Sunday, June 21, 1998

Father's Day stirs up memories of fish stories gone by

By Matt Markey
A-T columnist

Father's Day seems like a good time for a story about Dad.

Hopefully, this will help his patients and friends know him a little better. This will help his youngest grandchildren and his great-grandchildren yet-to-be-born know what kind of guy he was. This will help us, that miss him so, remember again how much he loved life and some of its simplest moments.

For each of the last 10 or 12 years before he died, my Dad took a fishing trip way up in northwestern Ontario with his best pal, Al Spero, and four or five other guys. The makeup of the story varied from year-to-year, but Dad and Al never missed a one in that span.

They were an unusual duo, so different and so much alike. Dad grew up on a poor farm in Indiana, and worked his way through Indiana University and medical school at Loyola of Chicago. Al has spent most of his life right here in Seneca County, hanging paint in high places as long as anyone can remember.

If you pass a silo, a tower, a water tank, or a storage elevator, you can bet Al Spero has no doubt sand blasted it, primed it and painted it. His rig is as distinct as he is. Picture what it would look like if a school bus hit a cherry picker at 60 miles an hour, and then Al drove away with what was left. But the rig works, and so does Al, all of the time.

So when this aerial painter and this small town doctor got together, they realized they both loved the same things. They loved to eat, to play cards and to go fishing. And they loved to talk about it. A lot.

So Al took my Dad along on one of his trips to Whitewater Lake, where Al had been fishing every summer since the 1960s. They would drive 1,000 miles north to get there, and then fly in the last 50 or 60 miles to a cabin about as remote as you could get, just a couple hundred miles south of the tree line.

After just one trip, Dad was an expert on the place. He was like that. Dad went on and on about the pristine beauty. Huge masses of granite carved out by the glaciers lined the shores, and the countless islands were surrounded by billions of gallons of cold, crystal clear water, all rushing off to the north to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean.

There were otters and waterfowl everywhere, and moose and bear were common. The lake served up an endless supply of chunky walleyes, some big and nasty northern pike and a healthy population of lake trout.

Dad was quickly put in charge of the kitchen. He made no secret of the fact he loved food. Even the casual observer could have deduced that. He planned a number of gourmet meals, and although the original recipes were probably all my Mom's, he accepted full credit. They ate like kids, and we often accused them of fishing only to occupy the time between meals.

The trips took place late in May, so by mid-March Dad and Al were already planning. They spent two months refining the menu, stockpiling snacks, making grocery lists and raiding the Kroger store. At some point, they got out the fishing tackle, too.

They'd stuff the van with their food and gear, and play cards most of the way while someone else drove. Dad and Al would fish together, and then later vouch for each other's stories. Over the last few years, Dad's health was declining and he needed a lot of help, so I know Al was probably more of a caddy and a butler than a fishing partner. But Al never complained. He was that kind of friend.

Then, a year and a half ago, Dad slipped away from us following a procedure that was intended to relieve some of the stress of his already over-worked heart. There were pictures of he and Al fishing in Canada mixed with all of thefamily photos displayed at Dad's wake.

A few months later, when it was time to pack for another trip up north, Al called the whole thing off. The cabin would be empty that spring. Al said he just didn't feel like going after losing his fishing buddy. My Dad probably would have chewed him out for that, because he wasn't much the sentimental type.

This year Al put together another fishing party and headed back to Whitewater Lake. Al, his son Jim, his brother-in-law Norbert Kimmet of Bettsville, Larry Snyder of Fostoria, Dick Frankforther of rural Fostoria, and friend Jim McGill of Pennsylvania made the trip. The weather was perfect. There were fish everywhere. They caught hundreds of walleye. Almost every cast was met with a strike.

''We caught so many fish,'' Al said. ''I never seen anything like it. I think Doc was watching out for us from up above. He would have loved it, and I just wish he could have been there.''

Al, I'm pretty sure he was.