Fly Fishing Vegetarian

A fly fishing, politically left of center, ranch-born and raised bicycle-riding vegetarian is a contradiction of terms on a number of levels. I am a fly fisherman, a bicyclist, a vegetarian, I'm was born and raised in an uneducated, conservative, and isolated, western, ranching family, and I think I'm getting a grip on my contradictions. There are other oxymora in my life.

I deal with my various issues in therapy and I release any fish I catch, but I can't let go of the nagging feelings that I have about this election cycle. The promises the candidates make about economy, taxes, foreign policy, jobs, are like the flies I use to fool fish into giving me what I need--the illusion that I've come out ahead.

Political promises are what we desperately wish them to be. They are delivered with passion and pitched to sound like the things we need to hear; more jobs, better education, lower taxes, immigration fixes or an end to terrorism. Voters rise, to well presented rhetoric, like fish do to a dry fly. We rush to grab promises we want to hear cast on the air waves by a candidate.

Brown trout hit flies like voters do political speak; they'll grab a well presented brick! It seems that group-think makes us into Brown Trout! Other species of fish seem fussier, often harder to entice. Politician-speak is swallowed hook, line, and sinker by voters who want to believe they are being told the truth. We (I) want to trust somebody, to feel relief from busting butt to make ends meet, we're desperate to believe that a candidate will change the system to do the things we need it to do. 

When I was a kid, on the ranch, riding my horse or bicycle to go fly fishing brought clarity, helped bring light into a life inside of the gloom in our home. Fly fishing infuses calm into my ADHD world. The other is riding my bicycle. I bike in-spite of people driving impaired by cellphones and atrophied frontal cortexes. Fishing and biking are my Zen. Both are meditations, contemplations of self and the choices I've made, behaviors I have to be responsible for, and contradictions I have to accept.

After I fly fish or bicycle I am able to think clearer, my frontal lobe feels engaged, my midbrain takes a needed break, and I can ignore election babble or at least see it for what I think it is. 

I'm also a practicing vegetarian even though our family has been in the livestock business--in the southwest--for generations! I quit eating animal protein over a decade ago. I become a vegetarian because I couldn't process animal protein: reptile, crustacean, fish, fowl, or mammal and, while I haven't tried, probably insects. However, if my innards were still processing animal protein, I likely wouldn't go back to the carnivorous end of the omnivore spectrum. 

I'm the only non-meat eating person in our family. Some of my best friends (love this contradictory cliche!) eat meat. Peter, my weekly coffee and lunch date, happily consumes bacon with almost everything, perhaps even with ice cream or scotch!

What other people eat is their business but I hope they take the time to think about what it takes to get animal protein from hoof/wing/water/garden/field, to the table. Animals (and plants) are genetically manipulated, hormone enhanced, manufactured in warehouses (raised in confinement--terrestrial and aquatic), and factory processed and packaged for sale. 

Animals and plants have been genetically modified for centuries. Gregor Mendel was one of the first to codify his hybridizing experiments. In a way we did this on the ranch, cross-breeding cattle to gain weight faster, or sheep to produce better and finer wool, or more meat. 

The two sides of genetic manipulation are hybridizing within species or the more malevolent evolution of genetic modification: using non-species genetic coding (gene splicing) to improve the target species or variety, develop new medical tools, etc. Mendelian hybridizing has produced varieties of hogs (as an example) that look alike, reach shipping weights at the same time, and generally produce the same quality and quantity of meat product. Chickens and turkeys are likewise produced for both for eggs and meat.  

Public attitude is manipulated by politicians using a verbal version of gene splicing. The product isn't gene spliced six pound chicken breasts, it's group think, mob mentality. Maybe politicians and meat producers would be more honest if we held them liable and accountable for their deeds. 

But I have my own contradictions! I consume yogurt, an egg or two, and I add milk to my morning tea. I'm labeled a lacto-ova-vegitarian. Another contradiction is that I love fly fishing! It's a thrill to entice a fish to strike and then shaking it off of the hook untouched by my hands. 

I've been fly fishing since I was a teen in SW Colorado. Riding a bicycle and horses began a few years before. My oldest living uncle, an avid fly fisherman, gave me an old split bamboo fly rod. Once I learned how to control the fluidity of the action, casting became a meditative action. I practiced in a field behind our barns. The fly rod seemed a biologic extension of my body. I felt self-enabled, successful in a home where personal success was seldom celebrated. It was a liberating feeling, one that I now experience on the seat of my bicycle, fly fishing, or holding the hand of one of my small grandchildren, feeling my heart regulate to their heartbeat when they lay on my chest to nap.

I don't have a memory of learning how to ride a bike. But riding one feels like I was born on a bicycle; as natural as riding a horse, walking, or casting a fly. My first bicycle came out of a landfill. While foraging, I discovered a rusty-blue bike, no tires, chain, or seat. My grandfather, (agüelo in Judeo-Spanish) occasionally, scavenged the local "dump" for magazines such as Look, Life, National Geographic. 

After I learned to read (and speak English) in the first grade, my universe expanded. I practiced my reading skills by reading these magazines. In secret I marveled at the pictures, especially photographs in National Geographic, that showed buck-naked breasts from Africa and a cornucopia of animals, landscapes, and strangely-hued and dressed humans from distant lands. The earth was no longer flat. 

"I can fix it," I told my agüelo, holding up the bicycle frame. 

"You probably can," He said. "But why would anyone want to kill their legs to give their ass a ride?"

If Agüelo were still living I'd respond: "Killing my legs to give my ass a ride or fly fishing flushes the economic, social, political, and internal and external detritus from between the wrinkles in my brain."

Riding my bike or fishing is when I'm less reactive to the empty promises of political candidates, less likely to jump to conclusions, not as judgmental or cynical, and when I'm more introspective, honest with my own feelings. My contradictions, however, become more visible to me. They are part of the contemplative process and often the most productive, albeit, occasionally painful meditation. The time spent with a fly rod in hand or on a bicycle seat is when I reassess my incongruities, find ways to mitigate them, or accept them as a part of who I am. 

This election cycle has been especially disconcerting. Political lines in the sand, usually drawn with contradictory rhetoric and posturing, have taken on vitriol, vindictiveness, anger, and hate. Clear ideological divides--inter and intro--party--are evident; symptoms of a toxic infection, a political social disease, a threat to my grandchildren's futures and the future of our country. These are not family values or the values of anyone I want in a leadership position at any level.

It would be a needed relief if someone running for public office would choose not to pander, posture, force-feed empty promises to voters and bully and belittle opponents. A refreshing and progressive change would be the politician who spoke of what she/he would try to do for the neighborhood, district, state, or for the country, not what evil the other side has done or will do. And no promises, like the saying: "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas."

I would like to hear, and I would support, any political candidate with the courage to run a campaign with the core values of candor, personal commitment to change, and the willingness and track record of a candidate who is willing to put aside her/his personal agenda to move all of us forward. And, ideally, they would ride a bicycle or cast a fly and understand their own contradictions.

The last memory I have of the rusted blue bicycle--that I gave my brother when I left home--is Jim riding to the end of our farm lane begging me to take him with me, and then, crying, waving goodbye as I drove off into another life. I don't know what my brother did with that bicycle but I haven't been unable to ride away from my regret for leaving Jim behind. I kept the fly rod my uncle gave me until last year when I gave it to my oldest daughter's partner, a man whom I've noticed is significantly relaxed after a few minutes casting a fly, who cares deeply for my daughter, and now that they share a newborn, is excited to be a parent and a father.   

Maybe it should be mandatory for anyone running for public office that they have to spend at least 100 hours fly fishing and another 100 riding a bicycle before they throw their hat into the ring. And just before every debate they should spend a couple of hours doing each activity. It might leech some of the meanness, vitriol, and equivocations out of the debate and promote honesty.

Ride a bicycle as often as you can, practice catch and release, hug your family, and vote responsibly by thinking for yourself!