People used to play a game called
six degrees of separation. I don’t know, maybe they still do. According to
Wikipedia, six degrees of separation is the theory that everyone and everything
is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in
the world, so that a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to
connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.
Being a fly fisherman, in part
anyway, I’ve read many books about fly fishing and was even inspired to write
my own book, after reading Seth Norman’s (A well-known author in the fly
fishing community) book “Meanderings of a Fly Fisherman.” If you’d like a copy
of my book Fishing, Ghosts, and my Mother’s Gray Hair, just email me at
markkautz1946@comcast.net.
The six degrees or in this case
three degrees put me three steps away from Seth Norman. Here is how it went.
Yuki met Seth Norman, got a signed copy of his book and gave it to me as a
present.
Thursday the 14th Yuki was going to
stop by the house and we were supposed to head up to Bear River Reservoir for a
day of fishing. Following the weather guessers, they said that rain and snow
down to 6000 ft. was the prediction for not only Thursday, but Friday as well.
My new truck is not equipped for
snow travel although it is a 4x4, it has those mud & snow radials that are
absolutely useless in snow, so the only logical thing to do was cancel and fish
another day.
Yuki, on the other hand, didn’t get
my email cancellation until after he got to the house. I was gone running
errands so Yuki decided to do a little river fishing on the Mokelumne off
Electra Road.
Later in the day I received an email
about his day.
He said the river reminded him of
the movie “A River Runs Through It.” Then he casually mentioned that he knew
Norman Maclean. Casually mentions that he knew Norman Maclean.
He said that Maclean just walked
into his office one day and after a while became friends. Yuki described
Maclean as a short, shy, modest professor.
Have you ever watched this movie?
This is THE BEST fly fishing movie ever made. It is the “Holy Grail” of fly
fishing movies. I have the CD and watch it at least three times a year. Yuki
casually mentions that he knew Norman Maclean.
Yuki was working at the University
of Chicago. Norman Maclean had just retired from a teaching job in the English
Department and shyly mentioned to Yuki that his novel was just published by the
University of Chicago Press. This was kind of odd because of two things. One,
he couldn’t find anyone to publish the book (little did they know) and two, the
University of Chicago Press only published academic and cooking books. Maclean
told Yuki that being a Professor in the English Department changed their policy
about publishing the book.
So, once again we have the six
degrees of separation and once again it’s only three degrees, from me, to Yuki,
to Norman Maclean.
Makes me wonder who else Yuki knows.
You never know Mark.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is one of the best movies I have ever seen.
Now that's funny. I was born in Chicago not far from the university. Does that fit me in anywhere?
ReplyDeleteNope.
DeleteMark
ReplyDeleteWhy don't the movie industry wise up and make more movies like a River Runs Through It????
I think they did with that movie "Salmon fishing in the Yemen", but in my opinion it fell far short.
Delete