There were good turnouts for both services this past Sunday as Christ’s Church founding pastor Don Lawrence retired.
During his final sermon, he said he enjoyed fishing with his son-in-law.
That reminded me of the time Don took me fishing. This was about 20 to 25 years ago.
It all started when I walked into a conversation at a party between Don and a fellow I actually knew better than Don in those days, Ken Creta. He and his wife, Rina, lived in the community, but he worked in Scottsdale as a stockbroker.
Ken and I co-chaired the community’s first Town Hall in 1985. The event was a big success and a list of recommendations were approved giving the community some direction for its future.
You’d think they would be talking town politics. No, it was fishing. They were planning their next outing to Saguaro Lake.
I listened for a little while then I admitted I had never caught a fish as an adult.
I had caught three blue gill when I was 10 years old at Encanto Park in central Phoenix.
I told them I had gone fishing with my dad when I was five years old in a lake near Oklahoma City. My dad reeled in a nasty cottonmouth water moccasin. I never saw my dad move so fast to keep the poisonous snake away from me. His eyes opened so wide that day like I had never seen before or since. He quickly cut the line and the snake dropped back into the lake.
Getting back to the conversation with Ken and Don, they seemed surprised to hear that I didn’t fish. They said we would have to go out some time.
To say the least, it was not a good fishing experience.
Thinking that was idle party talk, I didn’t think any more about it.
That is until they both showed up at my office on a Friday afternoon and “kidnapped” me.
“We’re going fishing, and we’ll have you back home by Sunday.
“We have a change of clothes for you and we have an extra rod and reel. You’re all set for a fun weekend of fishing in the White Mountain lakes,” Don said.
They had made arrangements to stay two nights in Don and Joanne Meehan’s condo in Pinetop. Joanne was the principal at McDowell Mountain Elementary in the local School District.
They also said my good buddy, Frank Kainrath, would be joining us later in Pinetop
Frank had directions to the condo. It was beginning to get dark and Frank hadn’t shown up. Cell phones were not widely used in those days and nobody had a GPS.
We were sitting at the condo when I thought l saw him pass by. I’ll go flag him down,” I said.
As I approached the road, I saw him go by in the opposite direction, eyes straight ahead.
I was standing on the corner, trying to wave him down at the entrance to the condo development when he passed a third time.
“FRANK,” I yelled, as he drove by. This time he heard me.
I told him how I watched him drive past me three times.
“I was listening to a new Leon Russell CD I got,” he said, “but I didn’t see any numbers on the condos. I guess that’s what I was concentrating on.”
We got up early the next morning and drive to a nearby lake. Ken dropped us off at different locations.
Clouds started moving in, barely clearing the top of the pine trees. Snow started to fall. Here I am freezing and all bundled up, sitting on the edge of a partly frozen lake. This is why I don’t like fishing.
Nobody had any luck in catching anything. Don said, “Let’s drive up to Hawley Lake.”
I thought to myself, “Great, that’s the place where the all-time low temperature in Arizona was set at -40 degrees.”
Actually, when we got there, the clouds had cleared, the sun was out, there was no wind and it was almost feeling comfortable.
As we approached the lake, Don said, “Are you having fun, yet?”
I smiled.
Don got me ready to cast, and put some bait on my hook.
On my third cast, I feltsomething tug on my line. Then I saw it was a fish.
Ken said that looks like a keeper. It was a brown trout about a foot long. I was the first one to catch a fish, and I caught three rainbows after that.
That evening we cooked the fish we had caught that day. I made a salad. We shared a bottle of wine and laughed a lot.
I thanked Don and Ken for planning the outing.
”And I caught the first fish,” I said.
“I said a prayer for you,” said Don, “and it worked.”
