Fishing Season

Long ago trout haul
for my father

Fishing fever is in the air, regardless of snowbanks and low temperatures and all who have ever suffered from the malady are subject to its attack. There is one cure and only one cure for this peculiar disease - fishing.

The season is early this year  and more than one fisherman enthusiast is wondering if the snow will be gone and the flood waters down to something like normal when that glorious day arrives - the first day of the fishing season.

Many an old timer, who has whipped some of the more than 700 miles of uncontaminated trout streams within the borders of Potter County has had the fever for weeks. Rods have been taken from winter quarters, joined up and tested, taken apart, rewound and varnished and again put together and tested. Baskets have been cleaned up and reels oiled. The book book of flies has been inspected and admired in fact.

Potter County streams are calling - the finest and purest streams on earth. In a short time the festive leek, famous as a Potter County vegetable, will soon complicate fishing fever and many a party will take to the woods and the streams and luscious leek patches, going back to nature. They will enjoy the health-giving outdoor life and the trout and leeks and be better men - and women for it. -- The Potter Enterprise, 1926

... from 1941

From Golly Column, 1936

Trout fishing season will open before the next issue of this paper.

What a lot of lies will be told!

What a lot of big ones will get away!

Sometimes we wonder at that saying, "Once a fisherman, always a liar.:" We really do not believe it holds good.

We have known Lynn Soper to promise trout for a supper for eight or ten people. He made good, too, with all the crowd could eat. He didn't lie about the trout or where he caught them. As a matter of fact, he did not tell where he found such good fishing, but months later it leaked out that he fished in hatchery ponds near Port Allegany. Lynn's word is good 100%.

Teddy Kiehle, never to our knowledge, told a lie about the fish he caught or the big ones that got away. Teddy was famous as a builder of split bamboo fly rods until age dimmed his vision.

But Teddy almost failed to make good with a deal he made with us some years ago. It was our first fishing trip with Teddy. We were frank enough to admit we couldn't do much with a rod, but we could cook and serve up the pancakes and hash and leeks and coffee. 

We remember well Teddy's reply: "That's fine you do the cooking and I'll catch the trout!"

By golly, we were on the stream – Cross Fork – three days and Teddy caught two trout. Then we declared that we could cook better than Teddy could fish or we would have starved.

Regardless of the fish caught, few or many - there was never a better pal along the trout streams or in the tent pitched under the trees or seated about the evening campfire, than Teddy. We have fond memories of his interesting tales, his droll humor and his wilderness wisdom.

The Old Road

Once we went to the camp in winter. It was after the state had started to build the ski lodge because my dad parked car in the new parking lot. It was before they fixed the main road and changed access to the camp, because then we could have parked on the side of the road and just slid down the driveway on the sled.

It was very cold that day. It must have been late in the winter for the snow was crusty on top and granular underneath. It must have been a Sunday because my dad worked at the store six days a week.
Access to our camp was by the "old road" that ran parallel to the highway, just down over the bank. It served as a driveway to the camps back several hundred yards from the road. on state-owned land. Now I think it must have been a railroad grade during the time when the campsite was a lumber camp.
My mother had made chili to take with us and had used ground venison instead of ground beef. My dad put the pot of chili on the sled, along with some other supplies we'd need to have our meal and we set off on the old road.

It was quiet and still in the woods that day, the only sound came from our footfalls through the snow. With each step, you could anticipate the crust giving way and then the yielding of the softer snow underneath.
Our trip down the old road seemed to take forever. In summer, my dad let Chris or Tim practice driving on the old road. "Watch for the ruts," he'd say. Tim and Chris didn't come on this winter trip. Just Mom and Dad and Paul and me.
I was surprised to see the outhouse out in the open on its pathway as we moved toward our target. In the summer, it was hidden from view by leaves on the trees. The cold was creeping through my soggy mittens but we were almost there.
Turning off at the pathway that led to camp, the pot slipped off the sled, tipped and chili spread across the snow like red lava. My father was annoyed but mother said there was still plenty to go around.
The thought of the deer coming upon the bonus of chili on top of the snow worried me. Somehow it was wrong for the deer to feast on chili without knowing they were eating their brothers or sisters.

It's like when I make chili with TVP granules instead of ground meat and I don't tell. 

Golly's Folly

The old man himself on the
steps of "Golly's Folly"

Grandfather W.D. "Golly" Fish shared this in his weekly column in The Potter Enterprise in May of 1955.

"Going to put some sort of box on the door at Golly's Folly. It will contain a pad of paper and a pencil, with an invitation to leave a note. So many times friends pay a call, when Golly is busy in town trying to earn a living that he would be pleased with messages that might be left. Golly will supply the pencil and paper if callers will do the rest."

And people did! This from one visitor: 

"Fine location, fine view, Fine spring, electric range and refrigerator. Glad you have them. Nice lake. Even nicer than your description. Hope to meet you in the future."

And this from August 1960:

Another note in the mailbox is from Snuffy Smith of Freedom, Pa. This Snuffy fellow, a childhood friend of Buzz Shirey, made the sign "Golly's Folly" at the shack. Golly regrets he could not have been present to welcome the Smiths and the Shirey family. 

Though the camp was sold in the mid-1960s, I still feel attached to the spot at the foot of Denton Hill and have often driven down the driveway to walk the grounds in a kind of meditation, summoning long ago voices. It's been obvious that the camp is loved and cared for as the years have rolled by. And so it was last summer that Golly's granddaughter was the caller who left a note on the pad of paper in the little box that still awaits a visitor to the camp.

And that's how I was introduced to the family who for many years now has been spending their time at Golly's beloved Nine Mile cottage. They called me from the phone in the camp that's still in the place I remember and invited me for a visit. We spent a delightful time as I shared some old photos and even more old memories.

Golly & his niece, Mollie Beach
circa 1960?

Summer of 2022

We sat in the shade in front of the camp and watched the youngsters of the family splashing in the water and lounging on the big rocks.  And yes, we enjoyed a long drink of the legendary spring water. 

I promised them a blog post and more memories - including those from my grandfather's pen - when I next visit that little shack on the Nine Mile.

I've written about camp before - here and here.

Hankering Time

"Hankering Time ...  that's in February and March each year," wrote the old man in his 93rd year in 1968.

It's most assuredly hankering time for this woman in her 71st year.

I'm hankering for the brilliance of my forsythia planted in a row next to the highway - something special about that cheerful yellow display that soon gives way to long spikes of green.

I am hankering for the feeling of the moist, cool spring soil between my fingers and the miracle of sprouting seeds.

I am hankering for the first chorus of spring peepers from the spring run behind this old farmhouse.

Here the rest of what the old man had to say about Hankering Time.

"Some people have a hankering for new maple syrup, the most delicious of all of nature's sweets and surely the most delicate.

"The piscators are hankering for a mess of speckled beauties just taken from some of the 700 miles of trout streams of Potter County.

"Then there are the hankerers for the spring ephemeral greens known as the leek. And how some gorge themselves!

"There are many who hanker to get seeds in the soil for tomato plants and they are admiring the beautiful illustrations in seed catalogues.

"Youngsters are hankering for the time when they can cast away their school books and go swimming.

 "I am hankering for one of those early spring days – bright sunshine and warmth, shadbush in bloom, trees bursting with buds, peepers singing their mating songs, bees humming, a tiny brook babbling.

 "And so it goes at hankering for old and young." 

Local Women's History

Marian Wettrick (r)
with Donna Kell,
one of the young women she encouraged

Miss Wettrick was kind of a legend for me when I was growing up in Coudersport. Miss Wettrick was my mother's "gym" teacher in the days when the school's gymnasium was in the Odd Fellows Hall, located four blocks north of the school building on Main Street. My mother credited her with providing a rigorous education in nutrition, the muscles and bones and the health benefits of physical exercise. I could not imagine having to walk those blocks in the dead of winter wearing a gym suit but I was particularly enamored at the idea of this woman encouraging girls of the 1930s - long before Title IX - to be more than a pretty face.

I officially met Miss Wettrick when I joined a new book club being established in Coudersport in the 1990s. It was a group that included women of all ages - but Miss Wettrick was likely the oldest. I still have a book she recommended, "Friday Night Lights," on my bookshelf.

I was a witness to her tireless advocacy to move women into the male-dominated seats of power on borough council, in board rooms and onto the medical staff of our local hospital where women were few and far between. 

Seldom without her signature hat, Miss Wettrick offered her encouragement on the sidelines of local girls' basketball games until the end of her life in 1996.

Her encouragement of women continues still due to the Marian J. Wettrick Charitable Foundation.  She took great care in planning her legacy, working closely with Citizens Trust Company (now C&N Bank) where her father had been cashier. The resulting foundation awards scholarship grants to female graduates of Pennsylvania colleges who are pursuing a medical degree from a Pennsylvania medical school. 

1928

Born in 1912, Miss Wettrick (her given name was Marian but it was always difficult for me to address an elder by her first name) graduated from Coudersport High School and later West Chester College. She returned to her alma mater to teach physical education and health for several years before departing to accept a teaching position in Maryland. She later entered the public health field, studying at the Yale University School of Alcohol Studies and earning a Master's Degree in Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

She had extensive experience in the addictions field having served in various posts in both New York and Pennsylvania. From 1958 to 1964, she was employed by the Pa. Department of Health as chief of community organization for the Division of Behavioral Problems and Drug Control. Later as Director of the Department of Community Services for the National Council on Alcoholism, she was recipient of the Alcohol and Drug Problems Association award for her work in Aacoholism.

After she retired, she returned to her hometown, moved into the old family home on Main Street and  committed her time to church and civic activities, including Coudersport Borough Council, Family Crisis Center Board of Directors and the advisory board of the former Charles Cole Memorial Hospital. She was a charter member of the Business and Professional Women's Club.

It is my great privilege to serve on the Wetttrick Foundation's advisory scholarship selection committee. Each summer we work with bank representatives to review applications from exceptional young women from across the Commonwealth. We interview 12-16 candidates and award 8-10 scholarships annually.

Since 1996,  62 young women have received scholarship awards totaling $2,023,000* as a result of Miss Wettrick's careful plans.

As I tell the applicants every year, Marian J. Wettrick was one strong-willed woman!

*as of May 2022

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

My mother has, for many years, expressed her strong dislike of Daylight Saving Time. She asked me yesterday when she could cash in all the daylight hours she's saved over her 99 years.

This weekend, we'll all be grumbling about losing an hour of sleep - even those who profess to like the change. The New York Times today tells me "What To Know About Daylight Saving Time" with the following: "to farmers, daylight saving time is a disruption foisted on them by the federal government. To parents, it's a nuisance that throws bedtime into chaos."

Here's the opinion of one Potter County farmer from April 1943:

"The Enterprise is in receipt of the following which we admit we do not know how to handle so we pass it on to our readers: 'Can't you give the farmers a break in the Enterprise on daylight saving (war time, so called)? I know that very many of your readers are farmers and of all the handicaps that the farmer has to contend with, this foolish law is the most vicious. I see that there is a bill up in Congress to repeal this nuisance. Every farmer ought to write to his Senator and representative asking him to use is vote and influence to get rid of this handicap. The farmers have been regimented, strangulated, handicapped, red taped and bulldozed until they are not much better than foreign peasants. It isn't any wonder that with insects, blight, floods, droughts, ceilings and red tape in nearly everything that so many farmers are throwing the sponge and departing cityward where they can make more money in a month than they can on the farm in a years,. Think it over."

30 March 1950:
Daylight saving time! The same old bugaboo is just in the offing. Here's one of those "do not use my name" letters: 'Daylight saving time is a detriment to school children and farmers especially. If others like to have an extra hour at night, they can get up an hour earlier, only leave the clock alone. The sun doesn't rise any earlier or set any later by fast time.'

23 April 1953:
Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday in Coudersport as in all other towns in this section - over the whole country, as a matter of fact. There are those who complain bitterly over tampering with the clock but since this is a country of majority rule we may as well set all the timepieces ahead Saturday night and smile. There will be arguments and we'll hear plenty of them but we've heard 'em before so what's the use. Be sure to set your clocks and watches ahead so you'll be on time for church Sunday morning and we hope the sun will shine brightly.

29 April 1954:
The change over to advanced time was made with no hitches in schedules Sunday. How different it was a few years ago when first daylight-saving was proposed, discussed and finally adopted generally. There are still people who do not like 'tinkering with time,' but we do not hear it discussed - and cussed - as a few years ago, and we do not know of any city or town that does not change over to DST.

Does anybody really know what time it is
... does anybody really care?
If so, I can't imagine why.
We've all got time enough to cry
– Robert William Lamm
Chicago

As the notes of this Chicago song flow from Arthur's trumpet as he practices downstairs, I leave you with this from my mother's father. 

"Soon will come again advanced time –daylight saving time. Some of us wonder what we did with all the daylight saved over the years."