Green Fuzzies.

Every one of us has certain moments or feelings in our lives that we replay in our heads from time to time that make us grin and give us warm fuzzies. Our "happy place" perhaps.

I've written about some of mine on this website before, and luckily for me I was able to experience a few of them earlier this week during my St. Pat's celebrations. Allow me to foreshadow a bit...

My St. Patrick's Day festivities are very close and dear to my heart. I've grown up learning to treat St. Pat's as if it were able to kick Christmas' ass. March 17th is a day that you plan months ahead of time for...or at least the celebratory weekend preceding or following it is. At my house, there was enough delicious food to feed a fat army and our kitchen counter resembled a tavern.

You see, my dad graduated from the University of Missouri-Rolla, aka the Missouri School of Mines (mines, not mimes). It is a college where future engineers go, which is what my dad has been since 1969 or so. UMR celebrates St. Pat's unlike anyone else in the state, or possibly the Midwest. The rationale behind the celebration is that St. Patrick was the patron saint of engineers...whatever the fuck that means. So greenness and debauchery ensued every month of March in Rolla. After I was born, I was quickly introduced to this holiday and when I was "old enough" to participate, my friends and I joined my parents and family in this delightful, green holiday.

This year I was unable to attend the traditional St. Patrick's Day festivities in Springfield due to a lack of funds caused by back-to-back trips to Missouri earlier in the year. The success of Dokken Day followed by my Granny's death forced me to fly into St. Louis on consecutive weekends. I wouldn't have missed either one of them for the world, though. That left my wife and I a little light in the wallet, so we decided to carry on the tradition in Denver the best that we knew how.

I won't get into all the details and descriptions of my St. Pat's Saturday in downtown Denver. But it did bring more than one moment that made me stop what I was doing for a second and smile. Surrounded by good people, no inhibitions, beautiful weather, a fantastic parade, competing against my wife at chugging Car Bombs, drinking green beer, dressed like green royalty...

There was definitely one instance while sitting at the bar, extremely hazy from the marathon of consumption, I (along with our good friend, Sig, who lasted the entire 11 hour duration) just lost my ass for the eighth consecutive time at a Car Bomb race to April, that I smiled to myself, satisfied that although we were unable to be with our friends and family in Springfield that we were representing all that was St. Pat's in a city where we know few. The attached picture proves that.

Fast forward to the following Wednesday; actual St. Patrick's Day. I happened to have the day off, but instead of repeating my downtown Denver drunkenness, I opted for the mountains. My squirrelly friend, Ted and I hiked into the Williams Fork Canyon for a little fly fishing.

Now, this feeling had nothing to do with St. Pat's or drinking or anything like that. It had to do with what makes me addicted to fly fishing. It's the type of feeling that you envision when you have cabin fever, or when you start reminiscing about particular fish you caught. Not because they were big fish, but because you caught them the right way. You figured out what bugs were flying around and landing on the water, and then getting slurped from underneath the surface by a hungry, brown predator below. The angle, the cast, the presentation, the drift, the mend, all perfect. Then you are rewarded by a spotted mouth breaking the clean, reflective surface and inhaling your dry fly. It's not over yet, because the angle of the set was perfect, the head pull from left to right, giving her some slack, and then bringing her in delicately after a valiant fight to a soft net. A couple quick snap shots, then I help her regain her breath by slowly pulling her back and forth in the water to get the oxygen flowing through her gills.

Directly after watching her swim away free and unharmed, I took a minute to smile, laugh, thank greater beings (ie: fish gods) and enjoy a brief, but extremely deep and defining moment.

All that...all that happened in the matter of three minutes. And I immediately knew--I actually said to myself out loud, "I'm gonna remember this one." Yea, she was good sized, but everything leading up to the landing was what sticks.

This year I missed out on hanging out with my friends and family from back home. But I was generously compensated by having one the best St. Pat's weeks of my life. Yes, change is good. But I'll still be back in Springfield next March.




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