Stay Weird

When I started my current job, all the way back in February of 2001, there was a guy in my group who was on the way out. He was brilliant, but quirky as hell, and getting ready to complete his tour and take his talents elsewhere. And when I say quirky, I mean weird. For much of the six months that we overlapped, a vision problem forced him to wear an eye patch. I hate to make light of the fact that someone had a malady, but it’s worth noting here for one other reason: he also had a parrot. As he prepared for a late-in-life marriage, his last gasp of exercising his man card was to buy a blue and yellow macaw. That was pre-eyepatch, but once the two mixed he completed the full pirate look.

Then he threw himself a retirement party and showed the parrot off. He could walk over to its perch, lean in, and it would hop on his shoulder. Then he’d walk around like a proud but stocky Ahab.

Later things got ugly. He put the parrot back on its perch. Another guest, having seen the parlor trick, walked over, leaned in, and…the parrot started thrashing and clawing at him. 

Party over.

This is a long way of saying that 23 years later I’m the old guy at the office. This probably means that the younger people consider me the old, weird guy, the one telling stories about pre-9/11 pirates. I still have a few more years to go until I throw my retirement party, and I have no intentions of adding an avian pet, but I fill the role nonetheless.

And as I thought about this, I realized that I sold my first article to a national bass publication three years after starting that job. I went to my first Classic 20 years ago. Of the 53 anglers who were in that field, only four -- Gerald Swindle, Mike Iaconelli, Greg Hackney, and Bernie Schultz, three of whom left the Elites and then came back – are still at the top level at BASS. At least two members of that group are dead (it’s unconfirmed whether my past co-worker or the parrot are still alive).

In other words, I’m old and weathered on every front.

The difference is that while the start of my tenure at my full-time gig seems like it was centuries ago, the start of my fishing writing career feels like it was yesterday. I feel like a newcomer and an imposter every day, hundreds of thousands of words, countless interviews, and an untold number of bumpy boat rides later. 

But even though I still feel young and inexperienced, I’ve been around a while, and that gives me license to be more than a little weird. Our industry is one where conformity is prized and being different, or holding different opinions, is occasionally grounds for being ostracized. But I am different. Was then, and am now. Most of the good things that have happened to me on the water, in print, and in pixels have come when I wasn’t afraid to wear my virtual eye patch or tote my hypothetical parrot. It’s a good reminder that taking risks, and not being afraid, is the way you distinguish yourself. Being the old guy gives you certain liberties that others don’t want to take or can’t afford to take.