Hair Of The Dog

We roll into town like we own the place. The plates are from out of state but the scratches on the truck and area code on my cell phone are all local. Checking into my favorite cheap hotel feels like coming home. In the past it was bird season lodging for me. Fishing used to be comfortable day-tripping distance. Now it requires a road trip.

The river looks perfect, but with days of fishing ahead of us and the sun creeping toward the horizon we opt to hang out and get ready for tomorrow. We throw our bags in the room, crack a beer and give a toast to the days ahead. No email, no work, just fishing and good friends.

The next few hours are a blur. Yet they might have been the highlight of the trip. The rest of the crew was showing up in the morning. We hadn’t been on a trip together in more than a decade, but we’d been friends for over 30 years. That’s a lot of ground to cover. Amid a menagerie of mounted animals heads, and the smell of sulphuric hot springs we hung out at a corner table and made up for lost time.

When the sun rose I glanced over the phone, alarm clock, and bible that adorned the bedside table. From the other double bed a single hand reached out and grabbed a paper cup. Slowly and deliberately he sipped what I would would have written off as an abandoned dram of scotch.

“Hair of the dog” he whispered.

The fish were waiting…and we were up for the task.