PaPa was a man of tradition. (Maternal grandfather, pronounced paw-paw, married to MaMa, pronounced maw-maw).
He was a die hard, master fisherman who fancied that he looked like John Wayne when he wore the same long billed cap that JW did in Hatari; dammit, he did look like John Wayne. He was a jack of all trades who became an
accountant later in life.
He rebuilt fishing camp after fishing camp at the mouth of the Colorado river below Matagorda (Texas Gulf coast) as they were wiped out by storms; each rendition of the ‘Mason Rouge’ was a little bigger and a little nicer that its predecessor.
Even though he added a septic allowing indoor plumbing fairly early on, he continued to favor use of an outhouse conveniently positioned on the southwest corner of the property.
It was there as a wee child that I saw my first Sear’s catalogue bolted to the wall (with requisite rusted oversized hardware) for paper and my first stack of genuine outhouse reading material. (PaPa was a lifelong subscriber to Playboy, and vintage Playboys seemed to migrate to the outhouse for perusal….).
The wooden toilet seat was weathered gray and always looked a bit splintery; it was there that I saw my first duct tape toilet seat repair.
In honor of PaPa I applied a temporary duct tape repair to my office toilet seat when the seat cracked just a few days ago.
Sitting on that repaired seat yesterday, reading about fly fishing of course (Phil Shook’s Flyfisher’s Guide to Texas), much to my shock and
surprise I came across the name of an old friend – Mark Marmon.
Mark’s another guy who’s a living legend.
Mark was the resident assistant in the dorm I lived in my freshman year at college; he was one of those larger than life characters who was almost never without a smile and a helping hand.
More importantly he was one of the most extraordinary outdoorsmen I’d even seen – he was forever hunting birds, snakes, coyotes, javelinas and knew more about the surrounding country than I’d ever even imagined back in the day.
Perhaps most importantly Mark introduced She Who Must Be Obeyed and I almost 32 years ago; little did we know at the time where that would lead. The last time we saw Mark in person was at our wedding 30 years ago.
Lo and behold Mark is the owner of Metro Anglers in Houston. He’s fly fished for years around the world and has pioneered what may be one of the most unique brownlining experiences in the nation – fly fishing for carp and other bayou species in urban Houston.
Mark and I have chatted over the past couple of days and he’s graciously working on an interview for us we’ll post most likely in the next couple of days. We’ll try and twist his arm and get a film feature done over there as well before heading back up to the north country.
