Two Days . . .
Clyde E. Drury, Jr.
1.
Clyde E. Drury, Jr. passed away at the age of 85 on July 31, 2015, the Thirty-first of July; a Friday.
Clyde E. Drury, Jr. He edited and introduced the standard annotated edition of The Autobiography of Dr. James Alexander Henshall.
Henshall in ways lasting brought the black basses of North America to codified attention. He was a nineteenth century angling author. Clyde devoted a facet of his long life of service to books of the black bass. His work reached my attention a decade ago as the smallmouth and largemouth bass receive a major role as characters in my two collections of stories. Stories, in part, of the black bass.
His mind was open to my work’s inclusion into his open-ended online bibliography. I consider that a high achievement in my life, as satisfying as knowing my name is included on a CD-ROM affixed to the New Horizons spacecraft that flew by Pluto and Charon in early July. Clyde, who served in the United States Air Force for some two decades, lived to appreciate American aerospace ability completing a survey of the entire Solar System. He witnessed all of the essential moments leading to the Moon and from the Sun itself passed Mercury, Venus, and comets, Mars, and the asteroid Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, all of the way on to Pluto and its moons orbiting at the far edge of the planetary property. That thought celebrates life and encourages happiness beyond the loss of a friend.
His span of years marked by service and generosity reached and sustained me for years. When I contacted him first by email, Mr. Drury was kind enough to include my project within his authoritative online bibliography of black bass books. Our mutual affection for the black bass in part brought Small Fry: The Lure of the Little into print in 2009. Our interaction became a friendship, a conversation, a seed sprouted into occasional notes, Holiday Greetings, and mutual appreciation.
A forthcoming print edition of Clyde E. Drury’s collected Books of the Black Bass may be a book written, compiled, conducted in an ongoing manner, composed of a planet of authorial voices. My own was one shared with him through his gifts of direction as well as a bibliography to keep my life busy until I myself am 85, even beyond, maybe.
Thank you for your service, Sir.
Clyde E. Drury Jr.
March 21, 1930 – July 31, 2015
Happy Anniversary, POTF!
2.
The First of August, a Saturday, the day after Clyde E. Drury, Jr. passed, marked an anniversary milestone having been reached. My first book, Philadelphia on the Fly: Tales of an Urban Angler entered the “Published” category on that date a decade ago and the title remains so. Websites online list the official publication date as August 1, 2005.
Ten years is often quoted as span of time required to integrate mastery of a subject, a sport, a discipline. Perhaps the tenkara rod in my hand is a kind of baton. I shall honor the angling and writing craft, as did Clyde, and keep the illustrated angling book a living, growing body of Literature with a capital L.
The tenkara rod: this tool, this baton, like a pencil to paper. When put to water one encounters pools of stories to be pulled from the clarity. Lines are necessary. Body and mind, combined in tenkara’s case, serve as the real reel. My mountain bike, back cover star of the first edition of Philadelphia on the Fly, still in service ten years later, carries me to the water unless a Manhattan subway shoulders some of the commute, or on a day like today, after writing in rumination, I get up, get shoes on, and go off, running . . .
. . . On The Fly.
– rPs 08 07 2015
Postscript:
The Autobiography of Dr. James Alexander Henshall: The Father of Bass Fishing in America, Annotated Edition. Edited and with an Introduction by Clyde E. Drury
http://www.whitefishpress.com/bookdetail.asp?book=54
Philadelphia on the Fly: Tales of an Urban Angler by ron P. swegman
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1571883614/qid=1125520154/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-5425795-7768125?v=glance&s=books
Tenkara Takes Manhattan 