Post by gaetzchamp on Mar 7, 2006 15:13:37 GMT -5
I keep a copy of this little story handy as it reminds me of the things that are really matter.......
Your Memory Bank
For more than 20 years, Fred Moses has talked me into going on fishing trips for which I could afford neither the time nor the money. When he's not on a trout stream or duck hunting, he's a brilliant criminal lawyer. When he wants my company for a trip, I cannot argue with his logical reasons for going. In fact, Fred quickly proves that the only sensible thing to do is to pack immediately and meet him!
It's a strange partnership as we have never lived near each other. Fred lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, less than an hour from trout streams in the Great Smoky Mountains, and during the past two decades I have lived in a circle around him, from California to Connecticut to Florida. I often suspect that he has taken me on as his pet project, determined to make me an expert trout fisherman, much the same as a preacher who zeroes in on the worst sinner on the fringes of his congregation.
To Fred, it's the most reasonable thing in the world to telephone me from 500 miles away and ask me to meet him at a village in trout country the next day. Once he talked me into going to Quebec from California, on borrowed money. We arrived 3 weeks too early; there was a foot of snow along the high streams, and the trout were in deep freeze. The only trout we saw were in the shallows of a lake, basking over sandbars like sardines trying to thaw out. We did not see or catch a trout over 7 inches long. Yet, it was a memorable trip!
When Fred phones, he's a genius at juggling my time and dollars. He shrewdly anticipates my arguments and has a lengthy list of statistics proving that it's cheaper to meet him than stay home. He proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that my time on a trout stream is more valuable to me than shuffling paper to earn a living.
Once, as we rested on a huge boulder along the Wise River in Montana, Fred explained his basic philosophy of outdoor living. This philosophy has made it even more difficult for me to turn down his impulsive invitations.
Fred believes everyone should open a Memory Bank account. As quickly as you open the account, you should begin making deposits. Every hunting, fishing or outdoor trip is a deposit. The more trips you make, if only for an hour or two, the richer you become.
You may withdraw any of the memories at any time, mull them over, relive them, and dream about them. There is no penalty for withdrawal because the memories go right back into the bank. There is no way you can lose on a Memory Bank account. It's fully insured and guaranteed for life. Each memory deposit makes you richer!
The Memory Bank account is also a savings for your old age. When you're too old to get out of that rocking chair on the front porch, you rock gently and let the memories drift through your mind as softly as sand grains in an hourglass. When you don't have enough strength to push the cat off your lap, you ease back and smile because you were farsighted enough to make a bonanza of deposits. It's an open account, always ready to be drawn upon.
Of course, there's a catch. No one can make deposits for you. No rich uncle can leave them to you. No one else can transfer his memory account to you. All of the deposits must be made by you. There will always be urgent family, or job affairs trying to prevent you from making deposits. Many obstacles will spring up to block you, but if you make the effort you can become as rich as you want.
As Fred explained it to me, a person taking this short voyage on earth must develop a sense of values. What is truly worthwhile to him? When you come to the end of the trail and look back, what will you say had true meaning? Will you remember that week of fishing for brook trout in Maine or the mound of paper you passed through the office? Will you recall that magnificent rainbow trout you lost in the Nantahala River or the weekend you took a full briefcase home?
Please understand that Fred realizes a man has to make living to have enough money to buy trout gear. He's had his fishing interrupted often enough by having to return to work and pay a few bills.
But when you get near the end of the line, what crossties will you remember? Do you think you will ever see an office or factory decorated as beautifully as an Adirondack Mountain stream canopied with May leaves and flowers? Though you visit all of the art galleries of Europe, where will you find one painting which will shake the marrow of your soul as will a sunset bouncing off the sand- stone cliffs of Utah?
Will you ever find an expressway as lovely as two brooks babbling a soothing rhythm to form a glistening cascade? Is there a city park as enchanting as a hidden pond in the Sierras where huge brown trout cruise in clear coldness? Is the exhaustion of watching two straight football games on television as satisfying as panting your way up a roaring stream to reach a pool where rainbow lurk?
And, yes, what of the people? Will you remember those from the cocktail parties you had to attend, or the stranger in the Bitterroots who gave you a fly when all of yours had failed? Will you hark back to memories of people from your transient suburb or fondly recall the friend you opened the trout season with every year? Will you remember the efficiency expert at the office or the smile of the lad you taught to cast, landing his first trout on a fly? Who are your real friends now? Are they the ones you joined on a business deal or the ones you huddled and frozen with when a spring snow caught you far in the lonely mountains?
When you're sitting on that front porch, a wool shawl over your shoulders, what will you remember? Will it be the time the company gave you a new title or when your buddy helped you net a 5-pounder in Wisconsin? Will the button they gave you at your retirement party be as valuable as the memory of a lunker brook trout at dusk giving that last frantic leap and tossing your fly back at you? Or that freezing morning in West Virginia when you stepped in a hole and went over your head? And what about those brook trout you and your buddies fried for breakfast in the Snowbird Mountains of North Carolina? Close your eyes and you can still smell them, together with a wisp of white pine and fern.
Sitting there rocking and running out of time, will you wish you had put more in your Memory Bank?
Kind of hits home eh? I often take the day off work and go fishing/rockhunting w/ my kids or one kid. I believe in this and hope I can keep making deposits. I also like to think that if I take my kids w/ me that I'm making a deposit into their Memory Bank as well.
Gaetz
Your Memory Bank
For more than 20 years, Fred Moses has talked me into going on fishing trips for which I could afford neither the time nor the money. When he's not on a trout stream or duck hunting, he's a brilliant criminal lawyer. When he wants my company for a trip, I cannot argue with his logical reasons for going. In fact, Fred quickly proves that the only sensible thing to do is to pack immediately and meet him!
It's a strange partnership as we have never lived near each other. Fred lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, less than an hour from trout streams in the Great Smoky Mountains, and during the past two decades I have lived in a circle around him, from California to Connecticut to Florida. I often suspect that he has taken me on as his pet project, determined to make me an expert trout fisherman, much the same as a preacher who zeroes in on the worst sinner on the fringes of his congregation.
To Fred, it's the most reasonable thing in the world to telephone me from 500 miles away and ask me to meet him at a village in trout country the next day. Once he talked me into going to Quebec from California, on borrowed money. We arrived 3 weeks too early; there was a foot of snow along the high streams, and the trout were in deep freeze. The only trout we saw were in the shallows of a lake, basking over sandbars like sardines trying to thaw out. We did not see or catch a trout over 7 inches long. Yet, it was a memorable trip!
When Fred phones, he's a genius at juggling my time and dollars. He shrewdly anticipates my arguments and has a lengthy list of statistics proving that it's cheaper to meet him than stay home. He proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that my time on a trout stream is more valuable to me than shuffling paper to earn a living.
Once, as we rested on a huge boulder along the Wise River in Montana, Fred explained his basic philosophy of outdoor living. This philosophy has made it even more difficult for me to turn down his impulsive invitations.
Fred believes everyone should open a Memory Bank account. As quickly as you open the account, you should begin making deposits. Every hunting, fishing or outdoor trip is a deposit. The more trips you make, if only for an hour or two, the richer you become.
You may withdraw any of the memories at any time, mull them over, relive them, and dream about them. There is no penalty for withdrawal because the memories go right back into the bank. There is no way you can lose on a Memory Bank account. It's fully insured and guaranteed for life. Each memory deposit makes you richer!
The Memory Bank account is also a savings for your old age. When you're too old to get out of that rocking chair on the front porch, you rock gently and let the memories drift through your mind as softly as sand grains in an hourglass. When you don't have enough strength to push the cat off your lap, you ease back and smile because you were farsighted enough to make a bonanza of deposits. It's an open account, always ready to be drawn upon.
Of course, there's a catch. No one can make deposits for you. No rich uncle can leave them to you. No one else can transfer his memory account to you. All of the deposits must be made by you. There will always be urgent family, or job affairs trying to prevent you from making deposits. Many obstacles will spring up to block you, but if you make the effort you can become as rich as you want.
As Fred explained it to me, a person taking this short voyage on earth must develop a sense of values. What is truly worthwhile to him? When you come to the end of the trail and look back, what will you say had true meaning? Will you remember that week of fishing for brook trout in Maine or the mound of paper you passed through the office? Will you recall that magnificent rainbow trout you lost in the Nantahala River or the weekend you took a full briefcase home?
Please understand that Fred realizes a man has to make living to have enough money to buy trout gear. He's had his fishing interrupted often enough by having to return to work and pay a few bills.
But when you get near the end of the line, what crossties will you remember? Do you think you will ever see an office or factory decorated as beautifully as an Adirondack Mountain stream canopied with May leaves and flowers? Though you visit all of the art galleries of Europe, where will you find one painting which will shake the marrow of your soul as will a sunset bouncing off the sand- stone cliffs of Utah?
Will you ever find an expressway as lovely as two brooks babbling a soothing rhythm to form a glistening cascade? Is there a city park as enchanting as a hidden pond in the Sierras where huge brown trout cruise in clear coldness? Is the exhaustion of watching two straight football games on television as satisfying as panting your way up a roaring stream to reach a pool where rainbow lurk?
And, yes, what of the people? Will you remember those from the cocktail parties you had to attend, or the stranger in the Bitterroots who gave you a fly when all of yours had failed? Will you hark back to memories of people from your transient suburb or fondly recall the friend you opened the trout season with every year? Will you remember the efficiency expert at the office or the smile of the lad you taught to cast, landing his first trout on a fly? Who are your real friends now? Are they the ones you joined on a business deal or the ones you huddled and frozen with when a spring snow caught you far in the lonely mountains?
When you're sitting on that front porch, a wool shawl over your shoulders, what will you remember? Will it be the time the company gave you a new title or when your buddy helped you net a 5-pounder in Wisconsin? Will the button they gave you at your retirement party be as valuable as the memory of a lunker brook trout at dusk giving that last frantic leap and tossing your fly back at you? Or that freezing morning in West Virginia when you stepped in a hole and went over your head? And what about those brook trout you and your buddies fried for breakfast in the Snowbird Mountains of North Carolina? Close your eyes and you can still smell them, together with a wisp of white pine and fern.
Sitting there rocking and running out of time, will you wish you had put more in your Memory Bank?
Kind of hits home eh? I often take the day off work and go fishing/rockhunting w/ my kids or one kid. I believe in this and hope I can keep making deposits. I also like to think that if I take my kids w/ me that I'm making a deposit into their Memory Bank as well.
Gaetz
