FACING FORWARD LOOKING BACK

Originally Published the Week of May 4, 2013 in Western Outdoor News

One of my esteemed predecessors writing this column for Western Outdoors was the famous Fred Hoctor.  People described him in many ways.  A curmudgeon.  A crank.  Crusty.  Or worse!

Even he admitted to it. Always with a laugh.

But he was a helluva writer and one of those guys who just had the knack for spinning yarns and telling stories. He wrote columns and books including the iconic, “Baja Ha Ha” that can still be found in many bookshelves.  Say what you want, but “Old Fred” was prolifically brilliant and witty and one of the original Baja rats.

I started writing outdoor pieces about 30 years ago myself.  I don’t know where Fred got a hold of me or how, but he would call me up now and then.  To me, it was like Papa Hemingway or John Steinbeck calling.  I never really knew what to say or how to engage him in conversation.

Usually, though, it seemed as though he was calling to get something off his chest.

I’d pick up the phone and I’d hear, “Kid…this is Fred. (Never give his last name unless I asked it …so the first few times, it was just “Fred” as if no one else named Fred would have called me).

He’d say, “Kid, I read what you wrote in such-and-such a magazine.”  He’d say this in a his gravelly voice that sounded like central casting for a guy who smoked too many cigarettes…sucked the dust off too many Baja backroads… and raspy from tipping the bottle…sometimes I would swear he was tipping while he was talking.

He’d usually cuss at me a bit  and then launch into a story.  The story had nothing to do with anything I’d written.  He wouldn’t even comment on my writing.  He’d laugh.  Cuss s’more  and just hang up.  Never asked my opinion or try to converse. Never said good-bye or drop a salutation.  Just hung up.  Zzzzzz…dead air.  Dial-tone.

Uh…thanks for the call, Fred.  Nice to hear from you.

But, I always liked that he called me, “kid.”  It was nice to know that I was being read by someone!   It was like knowing that someone cool was watching me.   Someone older and wiser…(Fred passed away in 2001 and I’m sure being called “wiser” makes him just spin and hoot from the other side).

Somehow, I’ve always thought of myself as “the kid.”  I was always the younger guy around.   In the industry, there were all these older guys that I looked up to and who took me under their wings.  I felt like I was always sitting at the “kids” table at Thanksgiving and the grown ups were at the big table.

But a sobering thought hit me while pondering what to write for this week’s column.  That was 20-30 years ago and I’m on the near side of 60 years old now.   I’m not a kid and somewhere and sometime, I moved up to the big boy table.  And somehow more and more spaces kept opening up there.  Little-by-little, the grown ups passed on.

Mentally, I still feel like one of the young guys, but my salt-and-pepper beard and creaky joints tell a different story.   All my friends are this old too.  And there’s not too many ahead of me.

But, the sad thing is that there aren’t too many behind me either.

The kids table isn’t very filled anymore.  My generation seems to be the YOUNG generation even tho’ we’re retiring and having kids in college and seeing grand kids.  There isn’t much of a “younger generation” filling in the gaps behind us.

At all the hunting and fishing shows we attend with our booth, most of the operators and outfitters are about my age or older.   Most of the charter boat operators are my age or older.  At the seminars I do for fishing clubs…again…my age or older.

And the ones leaving the sport and leaving the industry simply fold up.  Their kids do other things.  It’s a hard life making ends meet relying on skill and the whims of Mother Nature.    The kids of the guys who participate in the sports have other attractions…X games…video computers…social media.  Heck, how many kids these days even go outside?

Even here in La Paz.  The kids of my captains, even though many go onto other jobs and professions, don’t come back to the water let alone wanting to do what dad does.

And the same for our fishing clients.  We’re all aging together.   I saw one group of firefighters several weeks ago who have come fishing with us for over a decade.

At dinner one night, I said, “Years ago, you guys would tear up the hotel.  You’d streak through the halls and do naked cannonballs into the pool.  I’d find you on the beach in the mornings passed out and drag you onto the pangas.  Now by 8 p.m. you’re all in your rooms watching CNN and asleep by 9 o’clock!”

We all laughed through our “reader glasses” we all bought from COSTCO.  Very simply, we got older!   The telling thing is that of the 20 or so guys, not a single one of them has kids that like to go fishing, nevermind coming to Baja.

Unfortunately, I think that bodes poorly on so many levels.  Wow.  I’m close to being the last of the generations to remember when the roads were all dirt…the tumbleweeds blew across a beach without high rise hotels…ice was non-existent…air-conditioning meant opening a window or opening a tent flap…gasoline was filtered through a t-shirt…the dinner menu was tortillas and whatever you caught…and you opened a beer with your fishing pliers.

After me…after us…the ranks are thin and thinning.

That’s our story…

Jonathan

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Jonathan Roldan has been writing the Baja Column in Western Outdoor News since 2004.  Along with his wife and fishing buddy, Jilly, they own and run the Tailhunter International Fishing Fleet in La Paz, Baja, Mexico  www.tailhunter-international.com.  They also run their Tailhunter Restaurant Bar on the famous La Paz malecon waterfront.  If you’d like to contact him directly, his e-mail is riplipboy@tailhunter-international.com  or drop by the restaurant to say hi!

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