Although it's a bit faded now, there's an old picture that I like to look at on Father's Day. In it, a blond 5-year-old girl stands in a pale red coat, too short in the sleeves, her brown, scuffed cowboy boots planted wide apart on the sunny surface of a bridge. She's holding a fish. Still on the line, the fish is small, but the little girl's grin is so wide that a wad of bubblegum escapes from one side. The image calls to mind memories much more vivid than the photograph …
They pulled in at the old fishing bridge around daybreak. Light frost iced the wild grasses and the wide timbers of the bridge. Gaps between its wooden planks showed slices of the river rushing below. The little girl stepped carefully onto the slippery surface of the bridge, cringing at the violence of the tumbling waters far beneath them. She wanted to take her father's hand, but didn't. Five years old meant she could walk beside him without holding his hand.
Stopping near the center of the bridge, the man placed their gear and a bucket of bait on the rough timbers nearest the rail. Frigid water pounded thunderously over speckled rocks far below. The sun peeked over the crest of the mountain, its sweet light poised to flood the valley, but right then it was cold. She wished for mittens to warm her freezing fingers, but she knew she couldn't bait her hook wearing mittens. And that was the deal; she'd promised her dad she would bait the hook herself.
Leaning their poles against the railing, he stooped to uncover the bucket containing the earthworms, his pant leg stained at the knee from the wet grass where he'd knelt in their yard to dig up the worms while it was still night. Reaching into the bucket, he pulled out a fat worm that wiggled in circles at both ends. Deftly he hooked it and cast off, then glanced in his daughter's direction. Unafraid to touch worms, she nevertheless was squeamish about sticking the hook into one. A deal was a deal, though, so she grasped a large one and threaded it on, trying not to think about the worm.
The damp, earthy reek of the old canvas bag filled with salmon eggs and fishing gear grew stronger in the warmth of the rising sun. Morning birds chattered to each other from massive cottonwood trees growing in a thick row along the banks of the Colorado. Holding her pole over the edge of the bridge, the line pulled along with the current below, its red and white bobber playing in the rapids. The man had already reeled in several fish, but still she waited. One worm was lost, and she affixed another while the shadows behind them grew shorter.
Growing tired, the little girl thought she'd rather join her mother on the bank of the river when she felt an abrupt tug at her line. Astonished, she looked to her dad who nodded at her reel, and she wound it in. A sudden flash of silver appeared at the river's plane. Thrashing, the small trout rode up and over the bridge's rail. Grasping the line, the girl whirled around to find her mother already up from the old quilt on the river bank where she'd been reading, her dark hair flying as she ran to the bridge to take a picture of their little girl with her first fish.
Seeing his tired young daughter, the girl's father offered her a ride on his shoulders back to the car. "No, thank you, Daddy," she explained. "I can walk by myself over this bridge."
That's what dads do, you see, and it's on Father's Day we remember. They lead the way as we learn to stand and walk on our own.
Her dad's been gone three years now, but there's a special place in a daughter's heart for her father. On Father's Day the old, faded photograph warms that place with memories because that was the day I learned to fish like my dad.
