, I feel a stirring to go. Stirring is the wrong word; that suggests something subtle. In my consciousness, this weight builds to the anguish of a scream. I sometimes fancy I was born free. As I get older, I realize I was born freer than I am today.

In the accumulation of life that leads to frustration, you can, still, throw off the chains and free yourself. When I finally get to the point where I need to leave... I leave. Nothing like an organized trip. I have the basic plan: I grab piles of stuff; I am going to run away and go fishing. The fishing is the gravy. The important thing is to throw as much of the right stuff as possible in the back seat and trunk. It is almost as important to leave something important back home, too. It creates the inadvertent cause that incorporates itself into the tripsomething to return to.

I have given a name to the pure escape impulsefreestyling. The purpose of freestyling is to slip off the chains of oppression, forgo responsibility, get in touch with your inner vagabond, and catch nice trout. Sometimes the species can change. Catch some nice bass. Catch some nice pike. How about grayling? Sometimes grayling sound far enough away.

Freestyling takes you as far away from home as you need to be. One of the best things about the actual asphalt highway is that is has the uncanny power to knock the angst right out of you. I remember being in Louisville, Kentucky, when I found out my daughter was pregnant. My daughter, who was a senior in college. The one on whom I had spent lots of money to send to the Netherlands for a semester to study safe sex and HIV. Irony aside, I was willing to kill the perpetrator. During the course of the twelve-hour drive, the road dissipated much of my anger. When I reached home, still less than thrilled, I was beginning to get philosophical. In the end, I was able to chalk it up to the power of sex. Every millstone has its own weight and distance required to relieve that weight.

I had thrown what I felt was the right amount of stuff in the car. I then drove to the local liquor store. I purchased a bottle of vodka, a bottle of rum, a couple fifths of bourbon, and a full case of single-malt whisky. The whisky was not to ruin my liver; instead I would use it for trespass feesI would barter for access to fishing. With freestyling, there is no real plan. You never make reservations at fancy lodges. That would defeat the purpose. The catharsis comes in the unplanned freedom, like a milkweed seed floating to where it needs to be but directionless until it gets there. Inevitably, that kind of drifting leads me to knocking on doors asking permission to fish. Sometimes I add a box of nice chocolate to the offer. Over the years, that has helped me to get on some nice water.

Trespassing has developed a negative connotation in recent years. I think it is due to all those No Trespassing signs tainting what otherwise would be beautiful landscapes. We trespass anytime we are not on property we actually own. When you are allowed passage to a place you dont own, you are trespassing in a positive way. Some places still use the term trespass fee or trespass permission in a way that is more positive. Being a somewhat conservative person in my views of land ownership, I believe that if you own land you can decide what to do with it. When it comes to riparian water rights, I tend to have liberal views. I believe you can own the land around the water but the things that God gave us belong to us all. Specifically, the water and the fly-eating vertebrates that live in the water. I remember being in a bar out West. It was one of those expensive trout towns where very wealthy people have purchased some very fine land with blue-ribbon water running through it. Overhearing a conversation on the bar stool next to me really got to me. The man was obviously an owner of the type of homestead I just described. He was bemoaning the fact that some folks were catching nice trout downstream from his spread on public water. He was certain that many of those fish move down from his place. He was telling his company that he was contemplating (illegally) placing a sort of underwater fence that would prohibit his trout from being caught downstream by those people. I kept thinking douche bag over and over again. I made sure I accidentally spilled a drink on him before I called it a night.

As I began my freestyle trip, I noticed my car was heading west. I found that to be interesting. When I pull out of my driveway while freelancing, I seldom really know where I am going. Occasionally a friend invites me, which sometimes tells me where I will end up. This trip had none of that. I was just going. The early miles pound the angst out of you. You start to think about what you threw into the car. Then you start to think about what you didnt throw into the car. Eggs. I forgot eggs. One of the things I live for on these trips is streamside coffee. I like to percolate it in a small aluminum pot. Some people call it cowboy coffee. There is no filter. You let the grounds roil in the pot. The most important thing is to get fresh egg shell in the water. I also add the egg. It has a taste that has become important to the whole freestyle experience. So here I was, just east of Chicago, looking for eggs.