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The English Premier League commentators have this great catchword they go to every so often: “talisman”. A soccer club’s “talisman” is its best player, or longest serving. The player with whom all good things happen. Through whom all good things happen. Like in “Reservoir Dogs” when Nice Guy Eddie calls Vic (“Mr. Blonde”) Vega a walking rabbit’s foot. Think the great little man from Argentina, Diego Maradona.
On this side of the Atlantic, Bird was the Celtics’ talisman: he produced magical or miraculous effects. The LSU Tigers a couple years ago had a quarterback named Joe Burrow like that. He just brought good fortune when he transferred to Louisiana State from Ohio State. Gretzky was the talisman for an entire sport, an entire nation.
Back in England the talismans were, for example, Steven Gerrard for Liverpool FC, Wayne Rooney with Manchester United, and Frank Lampard for Chelsea.
My favorite players weren’t good or lucky enough to be considered talismans. I liked Liverpool’s clownish 6’9” striker, Peter Crouch, because he was a character. I liked Chelsea’s John Terry because he had character. I loved a little-known player on a little-known club, Wolverhampton’s little Jimmy Bullard. But Wolves were almost always off the EPL radar, and so Jimmy Bullard, who had heart and attacked relentlessly, was also off the radar.
My Australian buddy and guide in Tasmania, with whom I fly-fished there with a couple years, did trout stream rehabilitation along the Huon River up into the Tasmanian mountains and into the eucalyptus forests, along the Weld and Arve and Little Denison rivers, and Picton’s and Clearwater and Reflection creeks, and Crabtree Rivulet. Mostly that involved brush removal along the streams, in the pursuit of grassier, narrower, sunnier waterways. And most of the brushwork was against invasive species. And much of those invasives were willows.
He hated willows. The willows grew in great masses and crowded the streambanks. They prevented the growth of long grasses and development of high sod banks. They shaded out the sun, preventing aquatic vegetation from thriving – which prevented the snails and freshwater shrimp from populating.
I love willow. It’s one of my many talismans. I’m not sure how much luck it brings me. But it speaks to me. There’s this feeling in cutting willow poles for laying out trotlines overnight. In the silvery underside of the leaves. How the leaves are shaped like blades on a Panther Martin in-line spinner. And the beautifully named pussy willows in March and April.
My spirit animal – my talisman – used to be the whimsical river otter. I’ve humbled myself a little and now worship the lowly muskrat. Or maybe the Artful Dodger, the red fox. Or a hen mallard, mother of so many good things.
My favorite trees are the old white pine and white cedar or maybe the soft lemony or lime-green tamarack.
Of the blossoming trees I am sustained by the mountain ash and saskatoon and red elderberry.
Of the water I am borne by both the clean, cold creek and the gassy, dark swamp. Of the wind a Zephyr. Of the dog…whichever one is nearest to hand.
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