Category: Baseball

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Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin packing list

Gear

We fished five weights mostly, 9 foot with floating lines and 4x leaders. The Driftless streams would have been perfect for bamboo rods, but I’m done with rod buying I think.

At least until I buy another rod.

Reading

I re-read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead to get ready for Iowa. In our plane trip to Rhode Island, I kept reading excerpts to Kris out loud, because so much of it deserves pondering. I hope the people around us didn’t mind.

I re-read Shoeless Joe (and of course re-watched Field of Dreams). There is a surprising amount of good writing tied to Iowa, mostly because of the University of Iowa creative writers workshop. There’s Jane Smiley, W. P. Kinsella, Flannery O’Connor, W.D. Snodgrass, Wallace Stegner, T. C. Boyle, Sandra Cisneros . . . Frankly, I don’t see how anyone ever wrote a word without going to Iowa first.

I had such success with cooking in New Mexico, I bought a copy of The Flavor of Wisconsin by Harva Hachter and Terese Allen with the plan to try some of the recipes in our Air BnB. I didn’t. It’s a wonderful book, the kind of historic/cultural study of food culture that every state deserves, with a general survey of the food history of the state and then a lot of recipes. The problem is that Wisconsin food is kinda, I don’t know, unappealing in the abstract. Maybe I’ll go back and make that recipe for beef and kidney pie. I’m going to go to my grave though without having eaten the potato and turnip whip.

I should have made a tater tot hot dish.

Food

I’ve written about the Driftless Cafe already, and about trying to find Frito pie in Iowa. There are, I’m sure many good things to say about Midwestern food (and face it, Midwestern food is what we’re talking about here), but the only good thing I can say about those breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches in Iowa is that if you covered them with cream gravy and left out the bread, they’d be a reasonable substitute for chicken fried steak.

You can find 20-year old cheddar in Wisconsin, for obscene amounts of money. They take their cheese seriously.

What We Didn’t Catch

Muskie. Notwithstanding how much I liked the Driftless, I still regret not catching muskie in Wisconsin.

Where We Didn’t Go

We talked about driving to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a Twins game, but we didn’t. I’ve been to Minneapolis; Kris hasn’t.

I’d like to have canoed in the Boundary Waters.

I really wanted to drive through the Amana region of Iowa. I’d been once before, a long time ago, and I liked it. Because of a flat in Missouri we ran out of time. By the way, the family minivan doesn’t have a jack and a spare, but instead has a flimsy fix-a-flat kit, which notwithstanding my distrust, worked fine. Did you know that all the tire repair shops in rural Iowa close on Saturday afternoon? We had a nervous 100 mile drive to Dubuque where we found a Discount Tire that fixed the flat for free. I love Discount Tire, but I’d still rather have a spare tire.

Corn

We crossed Iowa, south to north, in late fall, and the corn stalks were ready for harvest, I suppose for feed? There didn’t appear to be any actual ears of corn. I grew up around wheat and cotton and sorghum and cattle pasture, but I have never seen such monoculture as Iowa corn. There is a lot of corn in Iowa, and that doesn’t even come close to a description. There is more than a lot of corn. There is a plethora of corn, the universe of corn, the place where corn is born and goes to die. No wonder corn fields show up in movies as the place the supernatural comes from; the amount of corn is spooky.

I realized that despite my rural upbringing, I had only the vaguest notion of what silos are for; they could be guard towers, to protect from roving bands of children of the corn? There sure are a lot of them.

Missouri

We were probably in as much of Missouri as anyplace, though we didn’t fish there. We spent a night in Kansas City on the way, at the 21c Museum Hotel. They’re great hotels and pet friendly, but more often than not located in peculiar places–at least if you’re not from there. Louisville and Lexington, Kansas City, Bentonville, Oklahoma City . . . they’re opening a new one in Des Moines. We also drove by the hamlet in north central Missouri where my grandmother was born in 1890, Osgood. I visited Osgood as a child in the early 1960s, and stayed with a great aunt who had no indoor plumbing, and visited a great uncle who kept horse feed in the spare bedroom. It was an adventure. There’s not much of Osgood left, if there ever was much of Osgood. Certainly there’s no tire repair shop.

Osgood, Missouri

On the drive nome we paralleled the Mississippi, and stopped in Hannibal to walk around. I’m not sure we saw the best of Hannibal, or if there is any best of Hannibal.

We spent two nights in St. Louis, took our picture under the arch, visited the Feather Craft fly fishing store (I’ve bought mail order from them for 30 years, but in person it reminds me most of a plumbing supply), and saw a Cardinals game. I hate the Cardinals, but they were playing the Cubs, who I also hate. The Astros played too long in the Central Division of the National League for me not to have strong feelings about the Cardinals and the Cubs.

Music

Iowa. The Everly Brothers are from Iowa, and Glen Miller, and Bix Beiderke. Glen Miller got me through law school. Big Band music was the only music I could listen to and still concentrate on reading.

Minnesota. We listened to a lot of Bob Dylan. I’m not a big fan of Prince (who is of course from Minneapolis or St Paul or whatever), but then we listened to a lot of Bob Dylan.

Wisconsin. I’ve been through this list before. It’s still pretty much the same list.

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Set Up. New York City, June 20-21, 2019.

The flight to New York left early, 5:40, and to get to the airport we sat the alarm for 3:30, which ain’t civilized. I called an Uber, and the driver was slow getting to us because of construction. That made us anxious and snappy, mostly at each other, but the driver got us to the airport in plenty of time notwithstanding our contradictory and confusing instructions. He was Nigerian perhaps, or Kenyan, African anyway, and not a talkative guy, but he was patient, and he got us there.

Leaving for ten days I worry about work, but it’s the time in my life when I should worry less about work and I’m trying. There are others who can worry for me.

As much as work I worry about leaving our dogs, the young stray Chihuahua and the old miniature schnauzer. Theoretically they are both Kris’s dogs, my dog having been the big golden who died last year, but the Chihuahua ends up sleeping by me and the schnauzer adores me. Who doesn’t appreciate adoration? I read once that leaving a short-lived dog without you is unkind, that you are its life and that its life is short, and the notion resonated. Our dogs travel with us from time to time, but they’re not fishing dogs, and the relatively yappy small dogs aren’t dogs to leave alone in a hotel while we fish. 

We chose this Northeast swing in part to see the Astros play the Yankees. For a few years we’ve tried to catch an out-of-town game a season, and we hadn’t been to the new Yankee stadium. The Astros are good this year, but there are lots of injuries, Altuve, Springer, Correa, McHugh, and they’re coming off their first four-game losing streak. Everyone’s favorite player, Jose Altuve—who doesn’t like Jose Altuve?—is having a poor season and is just back off the IL, which until this season was the DL, and which I think stands for Injury List. It used to be the Disabled List. Injury List is so much more informative.

The Yankees are good too, and some of the past Astros/Yankees series have been memorable. The plane was amusingly filled with Astros fans, so we figuratively if not literally bumped fists and high-fived and contemplated the fun of a baseball weekend in New York. Had we realized a beer would be $14.25, and worse the selection would be lousy, maybe we’d have been less enthusiastic, but even at $14.25 and lousy it was a beer at a baseball game.

On the plane I was thinking about fish, and specifically about fish in Kansas, and how Kris and I should take the dogs and the skiff and drive north through Oklahoma and Kansas all the way to North Dakota—I reckon it would be the only technical saltwater poling skiff to ever visit North Dakota. I was thinking about when the Astros schedule for 2020 would be released, and how it would be good if they played Minnesota or a Pennsylvania or Ohio team so that we could include them as part of fishing. Kris already has Ohio pegged for April or May fishing and a trip to McGee Marsh to see the spring warblers, and if we could include the Indians or the Reds it would be lagniappe. Then I started worrying about what could go wrong, but the answer in truth is not much. Not much could go wrong except we wouldn’t catch a fish. I bet though that the dogs would like that trip, even if they’re not technical fly-fishing dogs.

Yankee Stadium was largely a bust. The stadium’s nice enough, and the subway ride north from Washington Square is an adventure for out-of-towners, but the Astros lost, 10-6, and the game was worse than the score. It rained, the game was delayed twice, the Astros were getting walloped, and we left after the 5th inning. After last year in Tampa, and this year in New York, I’m thinking my combined fly fishing/baseball vacations may not be the very thing for the Astros won-loss record.

Friday morning we walked to the Donut Project on Bleeker Street. Herman Melville grew up on Bleeker Street. Other residents include James Agee, Robert De Niro, John Belushi, and Alicia Keys. Of the donut shops we’ve been to, the Donut Project ranked maybe a 4 out of 5 on a scale of 5, with the top spots held by the Tatonut in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Blue Star Donuts in Portland, and Shipley’s on North Main or Ella in Houston when the glazed are fresh out of the frier. Four is a very good rating. It was stylish and imaginative, the donuts were very pretty, and then it rained. We had to walk back to our hotel in the rain.

In New York City, we stayed near Washington Square, at the Washington Square Hotel. It’s a small, old hotel, very European and very likeable. it’s only a block or so from the Stonewall Inn, and I got very confused, both as to day and date, and thought we would be leaving Washington Square on the morning of the Pride Parade. It’s the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and the neighborhood was decked out. There’s nothing I like better than a good Pride Parade, but I figured the neighborhood would be a madhouse and that we would never get out of the City. Fortunately I’d miscalculated by a week. We’ll be in time next Saturday for the Pride Parade in Pittsburg New Hampshire, population 869.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but we will drive 390 miles almost due north from New York City to Pittsburg, N.H. Then we’ll turn around and drive south 169 miles to Manchester N.H. It’s a big swing, and a lot of miles. And none of it’s as frightening as driving out of New York City on a Friday morning. Whatever may happen, and however much a man of good will I may be, I’d rather not try to navigate Greenwich Village on the Saturday of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot.

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New York, Vermont, New Hampshire

At the end of June we go to the Bronx to see the Astros play the Yankees, then we drive north to the Catskills, the home of the Hudson River School, stand-up Jewish comedy, and American dry fly fishing. We’re staying in Sullivan County on the upper Beaverkill. Our inn, the Beaverkill Valley Inn, has a mile of riverside. This is important, because under New York riparian law landowners can post the river, and almost all of the upper Beaverkill is posted. The lower Beaverkill, past Roscoe, is largely open, as are other Catskill rivers, but hopefully we’ll see less of a crowd. Or not.

Google Maps

We’re matriculating for a weekend at the Wulff School of Fly Fishing near Livingston Manor. My reasons for going are confused, it’s the basic trout fishing curriculum, and I like classes, but it may be for beginners, which I am but am not. I’ll learn something. We’ll also fish a day with Pennsylvania casting champion Craig Buckbee, who instructs at the school. I hope it’s legal for him to cast in New York.

After we graduate we drive from Livingston Manor to Manchester, Vermont. There are lots of Manchesters. There’s Manchester, England; Manchester, New Hampshire; California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, and on and on . . . you get the idea. The big ones, England and New Hampshire, are industrial towns known historically for their grittiness. Now they’re gentrifying. Manchester, Vermont, on the other hand, isn’t known for its grittiness. It’s known for Orvis, which has more of the genteel than the gritty.

Google Maps

We’re staying at the Orvis-endorsed Equinox Resort. As we were settling dates I made a reservation then called to move things around. The reservation clerk at the hotel, we’ll call him Jacques, told me in Québécois French-accented English that I couldn’t move my dates. He told me that my dates were fixed and I would never be allowed to move them, ever, and that my only chance to move them was to call corporate, which is now Marriott, who would not under any circumstance move my dates without charging substantial penalties and inflicting corporal punishment.

I called corporate, stunned and humble, and told them that I was pretty sure that when I made the reservation I had left the dates flexible. They told me I was right, and they didn’t know what Jacques was talking about. They moved the dates around and gave me a better rate. They were nice. They were great. It was great. Everything is great except Jacques, with whom I am still annoyed. I wondered if he was demonstrating New England taciturnity or Gallic bellicosity: whichever or both he was good at it.

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Henry S. Allen, Equinox House, Manchester, Vermont, c. 1880, New York Public Library.

Apparently at the end of the Civil War, over the summer of 1863, Mary Todd Lincoln and their sons stayed at the Equinox to get out of the heat of Washington and away from the War. The family planned to return in the summer of 1865, this time with the President. They never did. Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, almost immediately after Appomattox.

I have read that the Equinox has Manchester’s best donuts. Manchester also has the Orvis flagship store, and the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Google Maps

From southern Vermont we drive north to the Canadian border to Pittsburgh, New Hampshire, to the Lopstick Inn on the headwaters of the Connecticut River. Everybody probably knows this but me, but the Connecticut River separates New Hampshire and Vermont, and otherwise New Hampshire and Vermont would be the same thing, which they pretty much are anyway. We have to return south again, to our second Manchester, New Hampshire this time, but that’s in the Boston orbit and we’re only going there to spend one night before we fly back to Houston.

I’ve been to New York plenty, but I have never been to New Hampshire or Vermont. I have a vague notion that this is classic fly-fishing territory, and I’ve already learned something important: I’ve learned that looking north Vermont is on the left and New Hampshire on the right. I’ll be a New Englander yet.

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Fifty Shades of Fish

I’m not a horrible fly fisherman, I’m really not. My casts could be better, sure, my hook sets may not be quite the thing, and when I actually hook a fish I may not land it, but I’m not always incompetent. Some days the sun shines. Natheless I’m skunked again in Margeritaville. I’m worn out with Florida, and last weekend I failed to catch any fish.

It wasn’t my fault exactly, and it certainly wasn’t Captain Court Douthit’s (pronounce Dow-thit’s) fault. Court clearly loves Florida and the fish and the sport and he’s investing a big part of his life in it. That’s why people like me need guides: I want to learn something, I need a boat, I don’t know the water or the fish . . . That’s why you pay good guides: they make the investment to know what you don’t and have the stuff that you need that you don’t have. Our first day out what Court had was a plan, and given the weather it was a good plan, but fishing is a sadomasochistic sport, and fly fishing even more so. Some days one’s not the sado. This weekend we weren’t the sado.

We fished the Gulf side out of Dunedin (pronounced Done Eatin’, which in Gaelic means cute shops), not in Tampa Bay. Dunedin is protected by narrow barrier islands, and the other side of the barrier islands, what Court called the beach side, was where the tarpon usually cruised. We weren’t going out there though. We couldn’t have seen whales cruising and the waves were downright scary. Instead we looked for tarpon on the leeward side of the islands. All we found were crusty old guys in boats (“That’s Old Bag of Rocks. He had his driver’s license taken away because he’s blind. He carries a bag of rocks to chunk at jet skiers.”)

The weather was all wrong. For all I know there’s never any sunshine in Tampa, it’s always overcast except when it storms, and the wind always blows hard. Sunshine and calm waters in Tampa may be like hatches: a practical joke to play on unsuspecting Texans. The night before we’d gone to bed during lashings o’ rain and lightning. We figured the next morning on the water it could get bad. It got bad. Before it got really bad Court polled us across a flat looking for snook. I got some casts which landed somewhere near a snook, so of course it turned and moseyed off in the other direction. Mostly we saw a lot of mullet stacked up on the sand.

It never rained but I still got soaked. Coming back through the slop to the marina the waves were fast and high, and we had buckets of saltwater spray us with each wave. It wasn’t cold, and as spa treatments go it was fine. It would have been better though if Court had fixed us a nice cup of herbal tea to go with the salt rub.

It was obvious Captain Court felt bad, but there was no reason for it. He’d taken a risk to get us out on the water and we appreciated it. He said the forecast was the same the next day (pronounced it’s going to be crap again tomorrow and there’s no reason to try the same thing), but that if it wasn’t lightning we should try something else the next night.

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Dunedin is a pretty little town with a pretty little marina that looks like somebody set Georgetown down on the Florida coast. It was charming. At the little marina diner we ate fresh tuna and avocado carpaccio with ginger and lime, called in South Florida tuna poke. Most marina diners would have had grilled cheese or burgers with soggy fries, and the raw fresh tuna was a big improvement. So were the fresh grouper tacos. They also had local beers, and after lunch I took a nap in the car while Kris checked out the shops. Success.

Our day wasn’t done, and except for the diner and the nap it didn’t get better.  Not only did we get skunked and drenched, the Astros lost to the Rays. The Rays are a fine young team, and the Astros’ offense was dead, their defense was sloppy, and Gerrit Cole pitched subpar.  The stadium also lived down to its reputation. The crowd (pronounced the stadium was mostly empty) was friendly and the food and beer was surprisingly good. There were a lot of Astros fans, and also some Rays fans, but it was sparsely populated. I found a Tampa friend from my favorite Astros fan site just by looking. He was pretty much sitting next to us. I had prime seats that I’d bought as soon as tickets went on sale. He’d bought his tickets that morning. Not much demand.

Saturday morning there was lightning and rain. We went to the St. Petersburg fine arts museum, which was small but nice enough and which had some fine Asian pieces, and the St. Petersburg history museum which houses the world’s largest collection of autographed baseballs. By game time the weather had cleared enough to fish the underwater dock lights for snook and baby tarpon, 20 to 40 pounds. We’d have some visibility to spot fish against the underwater lights. Kris was all for it, and I’m all for Kris.

* * *

Kris asked me where we were going to eat in Tampa, and I told her Hooters. Actually, I told her that there was a famous national restaurant chain founded in Tampa and that we should go there. She asked which one and I said I can’t remember the name.

“What’s it famous for?”

“Breasts.”

“Chicken?” I hadn’t considered chicken.

“No, lady breasts.”

“Twin Peaks?” No. “Hooters?” That was the one. “I guess it’s because of all the owls in Tampa,” she said.

I know Hooters was founded in Tampa because six years ago my friend Patrick was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Patrick has his peculiarities.

The first day he left the convention for food, but every civic volunteer suggested Hooters. It was founded in Tampa. What good Republican wouldn’t want to go to Hooters? Patrick wouldn’t want to go to Hooters. After the third or fifteenth Hooters suggestion someone suggested a Thai restaurant.

Now I’m stealing Patrick’s story, and it is one of the best stories ever. Ever. Patrick, if for some odd reason you ever see this forgive me, but I can’t resist. It’s the best story ever.

When Patrick got back to Austin from Tampa he called me. “You won’t believe who I met in Tampa! Mark Naimus!” “Who?” “Mark Naimus!” “Who is Mark Naimus?” “What are you talking about! You know Martin Amis!”

Each Texas delegate had a straw Stetson, blue jeans, and a Lone Star Flag pearl-snap shirt. It was a handsome ensemble. Then-governor Rick Perry autographed Patrick’s Stetson on the font brim, and future-governor Greg Abbott autographed it on the back.  When he went into the Thai restaurant in full regalia Patrick spotted Martin Amis at the bar. Now think about that for a second: it wasn’t somebody you or I would recognize. It wasn’t John Wayne or Elvis Presley or Paul McCartney. It wasn’t even Stephen King. It was Martin Amis. Patrick, who’d just finished Lionel Asbo, recognized Amis and introduced himself.

Amis was covering the convention for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Patrick told Amis that he’d just read Lionel Asbo, and then they talked about Laurent Binet’s HHhH, a French novel that had won the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and which they both admired. It’s a very good novel which of course I hadn’t heard of. Martin Amis autographed the crown of Patrick’s hat, and I’m pretty certain it is now the only cowboy hat anywhere autographed by Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, and Martin Amis.

The next day Patrick was on the floor of the convention and a runner tracked him down. Mr. Amis was making a film of the convention for the Daily Beast. Mr. Amis was wondering if Patrick and other members of the Texas delegation would agree to an interview. Mr. Amis would come to their motel to film the interview.

So when Patrick called me bubbling about meeting Martin Amis I said Patrick, you know what’s going to happen. Martin Amis, sardonic, liberal, witty, is going to shred you. No no Patrick insisted. We talked by the pool about books for an hour!

“It was great!’ Ok, Patrick may not have said it was great, but you could tell he surely thought so.

So the video was posted by the Daily Beast, and sure enough, Martin Amis shredded the Republican Party and the convention and in the middle of the film, wearing his Stetson, is Patrick, and Amis treats a delegate to the Republican National Convention with the greatest delicacy, the greatest kindness. And who wouldn’t?

And of course there’s that hat.

* * *

The Astros lost Saturday’s game as well, with some bad luck and some sub-par pitching by Justin Verlander and more dead bats. At 9 that night we met Court in a St. Petersburg neighborhood park to fish the boat slips for snook and baby tarpon. We fished until 4 the next morning.

If you don’t fish saltwater you may not know about fish lights. Bait is attracted to light. Game fish are attracted to bait.  Any light works, but spooky underwater green lights work best of all. I figure that the bait thinks it’s natural plankton luminescence, and being planktivorish it shows up to gorge. It’s not a very good theory, and as far as I know planktivorish isn’t a word, but it’s something. Bait could just be dumb. Or maybe it just likes green.

Did we see fish? You betcha. Looking into those weird nighttime pools of green we saw snook and baby tarpon enough to make any sight fisher happy. Over the seven hours we fished, moving from dock to dock, I must have made 300 casts to fish, at least some of which were in the vicinity of fish. Kris must have made another 100 casts–She didn’t want to come back to Florida so she let me cast more than was my due. Court put us on fish and we tried every fly, small light, small dark, large light, large dark, gurglers, purple things that looked like Cookie Monster, green things, tan things, and back to small white, small dark  . . . Nothing worked until . . . Skip that. Nothing worked.

I had three hits, three, all of which I pulled out of the fish’s mouth with a trout set–don’t tell Captain Court, but I swear I have an excuse.  Nine o’clock is my bedtime. It’s not when I start fishing.

By the next morning we were punch drunk and exhausted and had caught nada, but we’d seen baby tarpon roll by the dozens, flashing up through the green glow and hitting the surface like big salmon taking a fly. Just not my fly. At least we didn’t get a sunburn. Not that the sun ever shines in Tampa.

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When you’ve got two days in a strange place to catch fish there are no guarantees that either the fish or the weather will cooperate, and there are never any guarantees fishing for saltwater fish. If we’d had longer the weather would have cooperated and sooner or later we would have landed a fish, but we ran out of sooner with no later at all. I would fish with Captain Court again in a heart beat. I just hope next time its a bit luckier day. Or a bit luckier night.

* * *

We didn’t eat at Hooters. Mostly we ate at the ballpark except for the marina diner and the first night at Columbia in Ybor City with Kris’s 34-year-ago maid-of-honor and her husband.  I bought some cigars in a random cigar roller’s shop.  I didn’t miss Hooters, and no one suggested Thai.  We didn’t see Martin Amis.