My Favourite Picture

My son Nicholas is now a professional illustrator and all grown up, but my favourite picture is this one he made of me when he was seven.

We were visiting his grandparents in Maine where I had bought a light-weight bait-casting rod and a little multiplier reel to go with it. Both were very nice and extremely cheap from K-Mart. The loose rods were stuffed carelessly into a dustbin, handles first. Half the rods had a reel attached and some of them had their guides bent or broken by being forced into the the overfilled bin. I found a Swedish Abu reel without a box, just lying around un-priced so I had to negotiate with the boy who was manning the fire-arms counter. I offered him 10 dollars and that was that. K-Mart sold everything and the outdoors section had camouflaged canoes, cross bows and bear traps (probably). It was a really cheap place to get pike spinners, plugs, jelly baits and rubber worms.

In contrast, the hat and shirt came from the swanky but brilliant LL Bean store in Freeport. The shorts were mail ordered from Bean's while we were living in Seychelles. When they arrived, they turned out to be made in Mauritius, just a mere 1000 miles away from us on Mahe.

The picture brings back happy memories of our stay at Popham Beach State Park where I fished the mouth of the Morse River for striped bass. Since that time, the sea has taken away much of the beach but the bass are still there, I hope. I'll find out in August when I go back.