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The plague of polio has been a part of my life only two iota, and in my life as an outdoorsman only one.
The Brule River is a difficult river to fish. It is a powerful river, sucking water from its watershed of scores of miles in length and some hundreds of square miles in breadth. Downstream of the Still waters, which are downstream of Northern Light Lake, it gains force as it gains gradient and loses width. It is a freestone river of great boulders and granite and rhyolite. Eventually, inside the Brule River Magney state park with Superior just on the far horizons, it crashes down into the Devil’s Kettle, then, quickly, pounds over the High Falls, then plunges through the Middle Falls, and turns once and twice sharp and, through a chute, gathers itself in the deep, dark, cedar tree pool, and on for another quarter-mile to roll over Lower Falls.
The first crippled boy I knew was also the first Oriental boy I knew. He was Vietnamese. He was a boatperson. His name was Khanh. They wheeled him into the class one day, his first day, and he was smiling and very friendly. He was always happy, and on the days when he didn’t use the wheelchair, he used crutches. The first day we asked him many questions about the war, and he laughed and said he really didn’t know much about it. We asked if it was difficult to learn English and he laughed and said, “It’s easy.” Easier than Vietnamese, I’ve heard it said. He grew up to be a university student, and then to write fiction – fiction, fantasy. On his crutches his legs were useless like a ragdoll, but he had the broadest shoulders, and he was the best in our class at arm wrestling, and in many classes to come.
The banks of the Brule in the park are treacherous, of high cliffs and great rock walls, and impassible with steep hills of thick, very old forests, hills climbable only by deer and forests walked only by wolves. The good fishing always seems to be at the bottom of the cliff, or overland – by hill and forest, or up beyond the waterfall or down the waterfalls. Or on the far side of the river that is never wadeable.
I knew a man many years ago. He was a man then. He’s a very old man now. His name was John. I remember how he used to tussle my hair and shake my hand and he treated me very well, which to me means that a man doesn’t treat a boy like a child but like a young man. He didn’t use a wheelchair or crutches because he had one fair leg – his left, which could hold him up and move him forward, although it dragged itself behind a little. His right leg, however, was the problem. His right leg seemed about a foot short, and his knee seemed to bend – not flex, there was no flexing in the right leg – not only back, but forward.
I understand that my old friend was a fisherman. And I understand in his youth he was a Brule River fisherman. That he fished the great, fast, cool waters of the Brule, scrambling up and down rocks and rock faces, up, up, up the Bluffs, up a half mile to Middle Falls, and up a half mile and then down into the valley at the High Falls, then up more to the Devil’s Kettle. Word has it that he even jumped over the Devil’s Kettle (maybe it was High Falls) to fish the pool down below on the far side. Fishing the great Brule River with one bad leg and the other worse.
A heart is a good thing to have.
Without one, I am thankful for vaccines, and epidemiology, and science.
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