One of my favorite Neil Young songs opens with the line “Old man take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you were …”. We can’t change the process of getting older, but there’s always the hope of fighting the process of getting old. “I’ve been first and last, look at how the time rolls past ….”. In spite of flipping through a bunch of calendars; the inner boy inside me wins more days than he loses, and most days I still feel like a kid trapped in an older man’s body. I struggle to imagine a point in time when that inner boy starts to lose ground; when wading the fast waters become a memory preserved and relived in the thousands of images I’ve shot on the stream over the years. Getting older takes work to stay in shape to fly fish and it’s a topic most of us don’t talk about, as if ignoring it alone will push it down the road. The first crack in the wall for me was my balance and leg strength; things I’ve always took for granted, and the things that are important to wading safely in moving water or hiking into remote places. I felt myself getting winded on some of those longer hikes into the mountain streams. About a year or so ago I made the decision to try to improve my physical health and fitness by doing yoga, daily exercise and going to a gym regularly. Some things in life inevitably happen in spite of our efforts, but I’m going to go down swinging. After a year of work I’m lighter and stronger than I’ve been in a while and enjoying the game I love a lot more because of that choice. Old man take a look at my life…… Till next week …….. www.ramsayflies.com
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