TAtlGrl

BY PATRICK

F. McMANUS

Pasture Panic
Thrcatened by bouine cunning, angler.escapes uncouted
deftly follow my fly rod
between the middle and top
city. Well, it's certainly not'something I approve of-never have, never will. My own family owned cows when I was a bon mostly because we didn't know any better. Little did we realize that even as we drove the cows to pasture, they'were driving us to the poorhouse. One of my chores starting at about age 72 was to help milk the cows, for which I'd already developed a deep dislike. My stepfather, who
scarcely knew any more about cows than I did, had given me the impres-

something about milking bows before a date that seemed to detract from the

Cary Grant impression tr wished to

convey. That and the acne. As I say, I had not fished the crick in over a quarter ofa century. Although

strands of the

fence.

Climbing through a barbwire

fence while dressed

attired in the appropriate fashion of

the dedicated flyfisherman, my appearance was a deliberate fraud. Tucked

in full fish-

ing regalia remains the same art

away in my Orvis vest-Orvis will

insist I return the vest if he reads thiswas concealed a can of worms. These were no typical modern worms, slug-

I mastered as a

child, although my full fishing regalia then consisted of nothing more than a
telescoping rod, a can.of worms and a holey pair of jeans.

slipped away sihce I last fished thE crick. I use the term "crick" advisedly. A creek, as you know, is a genteel kind of stream. Its sparkling waters cavort across the countryside, ripple gaily over beds of gravel, gush merrjly between and over picturesque boul-

It feels almost like yesterday, even though 30 years and more have

ders, gather deeply in shadowed pools. A crick, on the other hand,

jobs, irrigating a potato field here, housing a family of beavers there,
slogs along workmanlike, doing odd

I liked that one best!" Every time I had a hot &te-well, truthfully, I never had a hot date, but there were quite a few fairly tepid ones-I always had to milk the cows first. There was

sion that if the cows were not milked promptly every day at a given time they would explode. I tested this theory often and without success.. Never achieving so much as a small pop. Theie were times, particulady in my teens, when the sound of cows detonating would have been music to my ears. "Oooo! There goes another one!

gish layabouts purchhsed in a foam carton. No, indeed, these.were personally hand-dug by me, sweating over a spading fork, each worm selected for its strength of character and already
tested by adversity-they had endured

numerous power-tillings in my very own garden. No other worm equals the toughness, the sheer meanness, of a power-tilled worm. My worms would have squinted like Clint Eastwood, if they'd had something to squint. The cow pasture now appears little

diffefent than

it

did, lcontinued on pdse s0

cooling a couple of hogs around the bend,. quenching the thirst of a herd, of sheep. A creek is fished with flies, a crick with worms. A creek's natural'', habitat is sun-dappled woodlands, a
crick's is barren cow pastures. Indeed,

more than anything else,

crick's

rr'i:.'a=a:.=:

character is molded by cows. I need not dwell here on the casual attitude cows take toward personal hygiene, because that is wef known and even generally accepted, as if nothing more than a mild eccentri-

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96

| NoVEMBER

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