For trout in North Georgia we took 5-weight rods with floating trout lines. We used long 9-foot 4X fluorocarbon leaders with weighted nymphs. I took an Abel disc drag reel, kinda the pinnacle of obsessively over-built trout reels, but it didn’t get much of a workout. For all the trout I caught I could have used a spool of bright yellow sewing thread, or kitchen twine, or bailing wire, with any of them tied to a stick I picked up on the riverbank. It would have been harder to cast, but I would have caught just as many fish.
In saltwater we fished with 8-weight rods and floating redfish lines, with 7-foot 16 lb leaders. We used the guide’s flies, which if you squinted real hard looked a bit like tarpon toads. They were prettier flies than what I use at home for redfish. My redfish flies look like deformed bits of cotton plucked straight from the boll and colored brown with a Magic Marker. I forgot to take a photo of the guide’s redfish flies.
We could have used the guides’ rods instead of hauling our own to Georgia, but how could we ever amortize their cost if we didn’t haul them with us? We gotta get our money’s worth.
Barbecue
I found a list of Georgia barbecue places on the internet, and on the way to Savannah we stopped at one. Because I didn’t particularly like the barbecue, I’m not going to mention it’s name. Just remember, it’s somewhere between Ellijay, Georgia, and Savannah. I’m sure there are better places than the one I chose, but Georgia being Southern I expected anything that made a list to be quality barbecue. This wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Maybe I’ll try again someday.
We did get a pretty good Cuban sandwich in Blue Ridge, but as a Texan I have strong barbecue opinions but am mostly ignorant about Cuban sandwiches. I thought it could have used some pickles, but what do I know?
Donuts
We stayed in the northside Atlanta suburbs for wedding festivities. Two mornings we ate Atlanta suburban donuts, once at a utilitarian donut shop next to a gas station, Marietta Donuts, and once at an artisanal donut shop, Doughnut Dollies. Both had good donuts, and Doughnut Dollies managed to walk that fine line between too much imagination on the one side and boredom on the other. That’s not easy to do when you’re hawking artisanal doughnuts. I especially liked the frosting on Doughnut Dollies’ strawberry and orange doughnuts. All that fruit made me feel healthy.
Restaurants
Ok, so the barbecue we tried wasn’t great, but we otherwise ate a lot of good food in Georgia. In eight days I gained eight pounds.
The first night we went to a Korean place, Woo Nam Jeong Stone Bowl House, on Atlanta’s Buford Highway. Atlanta seems mostly to be either Anglo (50.7% in the metro area) or black (32.4% in the metro area), but that’s mostly. There is a Hispanic and Asian population, and Buford Highway is this strange culinary accident where a lot of Asian and Hispanic mom and pop restaurants have landed. I could have gone back to that Korean place for every subsequent meal. The food was so elegant but at the same time so homey and delicious that it was impossible not to be happy. All those dishes of pickled stuff couldn’t have been more beautiful. And all the bowls matched, which is more than you can always say at our house.
I suspect I could eat for days on Buford Highway.
Lunch Saturday we ate at Mary Mac’s Tea Room. It’s an Atlanta meat-and-three African American institution that serves huge–and I mean really really huge–portions of Southern food. Covering the walls they had photos of famous people who’d eaten there. There were several of Jimmy Carter and, of all people, the 14th Dalai Lama. I guess the Dalai Lama knows a good meat-and-three when he sees it. They didn’t ask for my photo for the wall, but I suspect that’s only because I couldn’t clean my plate.
Sunday evening we ate at a Vegan Mexican/Cuban place, La Semilla. Vegan Mexican/Cuban seems to me a strange combination, more because of the Mexican/Cuban than the vegan, but it was completely successful and very hip. I’m sure some of that hipness rubbed off, and you’re now reaping the benefit. Our friend Shelley can’t eat dairy, and she declared the vegan queso the trip highlight, because queso.
In Savannah we ate at The Grey, which is one of Georgia’s best-known restaurants. They priced accordingly, but it was worth it. If nothing else, it’s located in the old Savannah Greyhound Bus station, and who can resist repurposed 1930s streamlined modern art deco architecture? We couldn’t decide what to eat, so we copped out and ordered the tasting menu. They also had the greatest cop-out martini ever, named for one of the owners who could never decide what she wanted. It was advertised as a mix of curated gins and vermouths, with both a twist of lemon and olives. It was the perfect martini for the indecisive, and could only have been improved if they’d both shaken and stirred it. It was excellent, and if I’d drunk two it would likely have been more excellenter. I only had one and I could still barely speak English.
We ate at Common Thread, which was also highly recommended, expensive, and excellent, and we got ice cream at Leopold’s because we were walking down the street and there was a line. Who can resist a line at an ice cream parlor, and if you can, why would you want to? There’s a lot of good food in Savannah. There’s a lot of good food in Georgia, though the jury’s out on the barbecue. Did I mention I gained eight pounds?
The Civil War
Georgia was the industrial heart of the Confederacy. From 1863 to War’s end, Georgia was the final focus of the Union’s Western campaign. After the Confederates under General Bragg defeated the Union under General Rosecrans at Chickamauga, Ulysses Grant took charge of the Western campaign. Grant changed the War. Under Grant, General Sherman led the Union in two of the most important campaigns of the War, the Battle of Atlanta and Sherman’s March to the Sea. I had three great-great grandfathers at Atlanta, two Confederate, one Union. Those Union victories cut off the Army of Northern Virginia, and with Grant’s Virginia campaign the War ended.
Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863, was a major Union loss, and the War’s second bloodiest battle. There were more than 34,000 Union and Confederate casualties, and more than 4,000 deaths. That means that over three days, 34,000 Americans, Southern and Northern, were shot, stabbed, or blown up, and more than 4,000 of them died. The Union fought at Chickamauga to capture the Chattanooga railroad hub and open Georgia for Union invasion. The South fought to destroy the Union’s Army of the Cumberland. The South won the battle, but under Bragg they didn’t cripple the Union army. Because the South failed, two months later at Missionary Ridge Chattanooga fell to the Union under Grant. That defeat at Chattanooga may well have ended the South.
We visited the Chickamauga battlefield, and weirdly it’s in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Congressional District. It’s odd that one small region could produce two such catastrophes.
Chickamauga National Battlefield. Apple Maps.
Back to Atlanta. In addition to wedding festivities and eating, we visited the Botanical Garden and the High Art Museum, but best of all we visited the strange Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama at the Atlanta History Center. The History Center has a solid presentation about the Battle of Atlanta, of which the Cyclorama is only a part, but the Cyclorama is its own attraction. It’s a 358′ x 49′ hand painted canvas, which is a painting longer than a football field. It may be the largest oil painting in the world.
Some interesting tidbits about the Cyclorama. According to the history center, Southern troops at the Battle of Atlanta outnumbered Northern, but the Cyclorama was painted in the 1880s in Ohio, a Union state. In the painting the South is vastly outnumbered. When the Cyclorama was first moved to Atlanta in 1891, many of the Union soldiers were repainted with grey uniforms to show the South winning the battle. It’s a problem with history. It’s hard not to slant the presentation.
Where We Stayed
In Atlanta we stayed in the Roswell DoubleTree. It was fine, but where we stayed was less important than that we were in the suburbs, and (except for the Atlanta Brave’s Truist Park), a lot of Atlanta eateries and attractions seem to be located centrally within easy driving range of downtown. Every time we went somewhere–well every time we went somewhere other than Total Wine, REI, or the wedding–we had to drive 20 miles. If I ever go back to Atlanta, I’ll stay somewhere central.
In North Georgia we stayed at a B&B, the Overlook Inn. If you’re going to some relatively remote mountain destination, you’re statutorily required to stay in a B&B. It was pretty, and on our second night we ate dinner there. Kris always complains about B&Bs because on the mornings we fish we never get to eat the breakfast, but she didn’t complain about this place, maybe because our friends the Marmons were there. And the dinner we ate there–all four of us had the smoked trout–was great. The Georgia mountain views were also great.
In Savannah we stayed at a restored 1960s motor lodge, The Thunderbird Inn. Who doesn’t like a restored 1960s motor lodge? This one had everything you could want except Magic Fingers, a swimming pool, and free parking. The turndown service was a Moon Pie and RC Cola, and there was 24-hour coffee and popcorn in the lobby. The rooms were small, the colors bright, and the sign was neon, so it was almost perfect in every way. It was also very central, but everything in Savannah seems reasonably central.
Where We Didn’t Go
When we fished in North Carolina we stayed with our friend Bryan, and his family had given him a week in Blue Ridge, Georgia, for his birthday. We went to Blue Ridge, and we had a good Cuban sandwich there, but Bryan didn’t go to Blue Ridge for the Cubano. Bryan went to Bill Oyster’s six-day bamboo rod building class. He hadn’t been yet when we stayed with them, but later he sent me pictures of the classes and the rod he built.
Now I can’t find Bryan’s pictures. They’re on my computer somewhere, probably under my virtual bed, or in a virtual drawer in my virtual closet. They were great photos, and I was jealous. Bryan made a beautiful rod.
Bill Oyster is famous for his rod-building class, and maybe more famous for his bamboo rods and his metal engraving. Bamboo rods aren’t explicable. They’re best compared to an old Jaguar E Type, or a 1956 Martin D-28, or a first edition of Absalom, Absalom. It may not be the most useful thing in the world, but it’s so . . . irreplaceable, beautiful, timeless . . .
One of Bill Oyster’s bamboo rods built for Jimmy Carter. Photo shamelessly cadged from OysterBamboo.com
And Bill Oyster makes some of the most beautiful bamboo rods in the world. He made two for Jimmy Carter, who was a serious fly fisher. They were gorgeous things, with gorgeous engraving. Oyster told a story to the American Fly Fishing Museum about how he made the first rod for President Carter, and how Carter was going to fish it a bit, sign it, and then it would be sold as a fundraiser for the Carter Presidential Library. Carter fished it a bit and then told the Library that they’d better buy another because he wasn’t giving back the first.
I remember talking to Kris after Bryan went to Blue Ridge, and she just didn’t get it. Why would somebody pay good money to build something, when for the same money they could buy a rod from a real builder? I’m still baffled by her response. Why wouldn’t you want to build your own bamboo rod? And also the prices aren’t the same. The rod class currently costs $2,950–and almost all the classes for 2024 are full. Oyster also has some fly rods listed for sale online, and an 8′ 5 weight lists for $5,760. The cheapest rod listed is a 8′ 9 weight saltwater rod for $3,320.
8 5-weight Bill Oyster Master, photo shamelessly cadged from OysterBamboo.com
Isn’t that rod-building class a bargain?
I don’t know though. That 8′ 5 weight looks pretty sweet. I might have to get a prettier reel though. And I might have to give up some stuff, like food.
Benedetto Guitars are made in Savannah, but I’m afraid they’re out of my league. I guess Oyster fly rods are also out of my league.
Playlist
Georgia had a great music playlist. Blind Willie McTell, Gnarls Barkley, Harry James, R.E.M., Cat Power, James Brown, Trisha Yearwood, Gladys Knight, Little Richard, Fletcher Henderson, Otis Redding, The Allman Brothers, The B-52s, Ma Rainey, Indigo Girls, Jessye Norman, Robert Shaw, Robert Cray, Kaki King . . .
There’s also Atlanta HipHop, plus there all those great songs about Georgia. I could listen to Rainy Night in Georgia once a day from here on out, and never get tired of it. There’s Georgia on My Mind, I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train, Midnight Train to Georgia, The Devil Went Down to Georgia, and if you get tired of those there’s Moon River and Skylark.
That playlist is good enough to keep me happy on a six-hour drive, through Georgia, on a rainy night.
Blind Willie McTell
Guitar
I took the Kohno and practiced some. I should have found a transcription of Moon River.
I liked Indiana. I liked the friendliness of the people and gentleness of the landscape. I guess in winter it’s probably miserable, but I always wanted to live in a place where I could wear more sweaters. Maybe I’m a Midwesterner at heart.
Walking on a trail through Turkey Run State Park, there were three young African American girls, maybe 16, sitting together on a bench by the river. One of them announced to us and her friends that we were beautiful–I guess she figured that old people walking about was a beautiful thing. I asked her if she always sat by the river and charmed passersby? And I figure that was about right, because she was completely charming. She took our picture, and she did a good job, both at charming and photography.
I liked Indiana.
Gear
We took a rod each, 7 weights, with floating lines and 7 1/2′ 10-pound leaders. The rods would have been too heavy for trout anywhere but Alaska, and were heavy for the smallmouth bass we caught, but they worked, they were fine. Everything in Indiana was fine except the donuts.
We didn’t take waders or boots. We waded in shorts and water shoes.
We fished small poppers and streamers, streamers and poppers. Then we fished more poppers and streamers.
The Turkey Run Inn and Cabins
We decided to fish Sugar Creek because it’s short, small, has a good reputation for smallmouth, and runs through two nearly-adjacent state parks, Shades and Turkey Run. We figured we’d have plenty of river access, and there was the bonus that Turkey Run Inn and Cabins is located at Turkey Run State Park.
With all those running turkeys, I’d have been disappointed if we hadn’t seen some wild turkeys. We did.
Turkey Run is about 70 miles west of Indianapolis, and in the earliest days of cars apparently 70 miles was about as far as you could expect to travel in one day. The Inn was built for early adventuring motorists as an out, overnight and then home. The Indianapolis 500 first ran in 1916, and one of its founders, Arthur Newby, was instrumental in the purchase of the park that same year. Of the $40,000 price tag, The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Association gave $5,000. Newby personally gave another $5,000.
The Inn opened in 1919, and it’s very popular with Hoosiers. The Inn and park together feel like a resort. Outside your bedroom door you have this lovely bit of land in which to go a’wandering, and it’s all very pretty. It’s not as expensive as a resort, and maybe the rooms aren’t quite as big nor the restaurant quite as ambitious, but during the busy times of the year it’s probably harder to get a reservation.
It’s like a lot of Indiana. It’s nice.
Restaurants
We ate at some good places in Indiana. On our first day, on the way from the Indianapolis airport to Turkey Run, we took a side trip to Shapiro’s Deli, founded 1905. It’s classic Jewish deli food, with the addition of rhubarb pie. I’ve decided everything is better with rhubarb pie.
We should have split a reuben. Ordering two was hubris.
The first night at Turkey Creek Inn we ate at the Inn restaurant, The Narrows, and it was fine. The second night we ate at Blue Cactus Tacos and Tequila Bar in Crawfordsville, Indiana, population 16,385. It was in a strip mall. I had the tacos huitlacoche, made with huitlacoche corn fungus and queso fresco on homemade tortillas. I can’t remember ever having a bad taco, but I’ve probably had some uninteresting tacos. These tacos were interesting.
I’d go back to try the chorizo and potato tacos. I’d go back to try the squash blossom tacos and even the cactus tacos. I don’t care that Lyle Lovett said never eat Mexican food north of Dallas (and in my mind the notion that Dallas might have decent Mexican food is really stretching it), but in a small Indiana country town those were some interesting tacos. The margaritas were good too.
Our last night we stayed near the airport in Indianapolis and had dinner with a college friend, Andy, and his wife Lorraine. Andy and I were friends at the University of Texas 40+ years ago, dang close to 50, and I ate my first bagel at one of Andy’s cousin’s home in Memphis. I hadn’t seen him since college.
The bagels were imported from New York, frozen, and I’m getting all nostalgic remembering how once upon a time bagels were exotic anywhere south or west of New York City.
Andy and Lorraine have lived in Indianapolis for a while . . . 30 years maybe? And he said two things that stuck, that he’d lost his Texas accent, and that he’s now from Indianapolis. It was clearly their home, with all the good things that word can hold. He and Lorraine were proud of their city, and it was such good fortune to see Indianapolis through them.
We ate at Bluebeard, in Indianapolis’s little slice of Bohemia. Thank goodness we had to catch a fish in Indiana, because otherwise I’d have missed seeing Andy. And I would have missed eating huitlacoche tacos in a strip mall in Crawfordsville.
Donuts
Disappointing. I can’t recommend Indiana for its donuts. Maybe we never got to the right place.
Columbus, Indiana
We had set aside a second day to fish, but since the water was low and we’d caught fish already we diverted to Columbus, Indiana, population 50,474, home of Cummins Inc. Cummins makes lots and lots and lots of diesel engines.
It’s hard to explain Columbus, Indiana, except that it might have been nothing but another company town. It’s not. Back in the 40s, the future Cummins CEO, J. Irwin Miller, proposed a modern building for his family church, First Christian Church, and Eliel Saarinen was invited to be the architect. Saarinen was reportedly reluctant, but Miller’s mother chaired the building committee, and she wrote to Saarinen that she didn’t want a church that paraded its cost, she wanted a church where the poorest woman in Columbus would feel welcome. Saarinen took the bait. After that first church Columbus went nuts for modern architecture.
Under Miller, the Cummins Foundation paid for the architectural design of public buildings. The town library was designed by I.M. Pei (though not with money from the Cummins Foundation). Outside it’s certainly a welcoming space–it’s even got its own Henry Moore statue–but inside it’s one of the most appealing, user-friendly libraries imaginable. And the list just goes on and on. First Baptist Church was designed by Harry Weese. Mabel McDowell School was designed by John Carl Warnecke. Fire Station no. 4 was designed by Robert Venturi.
There are buildings by Kevin Roche, Cesar Pelli, Myron Goldsmith, and Richard Meir. There are six buildings in Columbus designated as National Historic Landmarks. There must be 40 buildings in Columbus that are worth seeing. I think that even the local Shell gas stations were all designed by Pritzker Prize winners. Listing Columbus’s architects is a little like saying that the statue of the soldier on the courthouse lawn was sculpted by Michelangelo, or maybe Henry Moore.
Eero Saarinen’s North Christian Church must be one of the most striking buildings in the world. Not Columbus. Not Indiana. Not the Midwest. The todo del mundo, the whole pie, the world. And it may not even be the best building in Columbus, Indiana. The town takes your breath.
All this architectural splendor might have been a meaningless gimmick, but it binds the city together. You look at those public spaces and think of the hundreds of ways, good or indifferent, that a foundation could have spent its money, that a community could have invested its treasure, and you know that this money and this effort by this town was well spent. Ok, I reckon some of those roofs may leak, and the maintenance costs are probably higher than anybody expected, but you know that Cummins loves its town, and that the residents are proud of their town. I could have spent days in Columbus.
I’d go to that church. I’d use that library.
J. Irwin Miller was also instrumental in founding the National Council of Churches, and was its president from 1960-63. He led its push for passage of the Civil Rights Act. I miss Rockefeller Republicans.
Books
Kurt Vonnegut is from Indianapolis. So it goes.
Playlist
Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 are from Indiana. I remember hearing the Jackson 5’s version of “Rockin’ Robin” as a child and thinking how peculiar, and that’s pretty much my verdict on Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5. I’m not a fan, and my favorite song by Jackson was perhaps “Ben” (1972), possibly because it so embraced the peculiar. I forgot to put it on the play list.
John Mellencamp, David Lee Roth of Van Halen, and John Hiatt are all from Indiana. For our honeymoon (1984) we drove from Houston to New Mexico with cassette tapes of “Swordfishtrombones” by Tom Waits and “Riding with the King” by John Hiatt, both 1983. We must have listened to those two tapes a hundred times. I still love them.
I don’t know how they got our names But yesterday this letter came Mr. and Mrs. Permanent Dweller, your lucky number is
You may already be a winner
John Hyatt, You May Already be a Winner, 1983.
I highly advise a road trip with “Swordfishtrombones” and “Riding with the King“. Based solely on the one experience I also highly recommend honeymoons.
Wes Montgomery, the great jazz guitarist, was from Indiana, and you can’t be any sort of guitarist without marveling at Wes Montgomery. Freddie Hubbard was from Indiana, and I kept looking forward to his version of “Misty” coming up again on the playlist.
Unknown photographer, Cole Porter and Betty Shevlin Smith, c. 1920. Wikimedia Commons.
Cole Porter was from Indiana, and there were thousands of Cole Porter covers to choose from. When I was a senior in high school, our senior play was Anything Goes, and I sang “Let’s Misbehave” in a duet with Julie Johnson. Me? I was terrible, but Julie was great, so I don’t remember it with too much queasiness. It left a soft spot for Cole Porter.
In addition to all that good stuff, Indiana University at Bloomington is our best public university music school. It’s most famous graduate is probably Joshua Bell, so of course he was on the playlist.
Movies
lndiana is the setting of two of my favorite sports movies, Breaking Away (1979) and Hoosiers (1986). Neither is about baseball. Neither is about fly fishing. Everybody I guess has seen Hoosiers, but having now been to Indiana it’s hard to see how it could have been set anywhere else. I guess that name, Hoosiers, is kind of a giveaway.
Breaking Away doesn’t seem much remembered anymore, but it’s such a fine movie. It so resonates to drive Indiana backroads and highways while channelling the movie’s bike rides–I also once owned a Masi Volumetrica with a Campi Record C groupo, and rode that bike thousands of miles all the while imagining my place on the Tour. I included Schubert’s Italian Symphony in the playlist just to get that rush of Indiana bike-riding exhilaration that Breaking Away evokes. If I were going to come up with a 50-state roadtrip playlist, the first movement of the Italian Symphony might be my entry for Indiana. Ok, that or “Riding with the King.” Ok, those or “Let’s Misbehave.”
Guitar
I played the guitar a lot in Indiana. After dinner there wasn’t much to do at the Turkey Run Inn and Cabins but sit outside on the lawn, drink beer, admire people’s dogs, and play the guitar. But then really, who needs better? I was working on the second Alemande movement of the first Bach Cello Suite. I can play it ok, but I can never remember it. Maybe my memory will get better as I age. I already know I can’t get more beautiful.
We took three rods, two 9-foot 8-weights with floating lines and a 9-foot 9-weight with an intermediate line, a line that sinks just a bit below the surface. Mostly we fished with the 8-weights, but I used the 9-weight some in the fog when I was blind casting in deeper water. I caught my fish on my 8-weight, and the fish was strong enough to make me think a 9-weight might have been better.
Our guide, Ray Ramos, had suggested that we bring waders and boots in the likely event that the weather stayed bad. If it stayed bad we were going to try a bit of coastline casting. The water is still pretty cold in Rhode Island, and we’re not much used to cold, so we would have needed the waders. We never used them, which is good. No matter what Mr. Simms and Mr. Patagonia and Mr. Orvis tell you, waders are a nuisance.
When we left Ninigret Pond the second day, the pretty day, a UPS driver in shorts kidded us about our cool weather clothes and asked if we thought it was cold. We told him that we were from Houston, and that it was freezing. He told us we’d never survive the winters. I’d guess that’s about right.
The first time we went to Rhode Island we were in Newport on the weekend of the boat show. Newport is an upscale East Coast tourist destination, and it is the home to The America’s Cup. I reckon it’s the center of the sailboat universe. Every recreational sailor in North America was in Newport for the boat show, and it was tough to blanch for all the tans. Because of the crowds, prices were jacked, rooms were hard to come by, and there were people everywhere. It was a terrible time to be in Newport unless you sailed, and we paid an extravagant amount of money for a depressingly mediocre hotel room.
The second time we went prices were calmer, and we found a great old refurbished motor inn, The Sea Whale Motel. It was kinda cool and not too funky, reasonably central, and so much more likable than the first place we had stayed. For this trip I booked us again for the Sea Whale.
Except I didn’t. I booked us for the Blue Whale. You see what I did there? Sea Whale? Blue Whale? See how anybody could make that mistake? Well, I certainly see it.
I was a bit surprised when we followed the GPS directions from the airport and ended up an hour across Block Island Sound from Newport. The Blue Whale was tiny, and our room was a tinier part of that tiny. It was great though, and in that tiny room I did some world class sleeping. From the Blue Whale it was a quick, calm drive to Ninigret Pond, and much more convenient than Newport would have been. Prices at the Blue Whale were even cheaper than at the Sea Whale–of course it was a bit early for beach-goers, and beach-goers are the Blue Whale’s clientele.
I’m a great planner, and from now on I’m making all my lodging choices based on whether or not there’s a whale in the mix.
Restaurants
I’ve already written about the magnificence that are clam shacks: lobster rolls, fried clams, picnic tables, chowder . . . And we ate at two that were a stone’s throw from The Blue Whale Inn, Monahan’s and Salty’s. At Salty’s, Kris asked the girl at the counter what she liked best, and the girl said the hot lobster roll, at least she sort of said that. She actually said the hot lab-sta roll. I made her say it again it was so wonderful, but I had embarrassed her and she Midwesterned her accent.
I vaguely recall that there’s some reason that we’re not supposed to be eating lobster, over-fishing probably, but I figured eating lab-sta just once was ok.
My college roommate, Robert, had sent us a photo of the Matunuck Oyster Bar, ((At least that’s what I think Robert sent us. I couldn’t find the original email, but on my possibly-flawed memory of his advice we went to Matunuck Oyster Bar and it was great, so whatever he sent Robert gets the credit.)) and we made a reservation there for our first night. We almost canceled when saw their wall of advertising in the Providence airport–airport advertising isn’t something I’m prone to trust–but the place was wonderful. Northeastern oysters are different than our Gulf Coast oysters, smaller, firmer, brinier . . . I love Northeastern oysters. Of course I also love Gulf Coast oysters, Northwestern oysters, French oysters, McDonald’s French fries, and fried bologna. You can take my judgment for what it’s worth.
We had Northeastern oysters. We had steamer clams. I had striped bass because, after all, that’s what I was in town for. The place was crowded and noisy and happy and the food was delicious. ((If you’re keeping track, that photo below is another lobster roll for Kris. We also split a lobster roll the next day for lunch. I don’t think she ate any lobster rolls for breakfast, but I can’t be absolutely certain. If the lab-sta fishery collapses, I’m blaming her.))
The next afternoon after fishing and clam shacking we drove into Providence, about an hour north of Ninigret Pond. Providence itself isn’t very big. The current population estimate is 189,692, but the population of the metropolitan area is more than 1.6 million, so there are plenty of people in the area. Providence is old, founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, and it’s the home of Brown University and The Rhode Island School of Design. It was once ground zero for New England’s Mafia.
We found a parking place where the parking meter didn’t work, but then we parked anyway. I figured that if it took them decades to clean out the Mafia, then I didn’t have to worry about a couple of hours of illegal parking. We walked around Brown and went through the excellent Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art–it’s small, but chock full of really great stuff. This, for instance, was the cover art on one of my college textbooks:
I think maybe it’s Roman, maybe older? Maybe Babylonian? I was excited to see it, but I was so worried that I had never finished my class reading that I forgot to check the signage.
Before we went back to The Some Whale Inn, we ate at Al Forno in Providence. In 1992 its chefs won one of the first Jame’s Beard awards, largely on the strength of their grilled pizza, and every few years like clockwork it gets a new nomination. Who doesn’t like pizza? And their grilled pizza is something strange and special. We ate grilled pizza. We split a roasted beet salad. We ate espresso-doused ice cream for desert. We watched the people around us eat other stuff and we envied them for what they’d ordered.
Playlist
The band Talking Heads came together at the Rhode Island School of Design, and I kept debating adding them to the Rhode Island playlist. I finally decided that each person is granted a certain measure of enjoyable Talking Heads listening, and after that the band passed their sell-by date. I think I passed my Talking Heads sell-by date somewhere in the early 80s.
You’d think that there wouldn’t be a lot of Rhode Island music to choose from, but here’s the thing; the Newport Jazz Festivals and Folk Festivals were incredibly influential, and if you just download a couple of festival compilations you’ll be set with a lot of great music. Somehow it is immensely satisfying to listen to “If I Had a Hammer” followed by Louis Armstrong singing “Mack the Knife.” I don’t care if any musician ever actually came from Rhode Island, so many musicians touched it that Rhode Island makes for a great playlist.
George M. Cohan was from Rhode Island, as were the Cowsills. On a side note, as a kid I saw the Cowsills at the Texas State Fair.
Guitar
I took a guitar, but I never played. Our hotel room was too small to open the case.
Ok, ok, I know, it’s not one of the 50 states. It almost was, almost being a bit strong, but like the more successful annexation of the Republic of Texas, it was one of those bits of early American expansionism that seem so obvious if successful and so completely whacko if not. The annexation of Cuba is definitely in the completely whacko category, like those times we tried to invade Canada. The United States made offers twice to buy Cuba from Spain, once in 1848 under the Polk administration, and again in 1854 under Franklin Pierce. It wasn’t just a shopping spree either. There was a political motive for the Southern Democrats who supported the purchase. Adding Cuba would have added at least one and maybe more slave states and would have strengthened Southern interests–the preservation of slavery–in Congress.
We were not trying to buy Cuba in Support of the Cuban People.
After the 1898 Spanish-American War, Cuba was an American occupied protectorate, and for the first half of the 20th century the Cuban Constitution allowed the United States to intervene pretty much at will in Cuban affairs. Cubans resented U.S. authority, and that residual anger helped Castro turn the revolution anti-U.S.
The U.S. embargo against Cuba has now lasted 60+ years, with a brief period of better relations under President Obama. Currently there are 12 reasons a United States citizen can legally travel to Cuba, including journalism, religious missions, family, education, and support of the Cuban people. I went in support of the Cuban people. I fished a lot. Unlike President Polk I didn’t try to buy Cuba.
I did buy some cigars and a bottle of rum. I smoked some cigars. I drank some rum. Ok, I drank too much rum. We were in Cuba, and to support the Cuban people you have to buy some cigars and rum. Strictly speaking, you can’t bring cigars or rum home, so what can you do? You have to drink it and smoke ’em.
For most people, Cuban sport fishing brings to mind Ernest Hemingway’s drunken forays for marlin in the Gulf Stream. That’s deep sea fishing, well, that’s deep sea fishing and heavy drinking. That’s not what we did. We were on the Zapata Peninsula about two hours southwest of Havana, in the Ciénaga de Zapata National Park–the Shoe Swamp National Park. We stayed in a small private hotel, Casa Frank, in the village of Playa Larga on the edge of the Bay of Pigs.
Our rooms had air conditioning and were clean. There was no bedside table, or dresser, or water pressure, but the water was hot, and there was laundry service. The power went out every afternoon if it rained, and it rained most afternoons. Getting on the internet was hit or miss, mostly miss, but it wasn’t any worse than the camp where Kris and I had stayed in Alaska. There was no water pressure there, either, and the showers were alternately freezing and scalding, so all in all the Cuban showers were better.
Sometimes in Cuba I could get cellular service on my phone, but AT&T sent me the following:
AT&T Free Msg: Welcome to Cuba! Please note Cuba is not covered by your international roaming package. Your international rates in Cuba are: data $2.05/MB, talk $3.00/min, text $0.50/text msg sent, $1.30/photo or video msg sent. You may turn off data in your device Settings.
I use megabytes of data just breathing, so I turned off my cellular and would only turn it on once a day. I sent Kris and our kids some texts. I didn’t talk on the phone. I ignored any emails that smacked of business because I’m now retired and what the hell do they expect? I ignored my fantasy baseball team and they moved up from last place to 13th, but it’s ok. The Houston Grackles are back in last now that I’m actively managing.
We fished either in the saltwater flats at the bottom of the peninsula, skinny bits of water too shallow for anything but skiffs, or in a river, the Rio Hatiguanico, in a mangrove jungle deep in the park. There were 11 of us fly fishing the flats for bonefish, tarpon, and permit, and in the river for tarpon. Kris didn’t go. She said this sounded like a guy’s trip.
There was one non-angler in our group, the wife of one of the anglers, and she took great photos of birds. Birding and beaches are the other reasons tourists go to Playa Larga. There are 27 species of birds that live only in Cuba, and birders at our hotel told me that in the park they had seen 22 of the 27 species. That included the Cuban national bird, the tocororo. That’s how it sounds, tocororo, and when I heard it I asked if it was some kind of dove.
It’s not a dove. Its breast and head are the the colors of the Cuban flag.
Temminck, C.J. and Laugier, Meiffren, Baron de Chartrouse (1838), Nouveau Recueil de Planches Colorieés D’Oisseaux v. 3, Couroucou, plate 526, Paris, F.G. Levrault.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
The first day fishing, my guide, Julio, yelled at me. It was deserved, because I was yelling at the bonefish. He insisted they took offense. “Take the hook, dammit!” I yelled. They were offended and skittered away.
“Shut up!” Julio was getting to know me.
“I can’t shut up Julio, I’m a lawyer.”
That day I caught four bonefish. “It’s normal,” Julio told me. Julio also told me about all the fish that I was missing. The problem was that I couldn’t see the fish. For bonefish, the angler stands on the casting deck at the front of the boat and stares into the water, ready to cast. The guide stands on a platform at the back and poles the boat and stares into the water. When the guide sees a fish, he calls a clock direction and distance, 12 o’clock, 20 meters; 3 o’clock, five meters; 11 o’clock, 10 meters; whatever . . . ideally, the guide isn’t just messing with you and the angler looks in the right direction, spots the fish, and casts, hopefully leading the fish a bit and not putting the fly either behind it or on top of it’s head (or into the guide, which also happens).
Julio apparently saw fish a’plenty. I didn’t. Part of the problem is that the damned old fish don’t stand still. They don’t politely wait for me to see them. They don’t even just mosey. They move along with intent and determination. When everything works right though, the guide gives the position, the angler sees the fish, and the fish takes the fly.
I couldn’t see the fish. “It’s normal,” Julio kept telling me, right after he yelled “do you see it! Do you see it! Do you see it!” Of course I didn’t see it. Some of the fish I caught that first day I caught blind, just lucky enough to follow Julio’s directions.
Do you see that water? It’s about a foot deep and there are miles of it. Do you see that fish? That’s the problem. It’s hard to see those fish against that bottom. That’s how they’re designed. If God really loved my fishing he would put a bright orange stripe down each bonefish’s back
The second day something clicked and I could see the bonefish. I was seeing fish that the guide, José, hadn’t seen yet. I could make my casts. I could keep the fish on the hook. It was one of those days when I could do no wrong, and I thought that I was now almost certainly the greatest saltwater angler who ever cast a line. I caught fish after fish after fish. I could do no wrong.
The next day I fished for permit.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
I started getting ready to go to Cuba almost a year ago. I took Spanish lessons on Duolingo, and then took a Spanish course at Rice. I tied a bunch of flies. I had long discussions with Mike and Bob and Mark, my three friends who were also going, about what rods we were taking, and what reels, and what lines. We were going to Cuba, and if we didn’t bring it, we wouldn’t have it.
This gets a bit technical, but bear with me. There are going to be a lot of numbers, but they’re all about size variations. Just think of it as a discussion about buying a pair of pants. Look at the numbers as the equivalent of waist measurements and forge on through.
I first decided to take four rods, two 8-weights (in case one broke), a 10-weight, and an 11-weight. Then I started changing my mind, which over the course of the year’s preparations I did about 56 times. I finally settled on one 8-weight, two 10-weights, and an 11-weight, the 8 for bonefish, the 10s for river tarpon, permit, and barracuda, and the 11 for migratory tarpon.
Of course that’s not what I arrived with. I had switched out rods in my luggage so often I apparently lost track. I arrived with one 8 (the wrong one), one 10 (but no backup as planned), one 11, and one 12, a mix I had never in my wildest dreams imagined.
During the year the group of us would meet at lunch and discuss the trip, or we would meet with the Houston fly fishing writer Phil Shook (who’d made this trip last year). We’d discuss flies and leaders and fly lines and fly rods, and I would go home and tie a bunch more flies and imagine new variations of rods and lines to take. I spent hours searching the internet for a tropical 30-foot sink-tip line, and finally found one from AirFlo, a British fly line company. I never knew that there was such a need for tropical fly lines in British rivers.
The biggest controversy was tarpon leaders. Other kinds of leaders only set off fisticuffs, but tarpon leaders really whipped up the passions. Tarpon ain’t leader shy, and our outfitter, Jon Covich, said that the local guides recommended six feet or so of straight 60-pound fluorocarbon for tarpon leaders.
I know what you’re thinking, that’s easy. what’s the problem? Oh, you innocent. There is a well-known 302-page fly fishing book about tarpon obsession, Lords of the Fly (Get it? Get it?), about 30 pages of which are about interesting stuff like philandering and drug abuse and drinking and divorce, and 102 pages of which are about the far more engaging dramas of tarpon leaders. This is serious stuff.
We discussed them one night over after-dinner rum. You’d think with a bunch of guys on holiday we would have had salacious discussions about women and partying and whatnot, or at least with a bunch of old guys we would have discussed viagra and artificial joints, but no. We discussed tarpon leaders.
I posited that you had to have a break-off point somewhere in your rigging, and that meant tying a bit of 16-pound tippet between the 60-pound butt and the 60-pound bite guard. Otherwise the breaking point in your rig is going to be either your fly line (which I insisted had a 30-pound test and which cost somewheres north of $100 pesos, American), or your rod (which in my experience has the breaking strength of a slammed car door or a ceiling fan and costs upwards of $1000 pesos, American).
Ron disagreed. “Neil, you idiot,” see? He was getting to know me, “your fly line has a breaking strength of 180 pounds.”
Well, just like the Virgin I treasured up all these things and pondered them in my heart, and in that rare moment three days later when we had internet, did I call Kris or reset my fantasy baseball team lineup? No. I looked up the test strength of fly lines.
Of course I was wrong, but not completely wrong. The best information we could get was that the common breaking strength of freshwater fly lines is 30 pounds, and the common breaking strength of saltwater fly lines is 40 pounds. I was closer to right than Ron, not that I would gloat. Someone in the group rustled up the box for a Rio Leviathan billfish sink-tip, a big game saltwater line, and it promised a breaking strength greater than 50 pounds. I would have ever-so-diplomatically pointed this out to Ron, but the Castros were conducting a counter-revolutionary purge on his insides, and that evening he was otherwise disposed. After four days he finally felt well enough to fish. He had probably suffered enough, so I never mentioned it. And I never will.
Meanwhile I’ll stick with my bits of light leader tied between a butt section of 60 pounds and a bite guard of 60 pounds.
As a postscript, I’ll add that on the one day we fished the river, I used that sink-tip fly line I had ordered from AirFlo, with a leader with 25-pound tippet tied in as a breaking point. I got snagged on something on the river bottom and was going to break off the fly. I’m a pretty big guy, 190+, and reasonably strong, but I could not break that leader. I pulled. I yanked. I pulled and yanked when the boat was backing away. I wrapped the fly line around my reel and yanked and pulled, and I hollered which always helps. The leader won. I could not break 25-pound tippet. Next time I’m tying in some 5X trout leader as the class tippet. I can always break that.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Back to permit, which are a kind of pompano. My roommate for the trip, Ken, is permit-obsessed. I have never caught a permit. I’ve hooked two, in Belize, and lost them both. Ken says that over 20 years of fishing in the Florida Keys, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean he’s caught about 120 permit, but here’s the thing: six permit a year for even the most permit obsessed is a mighty fine batting average. For three days while Ron was dealing with the Castros the rest of us let Ken have his own boat. Fishing with a permit devotee ain’t exactly the very thing. Permit obsession is a lonely business for a reason.
Cuvier, M. le B.on and Valenciennes, M. (1828), Histoire Naturelle des Poissons v. 6, plate 209, Paris, F.G. Levrault. This may in fact be a common pompano and not a permit, or may be a mishmash of both. The yellow belly is all pompano, but the fins seem closer to permit. The 22-volume Histoire Naturelle des Poissons was the most ambitious treatment of fish of its time, and was the standard reference for ichthyologists for the nineteenth century, but it was compiled in Paris from specimens, and sometimes the results vary. It doesn’t matter. The plate is magnificent and for that reason alone it should be a permit.
There is a brilliant essay about permit obsession, the novelist Tom McGuane’s “The Longest Silence.” I wouldn’t have wanted to fish for permit with Tom McGuane, either.
I think that Ken said his biggest permit ever was about 40 pounds, but it’s not the weight of the thing or its length that matters, a permit is a permit, and if you’re permit obsessed every permit is a permit, though some permit may be more equal than others. Our companion Alan accidentally caught a small permit blind casting into a bit of muddy water. We all kidded him, Jeff quipped that Alan had caught a learner’s permit, and then it struck us that Alan had actually caught a permit, and we hadn’t. Then we all just sorta coveted our neighbor’s possessions. A permit is a permit.
Notwithstanding Ken’s over-the-top obsession, all saltwater fly fishers are just a little bit obsessed with permit. More than any other fish (except maybe Atlantic salmon), they’re our Holy Grail, our Great White Whale. Most folk wouldn’t know ’em from a dishwasher, and they should count their blessings. Permit are a curse.
I chased permit on this trip off and on for a couple of mornings, once with the guide José and once with Roberto. José is Cuba’s champion distance caster, which means that without much effort he can cast more than 100′, which is about 30′ further than I can cast when there are no fish around to mess up my game. José found me a school of permit, about 200 meters away–200 meters being a lot further than 100′, and a whole lot further than 70′. What we saw were wakes in the water and permit tails waving in the wakes. It is a stunning sight that for some people produces the exultation of the hunt, and for me produces waves of self-doubt.
José said that to get close I had to get out of the boat and wade. I was wearing socks but no shoes when he went over the gunnel, so sock-foot wading it was. After about ten miles he put me into position to cast, but all I could think about was that my passport in my pants pocket was getting soaked. I wrapped the fly line around my head. The permit moved off, laughing.
I moved my passport to my shirt pocket.
We waded another 15 miles and I got off one more cast. It wasn’t terrible, but the permit ignored my fly. They swam right over my damned fly, and sneered at it as they passed. I watched them, and I hated them. And then they went away, laughing.
Ken caught a permit this trip. One, and I’m pretty convinced that he even snuck out of our room at night to get in a little more permit fishing. He told me that I had brought the wrong permit flies–well of course I’d brought the wrong permit flies. I had barely had time to prepare for this trip. He gave me a flexo crab.
Ken was fishing with Roberto, who had only guided for a bit more than a month, but Ken said that Roberto spotted a school about 400 meters away–1200 feet. Ken finally saw the school at about 300 meters, and when they were in range he got off two casts that the permit ignored. Roberto told Ken to cast into the middle of the school, which Ken believed to be heresy, but he did it and he caught his permit.
It was Roberto’s first permit as a guide, and both Ken and Roberto kissed the fish before they let it go. I’d guess the fish didn’t care for being kissed any more than it cared for being caught, but I’m sure it was meant in kindness. The next day Ken gave Roberto a fly rod, and he said that he thought Roberto was going to cry.
Damn. I’m going to cry.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Roberto is 31 and new to guiding. His English is about as good as my Spanish, but his guide English is great. For other conversations we kept switching back and forth. At one point he told me that before guiding he had been a commercial fisherman, which paid too little and which kept him away from his family for three weeks at a time. Guiding was better because with tips it paid better. Now every day he could see his wife, his 3-year old son, and the “novio de mi esposa,” the boyfriend of his wife.
About the boyfriend, I was heartbroken for him. Later he told me that in Spanish the sharks we were seeing were tiburónes, and after working out that cousins were primos I tried to make a joke about abogados, tiburónes, and primos. When he didn’t laugh I asked him how to say joke, and he told me it was una broma, “like my line about the novio de mi esposa, but not that thing you tried to tell me about sharks being your cousins.” I felt a lot better, even if my joke was a failure.
With Roberto as guide on our last day, I shared the boat with Raymond, and at one point there were about 15 separate pods of permit spread across our flat. I was supposed to share a boat with Mike Green, but ended up fishing with Raymond. Raymond said that he had caught a permit once 20 years ago and he graciously let me stay on the casting deck, which was just as well because I’d otherwise have thrown him off the boat. I’m glad I was fishing with Raymond because Mike Green is bigger than me.
I could hear Roberto gasping while he worked to get me into position, but every time we started to get close the permit shied away. I got off one cast which the permit disdained. It was heartbreaking stuff, and I believe there would have been a movie in it, one of those stories of failure and redemption, if I could only have caught a permit.
No permit, no movie. I didn’t get to kiss the heroine.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Our drivers drove 20-year old Dodge vans with Russian diesel motors. We spent a lot of time in the taxis. It was two hours from Havana to our hotel in Playa Larga. To get to the river from Playa Larga took about an hour and a half, and then an hour and a half home. To get to the salt flats took about an hour each way. The drivers spoke very little English, so Alan and I practiced our Spanish a lot. Alan was more fluent than me, but both of us managed some. The drivers politely talked very slowly and with lots of explanatory hand gestures and repetitions. I’m still not sure though whether flamingos flock like chickens or taste like chickens.
I talked a lot to our driver Chino. I asked Chino about his family and he showed me a picture of his wife, a microbiologista, and his daughter. His daughter was stunningly pretty. I don’t mean just a normal sort of youthful pretty, I mean really, really beautiful, without any artifice or device. He told me she was 17, very smart, and would go the next year to University in Havana.
The next day our guide, Felipe, said that Chino was his neighbor. He told me that I had only seen his daughter’s face, and that all of her was beautiful, and that she was very very smart, and very good, and that all the young guides were in love with her. All I know is that proud papas everywhere are proud papas.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Mark Marmon had dragged me into this thing, but Mike Frankoff had put our trip together. He found the outfitter, rounded up the suspects, coerced Phil Shook into telling us in detail about his trip, and played a major leadership role in our collective agonizing over fly rods and flies. Mike and I both keep skiffs in Port O’Connor, and I got to know Mike pretty well over the past year.
I fished with Mike one day on the trip. Our guide was Felipe, who runs a free school to teach young Cubans how to guide. The guides work for the Cuban equivalent of Texas Parks and Wildlife, and get paid the standard $35 a week for their 60-hour weeks, but guides get tips, and the tips from fly fishers are a lifeline. Felipe trains all of the young guides in his school.
Mike made a Hail Mary cast to a bonefish that Felipe had spotted 65 feet away, and unlike what the rest of us mortals would have managed, Mike made the cast and the bonefish took the fly. Then the bonefish started messing with him. It wrapped Mike’s line around a mangrove. While I lay on the bow getting his line untangled from that mangrove the bonefish went through the roots of another, turned back and went underneath the boat, and then wrapped itself around a third mangrove. Mike went off the boat one direction, Felipe the other, and I stayed on the boat to laugh. Somebody had to do it.
They landed that fish. It was a good fish, too. And the boat didn’t drift away with me.
Late in the afternoon, Felipe poled us along a thick mangrove bank, and it was like visiting an aquarium. Along the roots there were snappers and a big brown and white striped grouper and tiny baitfish by the hundreds. Mike pulled out a big popper, and for once in my life I cast beautifully. We kept moving further and further from the mangroves, 55, 60, 65 feet, and I would lay every cast into the base of the trees.
Retrieving the popper, mangrove fish would slam it as if the defense of their homeland relied on their ferocity. I was catching small jacks and snappers, trash fish for most salt anglers, and they were magnificent. The day was perfect and full of joy. Did I go all the way to Cuba to catch jacks and snappers? You betcha. For that and for the cigars.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Last year the State Department reported that nearly 250,000 Cubans left Cuba for the United States, and that doesn’t include Cubans who left for other countries. It’s the largest out-migration from Cuba since the Revolution, fueled by a combination of deprivation, repression, and the internet. Many of the U.S.-bound Cubans are stuck at our Mexican border, not allowed into the U.S. Those 250,000 Cubans represent more than 2% of the total Cuban population, and it’s immigration of the young. The population left in Cuba is increasingly aging.
The combination of Covid travel restrictions and then-President Trump’s reinstatement of embargo restrictions have severely damaged tourism, which is now a mainstay of the Cuban economy. Since 2020, Cuba has suffered from electricity outages, food shortages, gas shortages, supply chain issues, and civil unrest. It’s hard to buy a bottle of aspirin, or a razor, or a sanitary napkin. To preserve his Senate Majority, President Biden hasn’t eased the Trump-imposed restrictions because it would offend New Jersey’s powerful Democratic senator, Robert Menendez. Meanwhile the average salary in Cuba is less than $150 a month, or less than $2000 a year. Government pension payments are about $10 a month.
Havana, especially Old Havana, is beautiful, with magnificent Colonial architecture, but there’s little money for restoration or preservation. A beautiful building may be half occupied and half collapsing. It’s easy to imagine that if relations were open there would be a massive influx of dollars and materials and machines to turn the wrecks into vacation condos, or hotels, or something, and that the economy would roar. The City has great bones.
There are hardly any stores, hardly even any tourist trinkets. I brought back no souvenirs. Now and then on our tour of Havana we’d pass a grocery store, or foreign luxury clothing stores in a tourist hotel, or a small tourist shop, but not many. The advertising is all for the Revolution.
Amnesty International reports that in 2022 food shortages and electricity outages were frequent. Hundreds of people were still in prison after 2021 protests. Human rights advocates are in prison for crimes like “insulting national symbols.” It’s almost as if they’d protested guns in the Tennessee legislature.
Cuba is a mess.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Cuba is beautiful. The people want you to be there, and the fishing is better than I am a fisherman, even with the Ernest Hemingway beard I grew for the trip.
We only spent one day on the river. The fishing was off, and apparently it was just as well. It was hard getting enough gas and diesel to send our group to two places.
I fished on the river with Alan, which was great because, after all, he’d caught a permit. With me, Alan also caught a tarpon, and he’s such a nice guy that I hardly even resented it. I hooked three but stupidly lost them all. From time to time our guide, Bryan, pronounced as Bree-on under Communism, had to remind us we were there to fish, not chat.
Bryan complimented us on our Spanish, which for me was really stretching it, and Alan mentioned the current flood of Cuban immigrants. Bryan told us that it was ok, that a lot of Americans were coming into Havana to work in the restaurants. He told us that with our Spanish the government would easily pay us $35 a month.
Skills.
𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱 𐫱
Food was generally great during the trip, as long as you don’t count the lunches. They were supplied by the government hotel in Playa Larga, and consisted of meat and buns. The guides brought mustard and hot sauce, and sometimes fresh fruit and tomatoes and cucumbers. Otherwise it was meat and buns.
But other than the lunches, the food at the private restaurants was delicious. Mango and papaya with toast and eggs for breakfast, land crab cooked in tomato sauce, black bean and vegetable soups, gently stewed calimari and grilled spiny lobster, fresh snapper, steamed pumpkin, rice, cucumber . . . Why cucumber? I don’t know, but there was always cucumber. I ate everything. Well, everything but the lettuce. I didn’t want the Castro’s revenge.
On our last night the guides came to Casa Frank to join us for dinner. Ken gave a beautiful speech, and just like any good fisherman he expanded Roberto’s extraordinary spotting of his permit from 400 meters to 4000. I drank too much rum and tried to play guitar with the band, but I couldn’t remember anything to play. The guitarist tried to teach me La Bamba.
We had all brought stuff for the guides. Jeff had gone on a spree at Costco, Mark at Academy Sporting Goods. I think Alan had brought a spare suitcase full of stuff, and left the suitcase. Everybody brought something, and there were piles of stuff. Fishing pants, fishing shirts, coloring books and crayons and soccer balls, aspirin and Astros hats. . . Our friends needed everything. I was angry at myself for not bringing more, spare fishing pliers, spare rods and reels, socks and shirts and sun gloves. Spare watches. Pepto-bismol. Spare anything. They need everything and I could have done so much more.
They were so gracious and kind to us. They are so witty. They’re good people, Cubans, and good people to support. I would go to Cuba again in support of the Cuban people. If governments got out of the way and left it to people who love the salt flats, we’d all be fine.
