Category archive: Personal Interest

Tugging the line

We were busy. We did little more than briefly notice and dismiss the snapping sound drifting over the rapids. Contact Creek’s thick shore-brush was crunching under something heavy. Though I don’t recall what species I was entertaining at the far end of my fly-line at that moment, I do remember my brother’s fish. Harry was ten [...]

Here and now

Angela Cazorla was born around 1775 in the Canary Islands. She was my fifth great-grandmother. Angela’s ancestors lived near Cazorla, Spain, 190 miles northwest of Gibraltar. The town sprang up in Roman times as Carcacena, a silver and lead mining center where Roman aristocrats profited from the slave labor of Angela’s — my — ancestors. [...]

Thank you America

John Lennon’s harmonica greets me as I plop into my cousin Steve’s car. Please Please Me has been out for three years, but even at o’dark-thirty, DJs still play the song as well as more recent Beatles hits. Mom waves from the front door as Steve and I drive away to join our fishing buddies. A few [...]