Good news today in the mail. Charlie and I are going to the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vt.,

Four Guest Passes arrived from the museum today. The Museum is the world’s largest public repository of angling art and artifacts.

The museum staff read about Charlie the Fly Fisherman/now a Mansion resident, on my blog and e-mailed me to offer the free passes. Charlie is a sweet and courteous man. He was aching to go fishing. When I told him we were going to the museum, he cried.

Charlie, a new resident of the Mansion, is a passionate fly fisherman, he was roused from deep depression as the long pandemic isolation winded down. A Mansion aide took him fishing on her own time.

The staff was worried about him.

They are not worried about him right now. He is all smiles.

Also in the mail today was a new wading kit for him to put on when he and I go fishing in June (it will be the first time I have ever really gone fishing in my life.

When I joined the  Quakers as a messed-up teenager, I resolved not to take animal life for any reason other than to protect people or to put it out of its suffering. I’ve kept my word.

I’m not crazy about mud or mosquitoes either.

I can watch and cheer him on.

But I can keep him company and there are two tickets for some aides if they want to go. I got Charlie a fly cap, a fly kit, some fishing books, a vest, and today, a wading suit.

He has about 15 rods in his room. We are prepared. I till go as myself, a sissified city boy who never had a fishing rod. Don’t see how it can be anything but fun.

There’s a great pizza place a half-mile from the museum, we’ll have lunch there and tell each other lies.

We are ready to go. We’ll start with the Fly Fishing Museum next week. All I have to do is sign him out and feed him and bring him back safely.

It will be a joy. I look forward to it. Then (gulp) Charlie is fun, and he has a lot of fishing stories. I hope he will understand that I can’t fish. I think he perhaps can’t imagine it.

He loves to talk about the North Caroline fishing tournament where he beat the Orvis team. Orvis, the fishing and outdoor megastore,  is right next to the Fly Fishing Museum, perhaps we will go visit and do a little strutting.