A QUIET CONVERSATION
Originally Published the Week of July 1, 2019 in Western Outdoors Publications
You know you’ve been in business awhile when you start seeing 2nd and 3rd generations of clients come to visit.
Fathers bring kids. Kids bring fathers. Grandfather brings sons and grandsons.
It’s a special privilege and honor that folks think enough of spending time with us and sharing their families with us. We do our best to make sure they are memorable for them. I think anyone in this type of outdoor hospitality work does the same.
As I also grow older and realize I’m now eligible for senior discounts at Denny’s and AARP magazines, I take a special joy in the grandfathers and grandmothers.
It’s that generation just slightly ahead of me. They lived through the cold war and Korea. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Martin Luther King, Nixon and Vietnam. Veterans and ex-hippies. They remember Elvis and Nat King Cole.
Dads who watched Johnny Carson and the Ed Sullivan Show and moms who drove real station wagons full of kids (without seatbelts) to drop them off at the park pool. They made boloney sandwiches on white Wonderbread and gave the kids a dime to chase the ice cream truck.
They served sugar-laden Cokes as treats and squirted you with the garden hose in the summer.
And they were allowed to spank you too!
They may be a step-or-two slower. Hair might be a few shades grayer or it might be gone the same place as the trim waist line, but the memories are mostly sharp.
A big part of me mostly just keeps a special eye on them.
Sometimes, the younger ones are having too much fun and not watching dad or gramps or granny who doesn’t climb steps as fast. Or they might not be drinking enough water in the hot sun. Or forgetting the sunscreen. Stuff like that.
But, I keep a personal eye on them for another reason. Purely selfish. Eyesight might not be as great, but that doesn’t mean they can’t see. And I love watching them watch their kids or grandkids.
There’s a special twinkle there. A satisfied grin. The special way they might sit with arms folded across chests and tummies just taking it all in. Like they were sitting on the porch back home.
Catching fish isn’t quite as important as watching everyone else catch fish and hearing the laughter. Nothing to prove, and really wanting nothing more than to share more Kodak moments.
They might not know a thing about their cellphones, Instagram or
Facebook. But I can tell they’re storing every single moment in their minds and memories.
Whenever I can slow down for a moment, I treasure the conversations and the time to just sit for a few minutes. For as much as they want to ask and talk to me about our lives here in Mexico, I love hearing their stories.
I like knowing where everyone is from and how close or far they are now living. How many grandkids there are or even great grandkids.
Conversations flow easily.
So often times with us “younger folks”, we consciously or unconsciously “one-up” each other.
“Hey, last year, my brother and I went to this awesome mountain lake…”
“We’ll dude, I gotta tell you about this even better place I took the girlfriend.”
“And this restaurant we ate at had the absolute BEST Italian food I have ever eaten and we went their 3 times in a row and my favorite was…
“Man, we found this other place that you should have gone to instead. They know us by name and know exactly what my favorite drink is!”
Everyone making it about “Me” and “I” and this and that.
Everyone yakking and no one listening or having real conversation. We never even let the other person finish their sentence. Always turning the conversation back to themselves. I hear it in our restaurant all the time.
No one ever follows up a statement by asking the other person, “Wow, tell me more about that.”
The older generation has nothing to prove. Not much I can say would compete with someone telling me they were in Vietnam. Or stood barefoot in the rain at Woodstock.
I want to know more.
Not much I can say could add to mom and dad packing all their household belongings and kids in a station wagon with stuff tied to the roof. They then drove completely cross country on a whim of hope to find a better job at the end of the road. No solid prospects. Just fingers crossed and some trust in a dream.
I never knew what it was like to pay 19 cents for a gallon of gas. And you say the gas station attendants use to come out and wash your windshield and check your oil for free every time you came in? What? Really?
I didn’t get to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium in ’64 or hang out with the Grateful Dead and “pass around a doobie” with 10 other people in a Volkswagen van in Golden Gate Park.
I didn’t get raised on a farm in Ohio and have to milk the cows and shovel pig poo in the morning. That was BEFORE actually walking two miles through the snow to school. Yes, some folks really did have to do that.
I never had “Sunday Best” clothes for church or have to dress up to go on a trip. I never had “just one pair of shoes.”
And I don’t remember the days before TV. And I don’t ever remember looking forward to a dinner of Spam and canned peas. And excited to get a 2nd helping.
They actually had to “cook” oatmeal and it was OK to eat all the Sugar Frosted Flakes you wanted for breakfast. What’s a microwave?
I wasn’t the first in my family to get a high school diploma while working in a factory to help support mom and dad and three other brothers and sisters. Nor did I have ever go hunting or fishing when it meant the difference between having something to eat for dinner or another can of beans.
I never worked on a tramp steamer to South America nor did my family just escape Germany in 1939 and our last name was Goldstein. I was never shipped to an internment camp in the desert and losing our farm because we were of Japanese Ancestry. Or doubt that Douglas McArthur would ever come back.
I would have liked to have seen Wilt Chamberlin score 99 points for Philadelphia or take my date to dance with the Lawrence Welk band or jitterbug to Benny Goodman.
What could I possibly add to any of that?
I can’t. So, I just listen and absorb and enjoy. Please tell me more.
That’s my 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.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: jonathan@tailhunter.com
Or drop by the restaurant to say hi. It’s right on the La Paz waterfront!
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Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website:
www.tailhunter-international.com
Mexico Office: Tailhunter International, 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter International, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA 91942
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
.
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report: http://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/
Tailhunter YouTube Video Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBLvdHL_p4-OAu3HfiVzW0g
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”
That's My Story 
Think this is going to get a lot of your readers in the “feels”.
❤
xooxooxoxoxoxooxoxo