Another September

A memory of a day long ago...

This old cornfield. The stalks are drying, picked over. I expect them to come marching, with headdresses and flapping green-gold arms, like ribbons. There's a grape arbor out in the middle, several patches of different varieties, and there's an apple tree over there and this tree I'm under, in a chair I schlepped over from the lodge. I just noticed it's against banks of blackberries, yellow grass, marching hills clad all in fir. Hawks glide here, and ospreys by the river.

Like the corn, the river is alive in more than obvious ways. It tugs on my leader, gurgles and chuckles and slaps itself. It's silky, sinuous, slow, smooth, serene and none of these things. In the early light, it was silver, then gold and blue. The marble-like, bottle-like green was later, in full day. It lay low, placid and smooth, straining just a bit to encompass rocks—then rapids, where the boat's bottom bumped, and eddies, whirls and whorls and mysterious bubbling chuckles.

The river slid, slick as otters, allowing nothing to deny its coming. A late afternoon wind merely raised pimples on it, goose bumps.

We caught fish. Enough fish to win a bet with a party of four men and boys with whom we had a bet on for a six-pack of beer. I caught a good-sized chinook, a male, and a 6-7 pound steelhead, which I had to release because it was wild. I got one or two other, smaller steelhead and a squaw fish, all of them returned, the squaw fish dead after Denny Hughson, the guide, clipped its head open with fishing pliers. The squaw fish got into the Rogue by accident. They eat smolt and eggs and are a general menace.

We caught fish, but mainly we sat in a boat on the river, looked at the deer on the shore, and drank stuff—mainly beer. We waved at small parties on drift boats and big groups on jet boats out of Gold Beach. We cut the engine to let kayakers and inner-tubers drift past, and we kept the little engine putting slowly to keep us current with the current as we trolled.

It was cold and later it was hot. We didn't talk too much, for all we were four girls. That was OK. Julie caught the first fish, a good-sized female of about 8 pounds. We took pictures of it all, even the steelhead we released. We were Julie Tripp and Fran and Gloria Gonzalez and Jan Jordan.

The food is good but rather samish. Every meal, mashed potatoes and corn, chicken, gravy, melon. Biscuits and jam. Leftovers from the previous meal. Beets. The salads seemed to vary—sliced cucumber, tomatoes and onion or coleslaw.

I got to the Agness store just before it closed and bought an ice cream sandwich. Walking back amid the grassy fields and abandoned fruit trees, abuzz with late summer insects, I was content. But did the contentment come from moving through this peaceful landscape or from eating the ice cream sandwich? Both, I think. It was the right sandwich in the right place.

9/7/96