Readers will recall — from more than a year ago — the sad tale of how my 1970s handmade-from-a-kit fishing fly rod mistakenly ended up exiting the Flint Hills of Kansas and ending up in the Sand Hills of Nebraska.
To refresh memories, here’s what happened. Through mention in my column, I ended up selling a 1997 blue F-150 Ford pickup to faithful reader Jacuval Traydes and his wife Irene in Ainsworth, Neb., way north in the Nebraska Sand Hills.
However, in a monumental oversight on my part, I left my custom-made fly rod behind and beneath the rear seat and the new owners blithely drove home with it. Some time later, I discovered the missing fly rod and notified Jac. He said he’d gladly mail it back to me. But, I told him to keep it unless I came personally to retrieve it. Otherwise, it wuz his to keep.
Well, that’s what I did last week — go back to get it. And, I didn’t go by myself. Since Nevah left me for 8 days to go on a river cruise with a long-time friend of hers, I decided it wuz a good time for a trip to the Sand Hills. So, I called my old high school classmate, Canby Handy from Platte City, Mo., to see if he wanted to see the Sand Hills with me since he and I have a long history of Old Geezer trips enjoying the rural countryside.
Canby one-upped me. He insisted on driving. I accepted and told him I’d buy the gas for the trip. So, that’s what we did. We left Riley, Kan., at noon on a Monday. Our destination wuz Hastings, Neb. to overnight with old friend and Nebraska state senator, Wright deLaws. I hadn’t seen Wright since he got elected state Senator eight years ago, so we had a lot of friendly and political ground to cover.
Wright is a Senator who has worked diligently to serve his constituents and all citizens of the Cornhusker state. He told us one funny story about an effort he and several other rural Senators made to try and replace the state’s too high property and sales taxes with a novel new tax.
They proposed legislation to pass a one-time, a state-wide “New Consumption Tax” of 7.5% on most products sold for the first time in the state. For example, a buyer purchasing a new pickup truck would pay a 7.5% tax. But, when that buyer later sells that same pickup as a used truck, there would be zero tax paid. Same for a new home, boat, tractor, etc. It would allow lower-income folks to avoid a lot of taxes.
Wright said a reliable think tank did projection models showing that the new tax would adequately replace revenue from the current property and sales taxes.
I’m sure I’m leaving out some important details, but the point of this story is that normally the special interest lobbyists are about equal pro and con on proposed legislation. They gather to buttonhole Senators in the Capitol rotunda after each session to make their special interests known.
Well, Wright said that the “New Consumption Tax” wuz opposed by all the special interest lobbyists on both sides. They all had too much invested in the status quo to want change. That’s why Wright laughed to himself when he said “the lobbyists didn’t mob me as usual, but instead parted like the Red Sea when I emerged into the rotunda after a session discussing the new tax.”
I guess Wright wuz the new pariah to those selfish lobbyists. As for me, I’m proud to know him. We all need more statesmen like Wright.
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Early the next morning Canby and I headed north to the Sand Hills. We went through Grand Island, where Canby served in the Air Force, half a century ago, and breakfasted in St. Paul. There I learned what women with beaucoup body tattoos will look like in their senior years. Our aging waitress was more than amply covered with wrinkled tattoos. To my biased eyes it wuzn’t a pretty sight. But, to each his/her own.
Canby and I are old-school. We eschew global positioning to find destinations. We stick to well-worn paper maps. As a consequence, we made a few unplanned twists and turns on our way to Jac’s homestead. Many of the roads go through free range cattle country. One wrong turn went about 10 miles into a pasture where we surprised a local rancher who wuz returning a strayed Angus bull to its rightful pasture. Of course, that meeting led to a half-hour free-range conversation about the difficulties of making a living ranching in the Sand Hills. I remember the rancher said he had to pay $30,000 of property taxes every year.
I’ll mention that the Traydes live perfectly center-way of a 20-mile stretch of dirt/gravel road that parallels the Calamus River as it flows southeast. When we got on the right road, we crossed 11 free-range cattle guards to get to their homestead. That’s remote.
They welcomed us like long-lost kinfolks and went to every effort to make our short stay a memorable one. As background, Jac reported his age at 88 and his wife not far behind. They moved to their place 25 years ago. Prior to retiring, Jac owned a forensic lab in Lincoln. Among other things, his wife taught school on a Native American reservation for several years.
Working together they’ve come close to self-sufficiency. They have a greenhouse and garden, have a small chicken flock and have an immense split wood pile for winter burning. In addition, they’ve hauled logs from a burned government forest, bought a new portable saw mill, and plan to saw enuf lumber to build a cabin.
To entertain Canby and me, Irene took us on a buggy ride behind a black Shetland pony named Joshua that Irene uses as a therapy pet for school children and assisted living folks. She also drives the pony in local parades. Naturally, Jac made the leather harness and bridle.
Jac took me small pontoon boat fishing in a spectacular 4-acre spring-fed lake on the property. That turned into a memory we neither expected. After I caught a 4-pound bass, Jac said, “We got a problem. The propeller fell off.” We couldn’t get back to the dock, so we hit the bank and struggled back to the house.
The Traydes fed us like kings. And, before we left, Irene gave Canby and I each a handsome hand-sewn cloth purse for our wives. And Jac gave us each a loaf of sour dough bread from his special recipe.
All in all, it wuz a great trip. And, my fly rod is back home now. I’ll mention that the kit I build it from in the 1970s cost around $20. I spent around $200 on gas and meals to fetch it home, but I don’t regret a cent of it.
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Words of wisdom for this week: “Make the most of every day.” Have a good ‘un.
