The Fisherman and His Daughter

As he progresses through his 77th trip around the sun he recalls:  

He was in a deep sleep.  The bedroom windows were open to let in the cool night air of the Black Hills of south Dakota.  Nearby, the waters of Rapid Creek provided a peaceful refrain of night noise.  Then, a slight beam of morning light crossed over the creek and entered the bedroom from the East.  As soon as it brushed his eyelids he woke, excited to meet the new day.

Sam at Rapid Creek, SD

He slipped gently from the bed so as not to disturb his wife.  After donning shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes, he worked his way into the kitchen and passed through without stopping.  He carefully opened the door to the garage and in there, grabbed the small container of worms, his backpack with fishing tackle and his ultra-light fishing rod.  He proceeded outside and, while most in the Hills were still asleep, walked the hundred yards to the creek's foot bridge his father-in-law Casey had built.  After crossing over, he moved a few feet upstream of the bend in the creek that preceded a hole he had previously identified.  There, he set up his rod, baited his hook and tossed the bait into the stream above the hole.  As the small sinker and bait bounced downstream and moved over the hole, it attracted the attention of several rainbow trout who were waiting there for breakfast to float by.  One moved quickly to grab the bait and soon disappeared into the hands of the fisherman.  

Sam and Dad setting up tackle.

The fisherman repeated the same routine a couple of dozen times over the next hour and eventually held a stringer with eight pan-sized rainbow trout.  He packed up and returned to the house with his fishing tackle and his catch.  There, the family was up and about with their morning coffee and juice.  Casey, his Father-in-law, was preparing home fries and eggs to accompany their fresh trout breakfast.  

His daughter, Samantha Marie was four or five then and he asked her if she would like to try fishing.  She did and they did, across the bridge at that very same hole in the creek bend.  The next morning, she caught her first fish ever.  It was a perfect time in South Dakota's Black Hills...a time he would never forget.