I’m proud of this essay for many reasons, but mainly because it memorializes two men I loved and admired: my father, Major Billy W. Howells, and his younger brother, Col. Orville J. Howells Jr. The article was published a month before my father died.

It has no life online other than here, so I’m including the text in full:

The two old geezers on the creaky dock look about like any other ill-chapeaued fishermen beginning a day of bass fishing at Lake Cachuma—except that most of the other geezers are already out on the lake. These two are hunched over the hind end of an undistinguished looking boat, unwrapping about 100 yards of fishing line from the propeller of an Evinrude.
Once the prop is liberated from its filament snare, the geezers set about starting the engine, a process that entails a thorough dockside dismantling of the powerplant’s viscera— a complete engine rebuild, apparently, that is to no avail. At last, a brainstorm. New spark plugs. She purrs like a kitten, and at the crack of noon, Cachuma’s most fearsome bass anglers are on the prowl.
The fishermen happen to be my father and his brother—Billy and Orv—and they have been fishing together for more than 60 action-packed years, and they do occasionally catch fish. Their craft is Uncle Orv’s ominously monickered What Now?, a vessel that seems to have seen better days. Ask about those better days and you get stories. You soon understand how the boat got its name. And why, despite a parade of plagues every time they go fishing, these two men in their 70s tolerate each other’s company every chance they get.
Every once in awhile they graciously tolerate my company, too. This trip to Cachuma is an anniversary of sorts. It was 25 years ago, we think, that Uncle Orv parked his camper over the decaying corpse of some flattened fauna that maliciously time-released noxious pheromones in the wee-smalls of a subsequently sleepless night. And when Uncle Orv the next morning thwarted a thick fog by dead-reckoning our way to a favorite cove—only it turned out that we’d spent a half-hour making a giant loop around the lake right back to the dock. It’s not unusual to get a late start when you’re fishing with Uncle Orv.
This day Uncle Orv steers us more directly to his latest can’t-miss cove, near the site of the release of 500-plus bass caught in a tournament the week before. A sure thing. The banter, laconically interspersed among all the lure-choosing and rigging and careful sixth-sense preparations of big-bass anglers, goes like this:
Dad: “So it’s bass first?”
Orv: “You’re the decision-maker, Intrepid Angler. I’s mere the guide.”
Dad: “No beer till we catch the first fish.”
Orv: “That’ll make for a long, dry day, Bub.”
It indeed appears that way, so after awhile, I violate Prohibition, pass around some Red Dogs, and fish for stories . . .
There was the time Uncle Orv tossed a live net brimming with a nifty mess o’ trout over the gunwale of the What Now?. Problem was, said net was unaffixed to said gunwale, and the incarcerated fish headed for Davy Jones’s locker. Uncle Orv heroically dived overboard and discovered “water gets dark at 20 feet.” A humanitarian effort?
Orv: “Sure was! To keep him from killing me.”
Dad: “Because I caught most of those fish.”
Orv: “O-ho! Now hear this!”
There was the time Uncle Orv snagged Dad’s cap on a backcast and neatly tossed it 30 feet in the lake. “Fortunately, my head stayed intact.” Judging by the weird one he’s wearing today—one of those mesh-and-foam jobs that says something clever like “Watch Out Trout” on it, the cap deserved the dunking.
There was the time when a monstrous rainstorm pelted the What Now? ashore. Uncle Orv had dutifully affixed its water-resistant (hint: key word is resistant ) cover and “I assumed all was well . . . until I looked out and saw both tires flat.” It seems that the weight of a boat full of water (why bother to open the drain plug when the boat is covered?) is too much for trailer tires to bear. He peeled back the cover to find a full tacklebox under water. Both batteries under water. A very late start to that fishing day.
There was the What Now?’’s maiden voyage, when she was planing so smoothly across the glassine surface of Lake Nacimiento until Uncle Orv inexplicably backed off the throttle and promptly thwacked a submerged rock. It just took a little fiberglass Band-Aiding to get her under way again. But the story has a happy upshot: The brothers had stopped en route to the lake that day at my great uncle’s insurance office to take out a policy on the boat. Amid fully expected accusations of fraud, Uncle Orv filed his first claim on the effective date of the policy.
The unraveling of these stories means that our fishing day is thus far unsullied by the presence of bass. Dad breaks the streak, sort of, by announcing a hit. To which Uncle Orv responds, “We’ve never been successful frying hits, Bub. It’s like boiling up a mess of deer tracks.” A strand of moss on Dad’s lure dispels the hit theory, and our guide deems it time to move on: “What say, Boy-San, we try two more protected coves, then troll the bounding main, after which it will be declared sandwich-and-brew time.”
About this time I ingenuously ask where bass like to hang out, which draws guffaws as the dumb question of the day.
We arrive at the next can’t-miss cove and the anglers rig up.
Dad: “What manner of gifilligous ding are you putting on there?
Uncle Orv: “A brand-new single-fin wombat. I’m testing my theory (alluding to the What Now? ’s recent drenching) that bass are offended by rusty hooks.”
Dad: “When all else fails, I say put on old Fat Wrap.”
Uncle Orv: “All has failed. I wore out old Fat Wrap in the first cove.”
After another fruitless while, Dad switches to a Hula Popper, which looks something like the bad ceramics you see at sidewalk art shows. Bass apparently like bad ceramics—this one looks like a tropical fish with its pink mouth wide open—just as they like cheap rubber worms of the sort you used to scare girls with.
Uncle Orv sagely disputes Dad’s selection: “Not a top-water lure. Not this time of year.” A few minutes later, Dad reels in the first bass of the day, and, to his credit, unsmugly so. But there seem to be grave doubts as to the legality of the catch on the part of the non-catching party. It’s Dad’s triumph, though: “Basso profundo” tips the scale at 12 ounces. A keeper.
Few of the fish’s brethren in this cove succumb to the temptation of bad ceramics, so we proceed to troll the bounding main “for anything stupid enough to get in our way.” I note an irony of high technology: The sonar device that Uncle Orv uses to scout out schools of fish beeps periodically with an urgency both men seem to ignore. Finally, I ask why. Uncle Orv chuckles: “ Because we can’t hear the dang thing!”
Dad chimes in with a recollection of their boyhood days fishing the Mississippi River in Iowa: “We caught more fish with cane poles and bobbers than we have ever since.”
It is during these segues, with the motor droning just loud enough to quash conversation, that I can see the Air Force pilots in the faces of my father and uncle. Both were career aviators—transports, bombers, fighters. Three wars. And I see an identical fixed gaze in the piercing eyes of the brothers as we motor across the lake, as if they see something I don’t, or they’re looking for something I wouldn’t expect to see.
I theorize that the mellowing of both men, so evident on this weekend outing, may have something to do with the temporal distance between them and the wars they fought—memories I can’t imagine, replaced by fishing memories, where the consequences of misadventure are nothing but some lost fish or a late start; where responsibilities have nothing to do with life and death.
It’s as if Uncle Orv senses my reverie. “There’s a parallel between fishing and flying,” he announces. “They say flying is hours and hours of boredom with moments of sheer terror. Fishing is hours and hours of boredom with moments of sheer pleasure.”
Dad waxes a little philosophical: “But there’s a lot of pleasure in the boredom, too.”
Uncle Orv: “Oh, yeah. You can’t catch fish in the living room. Beats watching the darn tube. That’s what makes young people old and keeps us oldsters young.”
What now? For the last hour we’d been tacitly assessing a gathering of silver-black clouds to the west. They’re upon us now, and we’re getting pelted with the first drops. Dad assumes the role of squadron commander and orders a 180 back to base. Sandwich-and-brew time will take place ashore. By the time we get there, we’re soaked, cold, and laughing. This time, we agree, we’ll cover the boat and remember to open the drain plug. After all, we’re going fishing with Uncle Orv again tomorrow.