Forgotten Treasures # 4: TIME'S CHANGES

Time's Changes*



I fixed myself and went out trout fishing on the only original Kinnickinnick
river last week. It was a kind of Rip Van Winkle picnic and farewell
moonlight excursion home. I believe that Rip Van Winkle, however, confined
himself to hunting mostly with an old musket that was on the retired list
when Rip took his sleepy drink on the Catskills. If he could have gone with
me fishing last week over the old trail, digging angle-worms at the same old
place where I left the spade sticking in the grim soil twenty years ago--if
we could have waded down the Kinnickinnick together with high rubber boots
on, and got nibbles and bites at the same places, and found the same old
farmers with nearly a quarter of a century added to their lives and
glistening in their hair, we would have had fun no doubt on that day, and a
headache on the day following. This affords me an opportunity to say that
trout may be caught successfully without a corkscrew. I have tried it. I've
about decided that the main reason why so many large lies are told about the
number of trout caught all over the country, is that at the moment the
sportsman pulls his game out of the water, he labors under some kind of an
optical illusion, by reason of which he sees about nine trout where he ought
to see only one.



I wish I had as many dollars as I have soaked deceased angle-worms in that
same beautiful Kinnickinnick. There was a little stream made into it that we
called Tidd's creek. It is still there. This stream runs across Tidd's farm,
and Tidd twenty years ago wouldn't allow anybody to fish in the creek. I can
still remember how his large hand used to feel, as he caught me by the nape
of the neck and threw me over the fence with my amateur fishing tackle and a
willow "stringer" with eleven dried, stiff trout on it. Last week I thought
I would try Tidd's creek again. It was always a good place to fish, and I
felt the same old excitement, with just enough vague forebodings in it to
make it pleasant. Still, I had grown a foot or so since I used to fish
there, and perhaps I could return the compliment by throwing the old
gentleman over his own fence, and then hiss in his ear
"R-r-r-r-e-v-e-n-g-e!!!"



I had got pretty well across the "lower forty" and had about decided that
Tidd had been gathered to his fathers, when I saw him coming with his head
up like a steer in the corn. Tidd is a blacksmith by trade, and he has an
arm with hair on it that looks like Jumbo's hind leg. I felt the same old
desire to climb the fence and be alone. I didn't know exactly how to work
it. Then I remembered how people had remarked that I had changed very much
in twenty years, and that for a homely boy I had grown to be a remarkably
picturesque-looking man. I trusted to Tidd's failing eyesight and said:



"How are you?"



He said, "How are you?" That did not answer my question, but I didn't mind a
little thing like that.



Then he said: "I s'posed that every pesky fool in this country knew I don't
allow fishing on my land."



"That may be," says I, "but I ain't fishing on your land. I always fish in a
damp place if I can. Moreover, how do I know this is your land? Carrying the
argument still further, and admitting that every pesky fool knows that you
didn't allow fishing here, I am not going to be called a pesky fool with
impunity, unless you do it over my dead body." He stopped about ten rods
away and I became more fearless. "I don't know who you are," said I, as I
took off my coat and vest and piled them up on my fish basket, eager for the
fray. "You claim to own this farm, but it is my opinion that you are the
hired man, puffed up with a little authority. You can't order me off this
ground till you show me a duly certified abstract of title and then identify
yourself. What protection does a gentleman have if he is to be kicked and
cuffed about by Tom, Dick and Harry, claiming they own the whole State. Get
out! Avaunt! If you don't avaunt pretty quick I'll scrap you and sell you to
a medical college."



He stood in dumb amazement a moment, then he said he would go and get his
deed and his shotgun. I said shotguns suited me exactly, and I told him to
bring two of them loaded with giant powder and barbed wire. I would not live
alway. I asked not to stay. When he got behind the corn-crib I climbed the
fence and fled with my ill-gotten gains.



The blacksmith in his prime may lick the small boy, but twenty years changes
their relative positions. Possibly Tidd could tear up the ground with me
now, but in ten more years, if I improve as fast as he fails, I shall fish
in that same old stream again.



_____________________________________________

*From "Remarks", by Bill Nye (Edgar W. Nye)
Originally published by A. E. Davis & Company, 1887.
This work is in the public domain. According to the license agreement at my
source, I may not name that source here without including the entire license
agreement......which is much too long and dull. To the best of my
knowledge, the use of this material here does not violate either that
agreement or U.S copyright law.



Wolfgang

On 8/5/05 11:12 AM, in article , "Wolfgang"
wrote:

"I don't know who you are," said I, as I
took off my coat and vest and piled them up on my fish basket, eager for the
fray. "You claim to own this farm, but it is my opinion that you are the
hired man, puffed up with a little authority. You can't order me off this
ground till you show me a duly certified abstract of title and then identify
yourself. What protection does a gentleman have if he is to be kicked and
cuffed about by Tom, Dick and Harry, claiming they own the whole State. Get
out! Avaunt! If you don't avaunt pretty quick I'll scrap you and sell you to
a medical college."

Most certainly a latter-day ROFFian!

Thanks, Wolfgang.

B

"William Claspy" wrote in message
...
On 8/5/05 11:12 AM, in article , "Wolfgang"
wrote:

...If you don't avaunt pretty quick I'll scrap you and sell you to
a medical college."

Most certainly a latter-day ROFFian!

The archives of the MCW morgue show no record of a Tidd.

Wolfgang

Wolfgang wrote:
Time's Changes*
snip

Excellent! Time certainly alters relative position. One of my Favorite
Samuel Clemens quotes is, "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so
ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got
to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven
years."
--
TL,
Tim
------------------------
http://css.sbcma.com/timj

Tim J. wrote:

Wolfgang wrote:

Time's Changes*

snip

Excellent! Time certainly alters relative position.

nah...i think "tim certainly alters relative position." g

jeff (growin smaller each moment... and wondering, where does all that
gray matter go?)