Dateline: Kentucky Lake
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
~Vincent Van Gogh
It is simply the smell of coffee in the morning.
Simply, a light summer rain on a hot summer day.
It is holding hands with a loved one, it is melted butter on popcorn, it is old fleece on a Sunday morning.
It’s a wag of a tail when you come home, a slow dance on a Saturday night, a vanilla cone dipped in chocolate, morning mist on a tranquil pond.
These, and many others like them are the gift of small things in life. Whispers lost in the chorus we live within.
To survive as a species we don’t need to be able to laugh, but it is laughter, that little smile, that makes us human, nor do we need love to survive, nor empathy, no benevolence to survive, some may say those emotions get in the way of survival, but it all those little things within us that bring out the greatness with us.
One person killed another person or two today, that’s currently news, but somehow the fact that 300 million other people didn’t harm anyone isn’t news, really.
Tell me about the babies born today, tell me of all those who took to a knee to propose, tell me about all those couples who said “I do” today, tell me the billion little stories of the good, not the half dozen stories of the bad.
Living is the big, but life is made up of all the little things.
Little things are the single notes that come together to form the soundtrack of your life.
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
Robert Breault
American Operatic Tenor
That smile there, a little thing that’s big in life.
That’s my on-the-road roomie, Bassmaster Classic champion Paul Elias, or Paul Ga-lias as my other road roomie, Shaw Grigsby and I call him. A little twist of a word that makes life a tiny bit more special between roomies.
Yesterday, Monday, the Elites had a day off between events, I think they should have a day off during every event but that’s another story, many took the time to relax, work on tackle, sleep or just do nothing and hang out.
All of that good and cool.
We are staying somewhere in Tennessee that has a little pond by our cabin, a little pond with lily pads, a little pond with lily pads and fish in it.
Paul wasn’t here an hour or so before he was throwing a new frog at the lily pads, both testing the new bait thing as well as how his injured shoulder and thumb were doing.
Most casts had smiles, some though had grimaces. Welcome to the Elites.
But I want to tell you about a little thing that happened by the side of this pond, something most big-time anglers take for granted but for someone like me who only fishes once and a while, for me what happened was eye opening if not flat out magical.
Might be for you as well.
I’m standing there watching Paul, shooting him with a big lens so I can see small details really clear and isolated.
As I’m focusing in I see this: For a second that smile grew bigger, a fraction bigger but increased slightly enough to go out of focus for a fraction of a second and then suddenly his whole upper body twitched as he set the hook.
But it was that fraction of the moment I want to talk about, not the cast, not where he was fishing, not the hook set, not any of the sometimes overblown obvious, but the subtle little smile increase.
When I told Paul what I saw I said, “Why, what happened?”
“I knew he was there.”
Knew he was there!
He being a fish, a fish probably 20 yards away under green colored water that Paul couldn’t see through.
“How, what, huh?”
“I felt the tiny twitch, just a little thing, tiny, tiny touch came up the rod and I knew he was going to bite.”
With that he handed me the business end of the rod and reel and said, “Here, relax and just feel it,” and with that he just every so gently flicked the line with his thumb and forefinger, and I felt it.
Not a huge tug, not a big pull, but just this little message that something was up.
The smell of coffee in the morning knowing a cup is about to be poured, that little thing in life that makes us smile.
For the next several minutes Paul took the time to flick the line and tell me about the pure joy, the rush of anticipation that comes with it, the mystery, the worry, and you get the sense that for these pros, for all those who fish more than just occasionally, at that moment for a flash time stands still, you get the feeling that for a moment it’s all about that tiny little message coming up the rod.
In the scheme of all this, you never hear about it, but know this, for the majority of those huge hook sets you see, for all the jumping around and joy on the front or back deck of the boat, it is that little thing that leads to all of that.
It is being handed the gift feeling, before you open it.
“I hope you find, as I did, that happiness comes from noticing and enjoying the little things in life.”
Barbara Ann Kipfer
Archaeologist & Author
It’s important that you not only see the big and the bold of this sport but are told also of the subtle and little aspects as well.
By doing so you will know it better, you will understand more acutely the love and the passion those who play the game have for it.
A quarterback once told me his favorite part of the game is watching the ball when it leaves his hand and flies through the air. He said that moment in time pauses, for him, the frantic game that engulfs him.
In those brief seconds all things are possible, a catch, a drop, a first down, a touchdown, a win, a loss, those are the big things of the game.
The slow spin of a brown leather football against a pale blue sky, that’s the little part of the game that when you know it and look for it, makes the game all that more special.
When I come across these little moments I’ll try and bring them to you so that while you’re watching the event, maybe, just maybe if you know what to look for, you’ll see for that tiny fraction of a second, the little smile before the big hook set, and in that moment, the game we play will become even more special for you.
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“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder
