I am not sure how old I was when we bought it—or I should say when my dad bought it. You see I had dreams of being an artist. I was inspired (probably too generous a term) by graffiti artists, so dad sprung for an airbrush and a desk that I could paint on. I think I kicked in a little cash but I am sure he paid the lion’s share. We pulled the desk unassembled out of the box and found it a mix of cheap metal arms and legs, a few white surfaces, and a host of nuts-and-bolts hardware. I remember putting it together, the two of us. It is an odd design—a strange Wal-Mart kind of two-level thing. Knowing our performance on similar projects over the years, we probably had to backtrack a time or two to get it right, but eventually we did just that.
The airbrush thing didn’t last. The pump was loud and the whole process involved more stencils and x-acto knives than I was prepared for. Also, I wasn’t very good. My work looked just like my kids’ drawings using the spray can tool in MS Paint. The experience was lasting, though. Today the desk wears the scars of airbush paint—black fading to gray and eventually fading out, back to some semblance of the original white board we delivered from that box some twenty years ago.
In college I turned the desk into fly tying central. Sure, it was supposed to be a study area. At least that was what I told myself and my dad when we hauled it up to Logan. And I am sure some books lay there once or twice, but it wasn’t long before it was covered in hooks and hair, feathers and tools.
Those were the days I really learned to tie flies. Most of the hours in my parents’ basement had been spent on Woolly Worms and unnamed creations dreamt up in my own head that were transferred (at least in near approximation) to the vise. College flies were a different story. They would be fished the next day or even that evening. There was a sudden premium on time and performance. This was new and interesting to me and it made me practical. I learned to tie what worked and what I could tie quickly. In those days that was dozens and dozens of Elk Hair Caddis, mostly, the last few dozen of which actually looked okay. At some point between years two and three of my college career I learned how to use a light wire to secure the palmered hackle—allowing me to tie front to back like one should on an Elk Hair Caddis. Up to that point all my caddis had something of a backwards hackle compared to the ones in fly shop bins and magazines. Such is the slow progression of the self-taught fly tyer.
The desk didn’t seem to care, really. But it changed as well. The airbrush paint was supplemented with words. Being an English major, I took to writing passages from famous texts (and the occasional rock and roll song) on the once-white surface using a sharpie. When I search now I can find both Melville and Neil Young talking to me. (Somehow I think I know where Ahab stood on the debate between burning out and fading away.)
College also brought the first sticker—a giant gray whale advertising a local record shop (goes well with the Moby Dick quote). Over the years I have added a few more from fly shops, Trout Unlimited, and the odd magazine. I have one from the Fly Fishing Film Tour waiting to be placed. All this has made the desk one of my favorite pieces of gear, even though it never leaves the house.
Not that I can see any of these decorations most of the time. Like my writing space, my tying space is often cluttered with the tools of the trade. Organization appeals to me, but apparently not enough to act on.
The desk traveled with me from Utah to Oregon and from Oregon to Idaho. Today it sits in its second Idaho location, in the basement of our home next to the computer where I sometimes write noodle-shaped essays and blog posts about fly fishing and fly tying. Given the veritable treasure trove of fly tying videos on Youtube, the computer next to the fly tying desk has become nearly as important as the vise and scissors. But computers are transitive, at least more so than desks. My desk has seen several computers come and go—at least when it can peek out between hackle necks and little plastic boxes—and with any luck it might see one or two more. Its hardware was cheap but I don’t ask it to do much except hold a vise and sit still. It never complains.
