The Wilson River, Oregon

" The past is a big place," Neil Young writes in his book, "Waging Heavy Peace."

Richard Ford's book "Canada," is so psychologically correct that it can only tell me what I already know.

I brought these two books with me on the road in Oregon. One of them I really wanted to read and one I read because I felt that I should.

When you say something you expect to be answered, don't you? Unless you say something out of the blue just because you have to say it. That's more like poetry--saying something because you have to say it and not caring if anyone hears.

When I think the world's a really evil place, I think of a good friend and then think of the world being filled mostly by people like my friend--which it probably is--and the thought of a really evil world gradually goes away. Or I try to spend more time around my grandchildren, ages 2 and 5.

Drew and I went after steelhead on the Wilson River between Portland and Tillamook last week. The first day it rained and we caught no fish. The second day was sunny and we caught no fish. Drew's my son and he's a pretty good fisherman. I've seen him catch fish ever since he was a little kid and we'd fish on summer vacations in the Sierras or in Wyoming. He has the qualities of a good fisherman--he's patient, he doesn't say anything unless he has something to say, and he likes being  out in the wild because there aren't many people there.

We fished together, finding our own pools, then split up sometimes, one of us going upriver, one down. Somehow I knew from the beginning of the trip that I wouldn't catch a fish--steelhead are really evasive anyway--but it didn't matter. I like being alone and listening to the sound of the water, trying to low-cast into pools without snagging on overhanging tree branches, or trying to put my line at the back of a rock in the middle of the river where fish love to hide, which is a little like trying to squeeze a camel through the eye of the needle. Hours can go by this way very harmoniously.  And while it's nice to catch fish--I've caught more than my share in my life--the sound of the water, the trees, the clean Oregon air, the way the river looks differently every time I look at it is more than enough for me now.

Sometimes I even have a thought: the question is, I think, how to apply philosophy to my life? For instance: Heraclitus's beautiful saying that "the world is a child playing." I could spend the rest of my life thinking about that.