One thing I never could have predicted when I found my lifelong fishing obsession at the tender age of 7, was how many amazing and wonderful people this sport would connect me with as my life progressed. Just the number of lifelong friends I’ve met as a result of fishing would be enough to highlight its peripheral benefits that stretch beyond the boost to mental health and the drive to keep getting better at something. I could go on and on, there have been friends who have helped me score tough concert and Sox tickets, friends who have helped me make major improvements to my home without smashing the piggybank, or those who, when I was young and money was tough, helped my wife and I keep two aging cars running through their generosity and expertise. What I’ve learned is, fishermen help each other and I think that’s an amazing facet of our community.
But I bet most of you can’t say that fishing saved you a passing grade in high school.
I think I’ve written before, that I was not the world’s most dedicated student. I was a daydreamer and hyper-focused on the things that I actually wanted to do and I pretty much ignored things I didn’t enjoy or that I found to be impossible to understand. For example, I took Algebra 1 three times; I’m not ashamed to admit it, algebra just doesn’t compute for me. Geometry, I loved it and crushed it. But, writing is what got me through school and, surprise-surprise, it’s what gets me through real life, too.
When I was a sophomore in high school I took a photography class with Mr. Dodson and he quickly became one of my favorite teachers of all time. He was fun, sarcastic, told lots of jokes and was every bit as terrified as the students were of the hall monitor Mr. Federicci, in fact he called getting busted by him, “getting federated”. Naturally, when I had the opportunity to take another one of his classes, I jumped at the chance. In that class was one of my great high school friends, Josh Lee, we both lived on the same lake and fished it hard. Mr. Dodson loved to fish too.
Let’s just say that the three of us did not do much work for that two-term class, basically Mr. Dodson would instruct the class and then he and Josh and I would just talk. Of course, Josh and I had to do some work, but it was minimal and certainly not up to the typical standard of a High School senior. I’ll remind you again, that I wasn’t a model student, and I really needed that solid grade from an easy class.
The final project was a collage, and if I’m being honest, had I not had a teacher that liked to talk fishing and classic rock so much, I would have really enjoyed knocking that collage out of the ballpark. But this time, my assumption that I was going to skate by on my friendship with the teacher, was about to bite me on the butt.
Class began with Mr. Dodson reminding us that we needed to hand in our collages that day. I had done NOTHING. He insisted that I needed to hand something in. I had 40 minutes to save my grade and if I was going to graduate, I needed that grade! I spent the class going through scrap boxes and gluing random scraps of photos to a piece of poster board. I had a vision of what I hoped it would look like, but when Mr. Dodson called for us to hand them in, I looked at my mostly bare poster board and instantly felt dread wash over me.
I held it back until the rest of the students handed theirs in. I walked up sheepishly, and hid the embarrassing result.
“What have you got, Dave?” He asked me.
“I’m just being up front with you, it’s terrible,” I said begging for leniency.
Dodson looked it over, slicking back his moustache and nodding he said, “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” His eyes meeting mine over the top of the poster board, with the faint sparkle of a smile in his eye.
I opened my mouth to fight for my grade, but before I could get a word out, he said…
“BUT… since you’re a fisherman, B-plus!”
I’ll never forget him for that or the endless conversations we had that year that made school a little more bearable for a kid that just wanted to go home and get back in the canoe to go fishing.
