Something from the tackle box:
Leopards will lie down with
young goats, and wolves will rest with lambs. Calves and lions will eat together and be cared for my little
children. Cows and bears will
share the same pasture; their young will rest side by side. Lions and oxen will both eat
straw. Little children will play
near snake holes. They will stick
their hands into dens of poisonous snakes and never be hurt. Nothing harmful will take place on the
Lord’s holy mountain. Just as
water fills the sea, the land will be filled with people who know and honor the
Lord. (Isaiah 11:6-9 CEV)
I recently returned home
to Lake Odessa from a week spent enjoying the hospitality and amenities of
Central Florida, which is a nice place to spend a week in mid-February when
you’re from Michigan. The weather
was grand, the theme parks were fun, and the company I kept was very good, just
as it has been on each of my trips to the Orlando area, made every other winter
for the past sixteen years now. So,
let me explain my habit of biannual trips to the world in and around Disney’s
Kingdom, before I get into my subject matter of fishing proper, just so you can
figure out where I’m coming from on this story.
My
younger brother, Joe, has been the music teacher and band director at Lake
Michigan Catholic Schools, in St. Joseph, Michigan, since he graduated from
college with a music teaching degree way back in 1981. That’s thirty-six years, to date, of
working with the young musicians learning the art of marching and concert
performance at LMCS (as well as many
years coaching the girls varsity basketball team). It has been a very successful gig for Joe, attested to
by the fact that, during his tenure, over half of the students enrolled at the
High School have been involved in band from year to year, some years, well over
half. Band is a big thing at LMCS,
and the program that my little brother has built up there is largely
responsible for that. Mr. Jarvie
is an institution at LMCS, and those of us who claim kinship with him are
rightly proud of his accomplishments.
Early on
in his tenure as a band teacher, my brother started organizing these mid-winter
trips so that his students could experience performing a concert at a nice
venue far away from home, as well as spend time learning together, having fun,
and developing that ‘esprit de corps’ which is needed for any group to reach that
next level of competent performance.
It has worked well for the music program at LMCS, and is one of the big
reasons over half of the student body participates in band most years.
Of course,
trips like these require a lot of organization, work, and adult supervision, to pull off in a way that leaves school staff,
administration, parents, as well as the students themselves, satisfied with the
all the results, not to mention enthusiastic about repeating the whole process
again two years down the road.
Enter big brother, Mark (known as “brother
Jarvie,” to the students, as opposed to “Mr.
Jarvie,” their teacher) recruited as a volunteer bus and event chaperone for
the two, twenty-four hour long, bus rides that get us to Orlando and back, as
well as our days at the theme parks, learning sessions with Disney teaching
staff, small group side events, dinners out, and our visit to Church services
at Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine in Orlando.
It has
been my great pleasure to serve in this capacity of being an ‘overseer of the
youth’ on nine of these trips, so far.
It’s a lot of responsibility but, generally,
pretty easy duty. I certainly hope
to go on one or two more of these trips before my brother’s anticipated
retirement about four years from now.
My wife tried it with me once and swore, “never again,” but I treasure the experiences that I’ve had, on
each and every one of these trips, as having been grand! In any event, that’s how I got to
central Florida for a week this past month. Now, on to some reflections about fishing that I made while I was there.
Despite its reputation as
a fishing Mecca, I have only been able to spend a couple of days fishing in the
State of Florida – and these have not come while serving as a chaperone on my brother’s
band trips. Easy duty or not, there
isn’t time for a fishing excursion on
an official ‘overseer of the students’ daily activity schedule. So, I leave my tackle at home. But that doesn’t mean that fishing
isn’t on my mind!
It is
actually possible to fish right at Disney World. If you are staying at one of their resort centers, you can
book guided catch and release bass fishing excursions that ply the waters in
and around several of the parks.
I’ve actually witnessed people enjoying themselves in this way right in
the waterway that feeds the lake around which the Epcot Center’s World Showcase
is located. Happy people catching
and releasing nice fish right between France and England. Sort of a ‘fishing the English Channel’
experience, in miniature, I suppose.
While there were no fishing excursion boats there for me to watch on
this last trip, I did notice some fishing tackle set up for display by the
seawall on the France side of the channel. It’s a nice touch.
The
fishing theme also gets represented right in a couple of the attractions at the
parks as well. One of my favorite
rides at Disney’s Magic Kingdom Park is Splash Mountain. I always make it a point to salute the
fishing gulls on my gentle boat ride towards the big drop at Br’er Rabbit
Falls. It’s only good manners when
you meet fellow practitioners of the piscatorial arts when on the water. The gulls always return the favor by
singing “How Do You Do?” as I float by, which I think is nice. “Good fishing to you, boys!”
Aside
from the “fishing” theme, there are also just Fish are easily spotted in
bodies of water not used for nighttime fireworks displays at several
parks. There are a couple of nice
“underwater” viewing stations to watch some nice sized South American pacu swim
around from at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and throngs of native Florida fish
crowd the waters looking for handouts under the bridge that you cross making
the loop around Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure park. (Please
don’t feed the fish!) But the
place I want to mention in particular is ‘The Seas with Nemo & Friends’
attraction at Epcot Center.
Formerly ‘The Living Seas,’ (a
name that I personally much preferred) ‘The Seas with Nemo and Friends’ is
an exhibit that I always spend some time at when visiting Epcot for a couple of
reasons.
The first, and less important
reason, is that it is a really nice aquarium, with a multitude of very
beautiful fish and other marine life to be seen in very beautiful (albeit,
manmade) environments. Disney is
rightfully famous for first-class attractions, and ‘The Seas’ is no
exception. There are bigger and
more up-to-date aquariums out there to visit, one right there in Orlando, but
‘The Seas’ is just right in my book.
Which
brings me to the second, and more
important, reason I like ‘The Seas’, a reason that many haggard parents
carting small toddlers around Disney World have discovered as well. It is quiet, - and peaceful, - and
relaxed, inside ‘The Seas’. The
lighting is dim. There is no piped-in background music. Adults whisper
when talking there. Crying
toddlers calm right down. Some
youngsters even lie down on the ledge in front of the viewing widows and take a
nap. Overtired babies being rocked
in Parent’s arms finally drop off to sleep. And the fish – even the carnivorous ones – like sharks and
barracuda – swim around and around – all together – in peace!
Something to take home in your creel:
It’s
somewhat counterintuitive, to my way of thinking, that I should be able to
experience the same feelings of serene union with God’s creation at a Disney
World attraction, that I find fly-fishing for trout in the early morning mist
on my favorite secluded stream. It
is a fact strange oddly strange to my mind. But then, I guess, peace is found where peace is found.
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