Men with cancer find fellowship on Rock Creek

[Posted by alaurie_97@yahoo.com]

Men with cancer find fellowship on Rock Creek
GREG TOLLEFSON

Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010 2:00 am



It is going to be difficult for me to find the right words to tell you
this little story, but here goes.

My friend Slats has never asked a favor of me. It's just not his
style. So I was surprised when he asked if I would be interested in
helping out with some fly-fishing guidance for a group of cancer
patients attending a retreat last weekend up Rock Creek. We would be
called "fishing buddies," and our job would be to provide help with
casting and knot tying and dispense general on-stream fishing advice.
With no more information than that, I agreed to tag along. It was not
clear to me then, but now I understand Slats was offering an
opportunity.

It was only later that I learned the weekend retreat was one of many
held around the country every year by an organization called Reel
Recovery. Reel Recovery was founded in 2003 to provide a chance for
men in treatment for or recovery from all forms of cancer to gather to
share their experiences and stories with each other while experiencing
the serenity and spiritual healing that can be found in the sport of
fly fishing.

When Slats and I arrived in the cool morning, the 11 men who had
gathered on Rock Creek for the weekend were still deeply involved in a
session of facilitated discussion in the lodge, so we bided our time
getting acquainted with several other prospective "fishing buddies"
who had converged on Rock Creek from around western Montana.

Eleven fly rods, already rigged up, were arrayed against the porch
rail of the lodge. Eleven fishing vests were laid out on benches, each
vest filled with flies, leader material, and other fly-fishing
necessities. The outside of the vests were covered with the autographs
of men who had worn them before and the dates and places where they
had worn them. Each participant at the retreat would soon sign his
name to a vest.

When the men finished their morning discussions and emerged from the
lodge, I felt a palpable excitement in the air. These men had plain
old names like Tom, Dick and Harry. Some were tall and slim. Others
were short and thick. They were bald and shaggy, gruff, shy, funny and
serious, and they ranged from early middle age on up. Some were spry,
while for others, getting around was a struggle. Some of them were on
the road to recovery from cancer. Others knew that recovery was not
likely. But, in the shade of the big old pines in front of the lodge
that morning, cancer was momentarily pushed aside as each of them was
thinking about getting out on the water.

There was no formal assignment of retreat participants to "fishing
buddies." Instead, we introduced ourselves and chatted and eventually
paired off for a brief casting lesson on the lawn before climbing into
our vehicles and dispersing up and down Rock Creek for a few hours of
casting to real trout.

That's when the day turned golden for me. Once we got to a spot on the
creek where I thought we might find a trout, my partner and I talked
about how best to fish the hole. And I shared with him my sometimes
less-than-scientific approach to fly selection, advising that if I
were the one fishing, I would try a yellow humpy first. He did as I
suggested.

And, while he cast the fly time and again to a promising little seam
in the current that I thought might hold a hungry fish, I stood a few
feet away on the bank offering occasional observations about casting,
while our conversation began to drift to other things.

We talked about Rock Creek and how special it is. We talked about
Montana, other places we had lived, our families, our children,
literature, the unexpected turns that life takes, and about cancer and
how one's perspective on life is bound to be dramatically altered by
the experience of that disease.

The hours flew by.

There was a return to the lodge for a leisurely lunch on the deck
overlooking Rock Creek, and more talk and laughter among the
participants and fishing buddies, with a few lies and tall tales of
the one that got away thrown in for good measure. Then we embarked for
a few more hours on the sparkling stream, throwing that fly to the
water, each cast accompanied by the angler's unspoken prayer for a
trout to rise from the dark cold water in response. Saturday afternoon
ended too quickly. We left the participants to an evening together on
the creek.

On Sunday morning, Slats and I returned to the lodge to meet up with
our partners and launch off for a final try on the water, and the
experience of the day before repeated itself, but by now we were old
friends.

And I have to tell you that when a fat, glistening trout did finally
occasion to rise to slurp up that yellow humpy, I think I was as
excited as my partner. His smile was one of the most wonderful I have
ever seen. I whooped and hollered with excitement.

Later, driving home with Slats, I tried to find words to express what
I was feeling, but I couldn't find any that seemed adequate.

We had spent the weekend with brave, good men who are facing their
formidable challenges with dignity, grace and good humor.

It was our good fortune to have the chance to be there with those guys
for a few precious hours on a fine summer weekend in Montana.

Thanks for asking me to come along, Slats.

Greg Tollefson is a freelance Missoula writer whose column appears
each week in Outdoors. He can be reached at gtoll...@bresnan.net.