Fish Bum

If you don’t know what a “Fish Bum” is, I pity you. If you’ve ever known a “Fish Bum” you’re pretty lucky. If you are a “Fish Bum” you’re probably not reading this article and I know that, for darn sure, you aren’t writing it. If you don’t know what a “Fish Bum” is you probably have one eyebrow raised but just bear with me.

I’ve been in the lucky category since about 1978 when I met and befriended my first Fish Bum, Jay. I’ve only known a few but that’s like saying you’ve only shaken hands with a few Presidents. In 1978, Jay might not have known he was a Bum yet. We were about thirteen and weren’t much of anything at that tender age. It wouldn’t have mattered to him if he knew or not; Bums are pretty affable. I did notice pretty quickly that Jay was different than the other kids. He didn’t fit in but everyone respected him. He was popular but didn’t keep many friends around. He had the worst and best nickname of anyone, “Chief Black Cloud”, because he was a large portion Native American and because of his not so secret, at the time, middle name. Eventually his nickname morphed into “Jay”. I’m not sure he noticed or cared what he was called. Upon meeting him I liked him immediately and probably hung around him for about three years before he noticed me and asked my name.

What I liked about him was that he could run very fast; that’s important when you’re thirteen. He was always up for deep conversation but had little time for shallow stuff. He was very gentle. He once took a lone stance to protect a nest of baby mice that were burrowed into a guy’s mattress at football camp, his actions made me look at things differently and shaped a lot of about whom I am. Jay was very smart; he knew all kinds of useless stuff. If you wanted to know how many stitches were in a baseball, what the average rainfall in India was and what the mating cycle of a crawfish was, he could tell you. He was so respected for his knowledge that he was used as the final authority on many arguments and bets. This was before Google, he was our Google and if Jay lived in California, Google wouldn’t have been invented as they wouldn’t have needed it. Despite all that, I still liked him and maintained our friendship because I had eventually figured out that he was a bona fide “Fish Bum”.

With all of his mental power, Jay could be a little absent minded. Mostly because he was so deep he had little time for the daily things we take for granted, like even what day it was. He was late to everything, if he even showed up. He often went into long staring spells without speaking or reacting and he forgot things that were important to other people. For example, I remember, one summer, his mother telling him that his boss had called and asked that he cash his work checks. It was September and he had been working there since May. All summer, I was living paycheck to paycheck, while he didn’t even cash check one yet. That’s when I got my first inkling that my friend may be a genius. Despite that I still liked him. I maintained our friendship because I had already figured out that he was a “Fish Bum” so I could overlook the other things. He would not confirm or deny and I bet he may not even know but I suspect he’s been a millionaire since we turned 20. When he was nineteen, on a summer job while home from college, he figured out a way to more efficiently clean up oil spills in the ocean. Today, people pay him gobs of money, which he probably doesn’t spend or take to figure stuff out for them.

I’m not too proud to say that I’m his blood brother, for real. You know how when you were kids you slash your hands and shake? (I am not recommending this activity. It hurts and can get infected, if you attempt this in 2016, please use protection.) It does carry a bond as tight as marriage and you have to share your secret spots and lures, not half of them, all of them. Back in the day, guys who carried knives couldn’t wait to have a guy who didn’t have a knife on them and need to borrow it. If you’re a real dude, you understand. Your edge was your name and it would be checked and commented on. Your worth would be judged by how thin your metal was. I eventually ended up spending years in the military. I had always carried a good edge that I learned to hone from guys who cut their way out of an ambush in some far away land. Yet, Jay would pull out his knife and casually cut something incredible in two with a casual brush. Fish Bums are always casual.

Jay’s the kind of guy that disappears for weeks on end. At a point in our lives, our friends and I suspected he worked for the CIA. It just fed our suspicions when after he did something like display incredible honing skills and we would ask, “Where did you learn to hone an edge like that?” He’d say (maybe the next day), “I ran into an old Samurai blacksmith.” We’d ask, “In Pennsylvania?” Jay, “Tokyo.” Me, “Japan?!” Jay, “There’s not many Samurai in Tokyo, Mississippi but they do have an unusual amount of rainfall and the crawfish molt is interesting…I’m sorry; Yes, Japan.” After two blinks, I would jump because I thought I’d had him and would exclaim, “I knew it, you were there running a mission for the CIA!” Jay, “No, I was following the mosquito fish run. I met the Samurai there when he was trying to settle a bet about how many stitches were in a baseball.”

He picked his undergrad college in Canada, (I think) based on the fishing and all you can eat lobster. He played football there well enough to be named All Canadian and drafted into the Pro’s while he lived off campus with some Canadian tribe that fished. He ended his football career after college because of some spawn run somewhere or something (and he also had this nonsense reason about earning more math and biology degrees). So, thus has his life has gone since the day I met him, school, work, relationships all were good as long as they didn’t interfere with his fishing.

When we were thirty Jay called me up because he needed a place to live. When cashing checks is a bother, rent becomes a problem. Of course, I welcomed him into my home. He showed up from a jaunt where he had been solving problems for companies through California, Utah, Missouri, North Carolina, a quick stint in South Africa and finally Pennsylvania (but not in that order). He had a compact unregistered and not inspected pickup with a cover on it. I pointed out the legality of his truck and he just stared at it for a while and said, “Ah, yeah… I guess so. Tickets are easier than paperwork.” Ninety percent of his worldly possessions were fishing rods and gear. To round off his worldly possessions were two business shirts still wrapped in plastic, a tie, poncho, a tin of tobacco, his computer and a bicycle. I’d ask him what he been doing and he’d say (eventually), “Oh, they called me to figure out how to replace this dam. I hiked for three days until I found this high mountain pond with cut throat trout. Then I went to Carolina, they wanted me to show them how to get pipe to span a mile or so out in the ocean, it was easy so I had time to follow the sea trout run all the way to the Chesapeake….”, and so it went.

The man invented his own math equations to solve the world’s problems but he’d gloss over that to go into detail about the color of a sea trout. He stayed around for a couple months, then I came home to a note that read, “Cod are running in Maine, see you soon.” We keep in touch still, he’s even helped me with sound advice on hard pollution cases almost anticipating my call and seemingly all too familiar with the case. These types of guys are rare and are hard to keep around for long. They are truly free but at least maybe now, you’ll know a Fish Bum when you see one and be able to appreciate the moments you have.

See you along the stream