South of Bellingham, Washington, United States
August 11, 2001

I got word this evening that my grandfather passed away. You can see pictures of him during my childhood on one of my fishing pages.

Just yesterday I passed through Butte, Montana where he was born and where he grew up. He scoffed at one of my favorite movies, "A River Runs Through It". He told me it was pure fiction. Toward the end of his life he couldn't see and he could barely hear, but his voice rang out in that grandfatherly timbre, "Aw, we fished all through there, every day. It was nothing like in that movie! You just fished!"

As I write this, I'm sitting in The Oyster Bar restaurant that overlooks Samish Bay, north of Seattle. The wood ceiling slinks lower as it makes its way toward the windows that line the view of the bay. Outside, it's dark. Lights from the oil refinery blink romantically from an island across the water, and a few boats with running lights are making their way down the coast.

The last meal I had with my grandfather was in a seafood restaurant in Naples, Florida two Christmases ago. Our family had been going to that restaurant since I was a kid. This time, I drove, and led my grandfather inside.

Grandpa Bobby ordered a plate of oysters. I watched this man whose eyes had long ago betrayed him, whose hands had become his second vision, take hold of one of the oblong shells. After poking it with his finger, he opened his mouth and slid the oyster inside. Chewing slowly, with eyes half-closed, his face became a mask of childlike ecstasy. He had rediscovered a simple pleasure once buried in the dust and history of age and maturity.

Remembering him, I order an appetizer of oysters harvested from the local waters around Samish Bay. As I stare out the window at the islands silhouetted in darkness, I sip a glass of white zinfandel.

The oysters arrive on a bed of sea salt and surround a dish of seasoned balsamic vinegar and oil. They're small oysters, six to a plate. I eat one and it's magnificent. Half of them disappear before I'm able to pause. Slow down, I chastise myself. Enjoy them like he would have-- slowly, deliberately. Two more disappear before I know what's happened. One left. But they're so delicious. I've got no will power and suddenly, they're all gone.

I order a second plate. This time I'm determined to pace myself. I spear the first and daintily dip it in the oil. Biting into it, distant memories of the ocean come rushing back to me. I'm swimming in the Gulf of Mexico again, and Grandpa is waiting for me in his house beside the canal. Slowly, I chew the oyster, rolling it around my mouth, hitting every taste bud.

The tiger prawns are equally satisfying. Separating the soft flesh from the grilled shells, I'm reminded of shrimp far different than these. They swam in plastic buckets slung on thin, nylon ropes at the side of Grandpa's canal. By the age of seven I could expertly catch one with my hand and spear it, squirming, onto my hook.

The only fishing knot I really use is the one he taught me over thirty years ago. I'd be ashamed if somehow he knew I still can't recall the name. The trick to remembering how to tie it has something to do with a story about a rabbit. But, it became easier to memorize how it was tied than to remember the story.

When I was seven, my parents divorced. My mom, sister and I eventually moved to California. The summer vacation and Christmas visits to my grandfather's stopped. While my east coast relatives continued to see him, my sister and I faded into the background. This was evident in the pictures I saw on the walls of his home during my last visit. While our cousins aged from one picture to the next, my sister and I were frozen in time twenty years previous. There were no more pictures of us after that period. I had stopped aging-- it was a wonder anyone recognized the me of today. I felt guilty, as if I should have been sending out the yearly schoolbook pictures to my father's family. But Grandpa was as welcoming as if I'd never been gone.

On the way to the restaurant that last night, he asked if I remembered going there as a child. I recalled for him the catamarans and small yachts that were moored to the dock outside the restaurant windows. I think my memories pleased him. We sat at a table that offered a clear view of the harbor.

And then we ordered oysters.