Over the past 65 years I have received a number of fishing rods and reels from Santa.
Somewhere I even have a photograph of me taken on Christmas morning of 1958. I’m standing in front of the Christmas tree holding a new Shakespeare fishing rod and reel. I would have been all of nine years old in that picture. For some reason I’m wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
I remember that rod quite well. It was a cream coloured fibreglass rod with an aluminum reel seat and cork handle. The reel was a Shakespeare Mohawk level-wind loaded with pearl handles and green braided line. I was never very good at casting with a level-wind. I’m still not. Oddly enough though, by some quirk of circumstance, I still have that old reel. The following year I received a new Johnson Century closed-face reel. Again from Santa.
As I recall, I had been going through all of my father’s Field and Stream magazines for months and there was no doubt in my mind as to which reel I wanted. I could not have been any more pleased with my gift. I also recall that reel turned out to be everything the magazine ads said it would. It was art, form and function – all in one magnificent mechanical creation. By mid-summer we had become a team – poetry in motion.
Even as I grew up I continued to receive rods and reels, along with an assortment of other fishing gear for Christmas. More often than not such gifts were from Santa.
About 10 years ago I happened to be visiting with Santa in his workshop. Yes, I was on a personal level with the old man with the long white beard. We use to swap stories. Some about fishing, others about life in general.
That particular afternoon we ended up talking about steelheading. I told him how I prefer to use a two-handed spey rod for casting on big rivers. Spey rods have become somewhat trendy as of late, and he did not hesitate to give me a few friendly gibes about that fact. He then proceeded to bring out a rather vintage, 10-foot noodle rod, the kind they used to use with light line and balsa wood floats on big, wide, slow-moving rivers like the Umpqua and Skeena. Spey casting may be old-school, but noodle rods, well you don’t get much more old-school than that. He took special delight in telling me, in great detail, how he had caught and played a fair number of bright, shiny silver bombers on that old rod.
I enjoyed Santa’s company. I think he enjoyed mine. There was something about the old man that you could not help but like. The Santa that I knew was a kind person. He gave freely of himself – not in the material way, but of his time and his stories and his sense of humour. I never once heard him say a mean word about anything or anyone. Well, except maybe for the government every now and then, but then again, who could blame him?
Santa liked people and people genuinely liked him, and when it comes right down to it, if you ask me, that’s not such a bad thing to have people say about you when you’re gone. The Santa that I knew passed away last week.
I wonder how many kids sat on his lap over the years and looked up with awe into that smiling face and twinkling eyes. I am grateful I had the privilege to sit with him on a number of wintry nights leading up to Christmas. I got to witness some of those special moments when young children shared their most secret wishes with the one person they truly believed could and would give them what they wished for most – like the time I wished for a Johnson Century closed-face fishing reel.
Farewell Noel. Thanks for letting me be your friend.
Dedicated to John Noel McClelland, June 4, 1934 to May, 22, 2014.
