People are often surprised to learn that I live in an old house on a postage stamp size lot in urban, downtown Grand Rapids. What they don’t realize is that my home is much larger than that 40’x100’ lot and my 1,400 square foot house.

A few years back, my primary care physician asked me, “Do you want me to write a note to your wife Julie saying I am prescribing a couple of hours of fly fishing each week?”

We laughed. But Steve was serious.

The fishing was good, although it was awfully early after a late night of mousing and whiskey under the dazzling Perseids meteor shower. Sam sat on the bank of the river in the haze of the warm and humid August morning. He sipped tea from his thermos and nibbled on unsalted raw cashews as he considered the morning.

Over my morning coffee, I read a thought provoking essay – an echo of Henry David Thoreau’s case for “making contact” as an antidote for all the ills that modern culture brings us. Then I took a walk.

In-between there were plenty of smaller fish caught, many of them wild brook trout. To make up for what they lack in size, most of these small fish come from the most intimate, beautiful creeks in Michigan

Creation of wild brook trout in the Huron-Manistee National Forest, Michigan