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| Creative Commons 2.0 Flickr Photo by: CaliforniaDFG |
The first was on the plane back from Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. I had the pleasure of sitting next to an octogenarian whose adventures made me tired just listening. He'd flown an hour and a half north of Vancouver to fish with his sons and grandsons for Chinook Salmon. The way he described the fishing outings was detailed and he was quite proud that his fishing gang brought in the most fish for the week. The thing I noticed most was he was quite content and happy in his retirement at 80 years young. He said, "I don't do shuffleboard or any other of the retirement crowd things, I just do what I want and go where I want, when I want."
The second conversation was just this past Saturday at our local landfill. I was adding to the pile when a smiling gentlemen walked up to me and after the requisite jokes about the dump and landfills in general, we started to "talk story". I had mentioned I'd spoken with someone about salmon fishing and he said, well I have a story for you. He told the story of being flown by float plane to a remote fishing camp with guys from work on the west coast near Alaska. By the time the story was at its mid-point he was using his hands and body to describe the 132 pound halibut he'd caught. He'd been fishing for Chinook salmon in the morning and the guide took him up-river to fish for halibut in the afternoon. As he told the story I could visualize the situations he was describing. At the end of the story he said that while he shared his catch with his fellow fishermen, he didn't get to have any because his freezer had a power outage and he lost the entire portion of his catch! He smiled at the end of the story and said, "Oh well, at least my fishing buddies got to have theirs."
It donned on me this morning that both of these stories would make terrific digital stories. Lasting memories for the grandchildren to enjoy perhaps and illustrated by photos and voice.
