Publisher's Point Of View
Robert Allan Hooftallen

As Jimmy Buffett laments in in the song in which he coined the phrase "we are the people our parents warned us about," sometimes I wish I could go back to the days "before I knew what cash flow meant."

But, that's not the path I've chosen, as I've been reminded so many times in so many ways lately. When I decided to go from the guy who made editorial calls to the guy who made all the calls, I did more than create myself a phoneybaloney job. Incidently, I created several real jobs for several real people who, at times, take this thing more seriously than I do.

And while I pride myself on operating at my best when the chips are down, I often don't recognize them as being down as quickly as perhaps I should.

A man whose advice I very much trust told me last week "it's time for Bob to realize that the Endeavor is more now than just a canvas for his art."

He went on to say that the business end of the Endeavor will need just as much creative thinking as the productive end and it is time for me to put more energy into the former, even if it means borrowing or stealing some from the latter.

My crew at our camp by the stream. If you look closely you can see the tail of one of the trout curling up as it cooks. That's Jacob, Britta and Rylee.

I am trying to make his advice an idealogy, but I can see that it's going to take time. I spent five hours creating the page one "flag," for example. The visionary on my left shoulder assured me it was time well spent. The actuary on my right shoulder disagreed.

The visionary might point out, though, that open country side, clean streams, fresh air and dead fish and animals sell many a newspaper. And make no mistake about it, the first few weeks of fishing season and even into spring gobbler season, the newspaper business is renewed by the business that results from our fishing and hunting visitors.

But, I'm far from a sell out.

There are only a couple things I am really good at and fishing happens to be one of them. You can drop me down anywhere there's water and if there's fish in there and I can fashion some tackle, I'll be eating fish for dinner.

On the first day of fishing season, my family was off on our yearly rite. We avoid the streams for fear that our son will dive in and be swept down stream and our daughter will sicken with boredom if she isn't getting a bite every four or five seconds.

So we throw money at the problem and take them to a pond where there's no current and you insure a productive day of fishing with your checkbook. So for the first part of our day, we're more yuppie than we are hillbilly, but the afternoon is a whole lot different.

After a bountiful morning, our afternoon took a turn toward adventure, starting with a healthy climb up a steep mountain where we dug a good "mess" of leeks.

The plan was to take them to a nearby mountain stream and clean them before heading home. And since we had fishing gear and I knew where there was a hole holding some really nice brookies, I figured I'd try my hand at some "real fishing" before we spooked the stream.

As the family waited in the car, I snuck out through the woods and crawled to the hole, a native trout fisherman's dream- a waterfall that pours into a hole about eight feet wide, 10 feet long and 3 feet deep. One of those holes where, if you don't spook it, the fish dart out from under the water fall and nail your worm as soon as it hits the water.

Sure enough, I caught two keepers in about 15 minutes. Normally, I would never even consider keeping these beautiful fish, but today was a different day. I wanted the kids to see me clean the fish and cook them over an open fire.

We spent the next four hours around a campfire, beside a stream in the middle of almostnowhere. We build a spit on which the fish were laid and charred. And when they were done, the kids were not at all freaked out by the situation and eagerly ate the blackened trout off of a stick.

And to make the adventure all the more amazing, we started the fire without the use of paper (not quite to the point where I can do it without a lighter or matches....I'll report back when I can).

We made seats by taking huge chucks of moss and stuffing them inside of perfectly cut birch bark from a deadfall.

And when we were done, they learned about the word "footprint" and how it pertains to what you leave behind after making the wildnerness your kitchen for several hours.

We gathered everything and then policed the area a final time, turning up a bread tie that had been overlooked.

And then we hiked out in edgy silence of the advancing darkness.

I can only imagine what was going through their minds.

And I can only hope that at least some of that day was locked in there forever.