Is that a Trout?

Something that I've been working on this past year is trying to make fish out of glass. If you have ever looked closely at a fish, especially at a trout, then you would have to admit that their skin is covered with some of the most beautiful colors that God has ever made. And when you do look at a fish, no matter what kind, they are all different even from others of the same kind, but still totally amazing. Trying to duplicate that, well I just haven't been able to bring my game up to par. I have been getting better at the shape and sometimes I get the right colors, and when things come together they look really nice. But they are still a long shot from looking like the real deal.

We had some fish at the Iowa Deer Classic and we got a lot of compliments on them. “Look at that trout”, or “ I love that brown trout”. Well, to me it sounded more like they were saying, “look at that troat,” like it rhymes with boat. The people in Iowa have this rich and rolling accent. They don't actually say troat, but the way they say it doesn't rhyme with shout, either. And here in the mountains trout and shout rhyme. Anyway, it made me feel good, hearing people admiring and identifying my fish.

I always liked Jenelle's Iowa accent. It fit right in with her cute smile. She still has the cute smile but somewhere along the way she lost her accent. And now she doesn't have one . . . or maybe she does.

All of this talk about accents reminds me of a canoe trip a friend and I went on a long time ago. At this point in our lives we hadn't traveled very far from good ole Garrett County, MD. We decided to load up the canoe on my ‘87 Dodge Ram and head to Boundary Waters in Minnesota. You don't usually see a lot of other people canoeing in the Boundary Waters because they put a quota system that only gives out a certain amount of user permits for any given time. This helps to keep the “wilderness feel” in place. It also seems to cause people to be more friendly and so when you haven't seen anyone else for a day or so, and then you see someone, often you stop and chat for a bit. We were fishing in one of the lakes when a youth group came paddling by. I can't remember how many people there were, but since group size is limited to ten people, there must have been fewer than ten. They chatted with us for a bit and as they paddled off one of the girls said, “I really like your accent”. We went back to fishing and after they were out of ear shot my buddy says to me, “we don't have an accent do we?”

Now right there is something to think and chuckle about!

Trout are trout and people are people, and no matter what we think, we're all a little different. But somehow, with all of our different stripes and specs, we were all still made very beautiful!