THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY
Everybody has their own river. You must swim in your own river.
If you don’t swim in your own river, you will drown.
-- Orestes Valdez, Cuban shamanic healer
Late one spring when I was about seven or eight years old, I graduated from fishing that I was actually a kindred spirit, a buck-skinned explorer on the inside—a belief that
on the little lake near my family’s cabin in northeastern Michigan to fishing on the reverberated deep throughout my very being down to my size four Keds, and had been
mighty Au Sable River about fifteen miles north. My fishing buddy was my mom’s an integral part of my soul for as long as I could remember. And now, here we were in the
father, Dziadzia Romie. Dziadzia (pronounced Jah-jah) is the Polish word for wilderness, in hostile Indian territory perhaps, struggling for our very survival against the
grandfather, and his first name was Roman, but everyone called him Romie. elements! Oh, where was my coonskin cap when I really needed it?
We set out early in the morning and drove through the Huron National Forest past It got even better: Dziadzia scrounged up some wire mesh to put over the fire and
Lumberman’s Monument and Iargo Springs before turning north along Route began cooking the fish we’d caught that morning. I don’t think I’d ever had food (other
65, crossing the Au Sable below the Five Channels Dam where we’d put our boats than marshmallows) cooked over an open fire before. The bluegill and perch tasted so
in. Dziadzia Romie and I always fished from one rowboat while Dad and my older fresh, so au naturale, so different from the frozen crackermeal-coated wedges that Mom
brother fished from another. After loading all our fishing gear, life preservers, typically fried in a pan on Lenten Fridays. I thought it was the best fish I’d ever eaten
and coolers filled with pop and baloney and ham sandwiches, Dad and my brother until then and, truthfully, ever since.
motored downriver to their clandestine fishing holes, while Dziadzia and I drifted
with the current until we saw what looked like to be an inviting spot.
Afterwards, we took our time relaxing on the island, walking around just to see what
was there. We had never taken this kind of break from fishing before, and everything
We fished most of the morning before it started to rain, hard and cold, so Dziadzia felt so vibrant and alive. And it was amazing how different the river looked from that
steered us to an island where we could stay dry under some pine trees. Once the rain let grounded perspective as it glided past us in its seemingly half-smiling, unhurried
up a bit, he built a fire, which I kind of marveled at, never expecting it was something centeredness, as if it had always known who it was and where it was going.
any grown-up I knew could or would do. As the smoky fire sputtered and hissed to stay
alive in the smothering dampness, things started to shift as if somehow a tiny crack had
splintered the universe, and adventure started to seep in. I began to feel like I was Daniel
Boone or Davy Crockett—two of my favorite heroes who had not only opened the heart
of this country when it was young, but had also opened my exploring heart to the thrilling
possibility of living in the woods, sleeping under the stars, and discovering what might
be around the next bend. It wasn’t just their TV depictions on Sunday night’s Wonderful
World of Disney that had captivated my imagination years before, but a pervading sense
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Later, as night began to wrap its dusky shawl over the stooped shoulders of the day
and it became too dangerous for a boat without running lights to be out on the river,
we all returned to shore. As we unloaded the boats, Dad hoisted a teeming wire
basket full of fish over his head and gloated, “Okay, who caught the most? Who
caught the biggest?” My stomach began to sink as if it had sprung a leak. I didn’t
know it had been a contest. I didn’t know I was going to be graded. And when my
grandfather told him that we had pulled into an island when it started to rain, built a