Meeting Cancelled. Weather in Ohio.

I'm sitting here, stuck in the Cincy airport so tonight's prelim meeting is canceled. Sorry about the confusion and hassle. How was I to know there would be more snow here this afternoon than there was in Butte, MT when I took off this morning?

Keep your ears to the tracks. A reschedule is coming soon.

Thanks,

Ron

Meeting Time Reminder

You are invited to a planning meeting, Tuesday, January 27th, 6:00pm at the Fanatics Sports Grill.

Fanatics Sports Grill -This is at the Double Tree Hotel in Murfreesboro, TN. Easy to find. The address is 1850 Old Fort Parkway Murfreesboro, TN 37129 . Their menu.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I get back to Nashville at 4:40PM. Looking back I should probably have scheduled the meeting for a 6:30 start but, I'll be there. Hope you will too.

Pardon my brevity. It's -23F here this morning, I'm not acclimated and I need to stoke the fire.

Gettin' Down On The Farm-PHW 2FLY

Project Healing Waters recently announced their 2FLY event. It is set for early May. Looks like a great time to be had. Here's a quote form their blog:

"The date for the 2009 PHW 2-Fly has been set for May 3, 2009. The 2-Fly will once again be held at Rose River Farm in Madison County, Virginia."

That is the sort of thing that Nabours and Friends will be helping out with our efforts.

And you thought we were just trying to come up with an excuse to go to the river, fish a little, sit around a campfire and pick and sing and drink beer and eat big chunks of flame kissed meat with our bare hands. Come on now, we're deeper than that. Not much, but some.

Project Healing Waters. What It Is.

They said it better than I could.

"Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. is dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active duty military personnel and veterans through fly fishing and fly tying education and outings."

Go there. Wade in. Get a good feel for it. Get involved. Get enthused. Get with the program.

Clicky Clicky >>>>>>>>>> Project Healing Waters



Also-I've sent an email asking permission to use this video. Ed Felker wrote back and said it was positively OK for us to have it here. Thanks Ed.

Found it on Youtube

I first learned about this song when my friend Leo, posted about it on the Cumberland Transit Fly Fishing Forum. Sure am glad he made that post. More on Leo later, for now, back to the song.

I have left a message, by telephone, for one of the songwriters, Sam Tate. He is a fly fisherman too. I think his wife and co-writer, Annie, is a fly angler as well.

I know they are a couple of Nashville's best songwriters with several hits to their credit. Great team. Great talent. Here's a link to Annie's MySpace Page. Check it out.

Oars In The Water-Planning Meeting

Let's Row- Let the streams of consciousness flood the place. We want ideas and volunteers and somebody that isn't afraid to get up and sing some Karaoke if they have the machine turned on while we are there.

Who-Anyone that wants to be involved with this project. We're going to need some people in charge of stuff, important stuff. Stuff like Hair Of The Dog Breakfast Boss, Charcoal Chuck Wagon Master, Toilet Paper Wrangler, Ice Queen, one of those dogs that can fetch a beer and so forth. You name it, we're going to need people to be leaders and tippets.

When-Tuesday, January 27th, 6:00PM. I'm headed out of town for work tomorrow. My plane returns to Nashville at 4:40PM on the 27th. If I'm late, order a pitcher and some extra spicy wings and start without me. I'll catch up.

What-Meeting to toss around ideas. Didn't I cover this already? Should it be a tournament? Fly restriction? Lawyers allowed? (just kidding bd) Sponsor ideas, how to auction/raffle donated goods and services. Input man, input.

Where-Fanatics Sports Grill -This is at the Double Tree Hotel in Murfreesboro, TN. Laid back place. Easy to find. The address is 1850 Old Fort Parkway Murfreesboro, TN 37129 . Check out their menu.

Why-Because we really have no idea what we are doing, but we know we want to do it. Besides that, my English teacher (or was that my Junior High journalism teacher???) said you have to have a why to go with the who, what, when, where thing.

See you there.

Nabours And Friends, An Idea Is Born....

A Long Time Coming--A group of neighbors and friends that share a passion for fishing have been kicking around the idea of putting together a fishing themed fundraiser for quite a while now. My name is Ron and I'm one of the instigators of this project we are calling Nabours And Friends For Project Healing Waters.

Like a lot of folks, I've contributed to a few fund raising efforts in the past. I've donated time, money, goods and services to some deserving, at least in my mind they are deserving, causes including:

• Vanderbilt Children's Hospital
• St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
• Ronald McDonald House Charities
• Goodwill Industries International
• Salvation Army
• Casting For Recovery
• The US Youth Fly Fishing Team (Hello Weston) and even
• The Rialto Theater Restoration Project in Deer Lodge, Montana.

On The Road Again-Montana. Montana is where this idea was born. Wait, that's not true. This idea was actually born in New Mexico, when I stopped at my father's little place there on my way back to Tennessee from Montana.

I spend the summers in Montana working as a fly fishing guide. Sometime, before Thanksgiving, I get in the truck, point it southeast and head back to my other home, just outside of Nashville, Tennessee to spend the winter with family and friends.

When I pulled out of my driveway in Montana this year, instead of driving straight southeast as possible, I took a detour and headed mostly south first. I stopped along the way to see family and friends scattered about New Mexico and Texas before I made a sharp turn east and hightailed it for the Rocky Top Territory.

Stop To Smell The Roses-One of those must do, very important stops in New Mexico, if I'm passing through anywhere within a day's drive (which is just about everywhere in New Mexico) is always a stop to visit with my father. I always look forward to it, even though the closer I get to his place the more the anxiety seems to pile up.

Once there I relax and am glad I'm back in those familiar surroundings, talking to him, asking questions, catching up best I can. You know, all the stuff you talk to your Dad about when you haven't been around him for a while. I was talking to him like there was no tomorrow. Running off at the mouth about 90 to nothin'.

I'd been there for an hour or so just going non-stop and somehow the subject of the charity work came up. I was telling him how I wanted to work on a fundraiser during my winter in Tennessee.

I was telling him that some of my fishing friends and I had been talking about having a weekend on the Caney Fork River in Tennessee. We'd spend it fly fishing and camping with campfires and cookouts and live music and poets and storytelling and somehow we wanted it to benefit some charity that we could all get behind and support.

I looked down at him and that's when I knew. Standing right there, I looked him in the eye and knew that I wanted the beneficiary of our efforts to be Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Inc.

Born Identity-In the coming posts you'll learn about the many others that are joining this project. Some family, some neighbors, some friends. Some neighbors and friends that are like family. Some Nabours that are family.

Some ideas take a long time to develop. I guess we could say this idea was born in 1944. Thanks for the idea, Dad, it was good talking to you.


Ron

Post Script-Like Kevin Welch said in a song (and I can't, for the life of me, remember them exactly but it was really close to this) "There'll be two dates on your tombstone, and all your friends will read 'em, but the only thing that matters is the little dash between 'em"

I hope you'll join us during our dash on this project.