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Refuge
4 January 2003
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Gray’s Sporting Journal, April 2003
The associations you have with a place are partly the associations you have with the people in your life, and it is impossible to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. Because they are inextricably part of each other, to describe Refuge Cove I must first describe my old friend John Dixon. They are the same thing.
Dixon is a complicated guy. He is physically large, at once domineering. over-sensitive and articulate to the point of occasional pedantry. His range of expression is polar; from an excessive generosity, avuncular protectiveness and blind loyalty to his friends, to a ruthless contempt toward enemies and outsiders that would make old Joe Stalin cringe. John is a hunting and fishing enthusiast who can happily talk for hours on the subtleties of hand-loading ammunition for the ancient 45.70 rifle cartridge, and conjure up a twenty-pound Chinook salmon, from what to everyone else are empty waters, whenever he needs a fish for a big dinner party. He is afraid of the dark. John has tried to strike a balance between the civil and familial responsibilities of a professional urban father and the barely contained Dionysian passions of a semi-domesticated country boy and wharfe rat.
Now, if one takes this hunting and fishing thing too far, at best one lives what I think of as an interrupted life. I know what I’m talking about here, so, if you are a young buck who thinks of this field and stream business as simply a pastime, listen up - here lie dragons, although, for my part, I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for a life more stable or financially rewarding. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but even the most disagreeable parts of my life have had a sense of ownership about them. As if choices were at least made for a reason.
My own choices have always been between my own selfish, immature, indefensible, utterly unreasonable desires, and the requisites and responsibilities of civilized cohabitation. The disagreeable moments have usually involved the women in my life, normally while they were making up their minds to leave. Well, everything has a cost and everybody pays. By dividing his life into roughly hewn compartments, Dixon has nearly managed to square this circle - with a few flat spots, I hasten to add.
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