Keeping friendships fresh is one of the more enjoyable things in life, but, let’s face it, time — or lack of it — has a habit of getting in the way.
Fortunately, friends are often pretty forgiving, if for no reason other than that they feel the same time pressures that delay the phone call or huddle at a local pub.
But when we finally make that call or get together, it can be as if no time has passed between us.
A long-time fishing buddy of mine has a phrase for it: “Two men in a boat.”
Like the last time we slid our canoe into the Shenandoah River just upstream from Bentonville, Va., for a day of smallmouth bass fishing. We picked up our conversation right where we had left off two years earlier.
Wife good? Check. Kids? Check. Job? Check.
And then on to the timeless debating, the best streamer to catch bronzebacks with, arguing over steering the canoe, complaining about the anglers before us who left their beer cans and jars of PowerBait on the sandy islands that dot the beautiful river that winds through the Shenandoah Valley.
A Pennsylvania fishing guide I hired by chance years ago, Dave Rothrock, has become a trout-season friend that I run into on the streams of Potter and Lycoming counties or at his base camp tackle store, McConnell’s Country Store and Fly Shop, in Waterville, Pa.
He recently co-authored the wonderfully detailed Keystone Fly Fishing: The Ultimate Guide to Pennsylvania’s Best Water, so we added that to our yearly list of topics that include President Trump, disarray in Washington, and local efforts to clean up Pennsylvania’s streams.
Just last week, my biggest annual “men in the boat” gathering occurred an hour from Greeley, Colo., during a 24-hour pheasant and goose hunt. The six of us, a mix of media and Midwest businesses execs, took maybe two minutes to go through our family and job checklist and then picked up where we left off last year, just as if we had seen each other last week.
I was first introduced to this gang of shooters about three years ago and within minutes was embraced by my new fraternity after a little hazing, made lighter because I brought a fistful of aged Epicure stogies from the cigar-maker to presidents, Paul Garmirian.
I see Paul, his son, Kevork, and their top aide, Emil Hassan, maybe once or twice a year, and they welcome me as a brother when I enter their McLean Cigars PG Boutique, as when I got this year’s 18-year-old Connoisseurs before flying to Denver.
This year’s hunt was a little different, but just as great. One of our regulars couldn’t make it but we added another Colorado news executive and the son of our Grand Poobah organizer. That added a lot of fun, at least for the more conservative regulars, because the son leans left and could recite every wrong he felt Trump has wrought.
It was a night of mocking and countermocking — but considering we would all be well-armed the next morning, it didn’t get out of control.
Through an afternoon and morning hunt we all told the same jokes as in prior years, about great and lousy shots, and we laughed at them just the same.
The “two men in a boat” warmth can also extend further to even those you just rub elbows with. That’s always the case in Colorado, where the lodge staff greets us with smiles and hugs and the ranch boss and guides with raunchy jokes and fist bumps.
I hadn’t hunted with Justin and his bird dogs before, but over two days of guiding he told me about how his son is considering joining the Olympic shooting team. His wife, Brenda, also a guide and master dog handler, joined us for our last pheasant shoot, the best of the two days. And when I finished my coffee, he offered to stop at their house for a refill.
Then, after lunch on the second day, we called it a trip, bagged up some birds to cook later, and packed the cars. We don’t know if we’ll see each other again, but with happy anticipation we said, “See ya next year,” like it’s right around the corner.
