DATELINE: SEPTEMBER 28, 2025 – ROME, GEORGIA
Despite the past few posts, the summer of 2025 was not all fun and games. While I was in the Midwest, my great friend Scott Perry called me and let me know his Mom had passed away. Scott has been there for me during every loss in my family, providing a steak dinner and a short-lived bottle of excellent scotch the night my Uncle Ted died, and I wanted to return the favor. Scott’s family is in Texas, and while I was trying to extricate myself from a load of commitments to head down there, he let me know that he would need me more when he got back to California. The family nature of this blog prevents me from describing that night in full, but let’s just say we sent her off in style. Scottish style.
But on July 26, when I was overseas, even worse news came. My cousin Susie, the youngest daughter of my Dad’s brother Richard, passed away suddenly at age 56. That side of the family is all in Georgia, and there was no way I could make it back in time for the service. The celebration of life, appropriately for a woman who was a noted high school drama and music teacher, had a dress code requiring bright colors, sequins optional. She was the life of the party as far back as I can remember, and it was shocking that she, the youngest of my generation, was gone.
One of those unfortunate family photos, circa 1981, right after we had all apparently been to the same hairstylist. From the left, that’s me, my cousin Mary, my sister Laura, and Susie, smiling sweetly because she probably just did something bad that I would be blamed for later.
It had been years since I had seen Susie. Way too many. I certainly keep in touch with Uncle Richard and Aunt Cookie, but there just never seemed to be the right time to catch up with everyone. There always seemed to be infinite time to worry about that. There isn’t.
I like that there was a playbill instead of a funeral notice. She would have loved that.
I felt awful about missing the gathering, and Marta suggested that I take my first free week and go see the family. So that’s what I did. I flew into Atlanta one September evening, rented a car, and got over to Rome by around 8pm. The whole family was there, and it was stunning how many of them there were and how few of them I knew. I have to do better at this. Because they had all eaten earlier, I ate my plate of local barbeque and answered questions from the panel at the same time. It hit me that I was meeting Susan’s husband and kids for the first time, and as shattered as they all were, everyone was wonderfully hospitable.
As things wound down, I got to spend time with just Rich and Cookie, and we chatted well into the night. Despite the overwhelming sadness that must come to parents who lose a child, this was one of the rare and memorable evenings that we really got to go through all the paintings on the family cave wall. Out came the photos – everything from great-grandparents I never met, to photos of my parents wedding, to pictures of all of us as kids. I looked back at myself circa 1974, dressed in plaid Granimals, and thinking of all the stuff I would tell that kid if I could meet him today. Mostly not to wear the Granimals, although Cousin Chuck wishes they came in adult sizes.
This would be from around 1968, within a year of when I caught my first fish. My sister is smiling because she hadn’t discovered the bug I put in her hair.
I also got to see the flag that was on my Grandfather’s coffin before he was laid to rest in the US Military Cemetery in Margraten, Holland. A casualty in the closing days of the war, his passing carried generations of consequences for my family.
I know that my Grandmother accepted the flag calmly, but I can’t imagine anyone not crying when the officer says “On behalf of the President of the United States, The United States Army, and a grateful nation …” Because for that one moment, she hopefully felt the entire country grieving with her.
This is my parents wedding. They look so very young and full of hope, and damn my Mom was beautiful.
My grandparents get married, circa 1940. Five years later, my grandmother would be a widow with two young sons. My sister and I always think of her as a doting grandmother, constantly refilling plates with homemade Polish food, but here she is as a young woman that we never knew, starting out her life in a world on the brink of war.
The conversation went well into the night, and I hoped it would never end. And I wished for just an evening where all these people who formed our shared history were still here, so someone could explain who the lady in the pink dress who keeps showing up at family events actually was. No one seems to know.
I finally went to sleep and dreamed of all of those people who came before me, some amazing, some troubled, all real and all fading into black-and-white memory. In the morning, I shifted back to present day and headed out to some local creeks for a shot at the elusive greenbreast darter. I saw a few, but they were skittish and the creek was slippery enough to make maneuvering difficult.
Although I now seem to be able to catch bluebreast darters at will. Go figure.
I got back to Rome in time for dinner, and ate with a smaller group of Rich, Cookie, my cousin Mary, and her husband Andrew. I have spent a lot more time with Mary than I did with Susie – Mary and I both lived in Indianapolis at the same time, and no, she never beat me at tennis. It was a pleasant dinner in a charming town, but there was still a strong undercurrent of crushing sadness. The only thing missing from the evening was Susie, and there was nothing any of us could do about that now.
We have all made sure to keep in closer touch in the time we all have left, and they made me promise to bring Marta next time. People always make me promise to bring Marta.
Early the next day, I was off on a few days of roaming Georgia and Tennessee, looking to find a few species and especially to up my darter total. I had excellent intel from very good sources, and the water levels looked decent, but things were slow all day. It was late in the afternoon, about the time I was thinking about finding a Cracker Barrel and calling it a night, that I saw a small school of fish racing back and forth between me and the bank. They looked distinctly spotted, and after a few tries, I got one to bite. To my great delight, it was a blotched chub, a new species.
As you all know, it’s a close relative to the streamline and gravel chubs.
That was a great way to close things out for the evening, and I went to sleep that night knowing the next day held a pilgrimage in store. I would be going to the fabled “Snorkel Hole” on the Georgia/Tennessee border, a place tough to reach but legendary for darter variety.
The next morning, my only comfort on that 20 mile-long dirt road was that I wasn’t driving my car. But when I and at least part of my spleen pulled into the parking lot, I could see why the place is so famous. It was fairly wide but looked wadable in most places, and the water was crystal clear. It was like my first time at Disneyland – I had no idea what to do first.
There was a fish under almost every rock, and the place went for at least a mile.
I started wading up a shallower set of riffles, and after missing a few bites, I got my greenbreast darter.
Darter number 91, and the way the place looked, I felt like I could hit 100 in a few hours.
I caught dozens of darters and shiners in the few hours after that – all repeat customers but nonstop action. I took some time out in the middle of the day to bass fish – the local bass are pure redeyes, and it’s always nice to get a fish in its native range.
In the middle of the afternoon, I experienced a Dickens-level coincidence – something so unlikely to happen that it was bound to happen to me. As I was walking up to my car, two young men were walking down toward the river. Both were carrying microfishing gear, so I had to ask.
In definite Canadian accents, they explained that they were hunting species, and went through the whole spiel we have to give when encountering normal people, about looking for smaller stuff we hadn’t caught before, etc. etc.. I asked them how many species they had – one of them, Bradley, was over 1000, and I instantly knew he had to be Bradley Rasmussen, a well-known Canadian life-lister. His buddy, Darian, had around 600, which is also a hell of a list.
Bradley asked me how many I had, and I figured it was time to let 2403 cats out of the bag. I introduced myself, and we all got a good chuckle out of it. Bradley said “I thought that was you! I heard you were down here, but what are the odds?”
From left to right, that’s me, Darian, and Bradley. Great dudes.
We talked fishing off and on through the rest of the day – these guys are amazingly knowledgeable, and in the middle of a 6000-mile, eight-state road mission. They were filming the whole thing, and I’ve put the trailer below.
They write SO well – the dialogue is a spot-on summary of the obsession that drives people to do the seemingly insane things necessary to catch a bunch of species. My therapist found this very useful.
We fished well into the evening, and shortly after dark, they pointed out a bridled darter, which I promptly caught.
Species three for the trip and darter #92.
I spent the next day on a fruitless hunt for Chattahoochee bass, and just as I was pulling up in the evening to try a darter spot Brad had recommended, the rain that I had avoided for a few days found me.
At least I caught a couple of nice shoal bass.
I decided to call it a trip with three species, yet there was still quite a bit of excitement to come, because, the next day, the “Brew Crew” gang would be arriving in Atlanta so we could watch a Braves and a Falcons game over the weekend.
It was actually nice to see Marta – with our travel schedules, we hadn’t been under the same roof in two weeks. The gang was all doing well, and we had a new addition for the first night’s dinner – Don, who had worked with Steve and Jeff way back in their General Electric days. Don, despite being a Yankees fan, is a true character with an excellent sense of humor, part of a diminishing breed – an old-school, common-sense person who doesn’t get his feelings hurt in every conversation. The whole gang is that way, and that may be the main reason I treasure hanging out with them so much.
Don’s on the left, between me and Steve. The staff at this steakhouse treated us like Don owned the place. On the other side of the table, from rear, that’s Jeff, Jerri, the inscrutable Carol, and Ron.
We set up shop at the Marriott by the baseball stadium, a fine place except that they didn’t have enough wheat toast at the breakfast buffet, which irked Mr. Ramsey.
Steve gives the Marriott staff what for about the breakfast bar. He ended up with a free toaster and loaf of Publix enriched wheat bread.
We played a bit of tourist downtown, visiting the aquarium and, most importantly, the Coca-Cola museum. Although I’m more of a Pepsi man, there’s no denying that Coke is an all-American icon.
The full gang and the polar bear.
Ramsey can do the Grumpy Cat face at will.
We then got to watch the Braves beat the Pirates, luckily without relying on a badly missed call at home plate. (Sid Bream was SO out, despite a terrible throw by Barry Bonds. Marta, a lifetime Pirates fan, has never gotten over this, and Dave Hogan is still bitter as well.) It was still great fun at a fine ballpark – a place Ramsey and I had visited previously.
Truist Park. Fulton County Stadium was burned down, possibly by the Union Army, to get out the stink of the 1992 NLCS.
Ramsey has gear for any team on short notice, but you’ll notice that Marta and I are also honoring Henry Aaron. Those are Indianapolis Clowns jerseys – a Negro League team that Aaron played for in 1952. That’s segregated baseball, in my parents’ lifetimes. Not a good look for America.
The Falcons game on Sunday was also a home win. Mercedes-Benz Stadium is a first-class facility that is absolutely spotless. They even managed to clean up after the terrible Duck massacre that occurred there on January 9, 2026.
Part of the gang at the football game. Jeff was probably off somewhere signing autographs.
Marta and I flew home on Monday. It had been a whirlwind of a week, but a great one. The new fish were nice to have, but reconnecting with relatives and spending time with close friends, and Carol, was even (slightly) better. But it still carries something of a sad memory for me, because no matter what else happened, I would never see my cousin again, and oh, what I would give to be blamed for something I didn’t do just one more time.
Steve
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