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“Hello my little Fleche?… It’s me, your Grandma… Listen my little Fleche… I always read your stories in the Mouching… Yes, I really enjoy them… especially the ones that are a little risque’… yes… very well. Listen, you seem to love it so much that I would like that you teach me how to fish with flies… It sounds like a lot of fun… What?… What’s my age got to do with it? Hold on… let’s be polite my little one… Tomorrow? OK, that will be fine, after my siesta I’ll be at your house!”
Well, my dear readers, I have to tell you that the Grandma in question celebrated her 96th birthday last month and that she ignores such numbers, spits on them and that Solange (that’s her name) continues to act like she was 30 years old. Her enormous energy remains a mystery and no doctor seems able to explain it. Every day Solange walks briskly for a good hour; she can out-distance the local jocks at the butterfly stroke and still go home and prepare “Lamb and Beans” for 20 people while dancing the rhumba to Perez Prado howling on her ancient record player.
“It works very well my RVA Victor and I don’t give a hoot about Apple and all that japanese stuff that costs a fortune.”
Anyway, around 4 o’clock Solange arrived at my house, parked her red Mobylette in the garage and we left for the river; sitting behind me on the motorcycle she gripped my T-shirt and squealed with joy as we passed the other cars.
“OK, let me explain briefly. You fling the line in back of you, there… you see… there you stop and, when the line is fully back under tension, hop, a smart flick ahead and, delicately, you try to put the line down without a bunch of knots and without a lot of noise which would frighten the fish. Watch how I do it!”
And I tried to demonstrate a cast without looking like a clumsily oaf.
“OK Fleche, I got it, give me your rod!”
And then my friends… Solange cast her line and I could not believe my eyes; even Madam Lee Wulff would not have believed her eyes. PERFECT!
And even more incredible, is that Solange took it upon herself to pull in a chub of an acceptable size. On the first cast!
“Ah, this is really fun, your thing!”
I thought that it was “beginners luck”. But I didn’t count on my Grandma, because after less than an hour Solange brought in (and returned to the river) a good dozen fish. The whole time she was laughing like a kid and screaming joyful cries that one could hear all the way to Montelimar.
A month later my mother told me that Solange had gone to Siberia to fish for Salmon because some told her that the little fish, the trout and all the other stuff swimming in our rivers are just a diversion for lazy tourists.
And two months later I received this letter: “Dear Fleche. It was adorable for you to give me the fly-fishing virus but let me say, without offending you, that what you do is really the stuff of fairies. Me, I need something more virile. I am writing you from Cuba where I have taken up spear fishing and just two days ago I broke the local record with a 180 pound Tuna. You have to admit, it’s a far cry from your wild trout for paraplegics. So long for now I have to run, I’m invited to have lobsters with Fidel Castro.”
