Thinking and walking, and of course rambling

So, i'm walking the dog along the levee behind the ferry terminal, thinking about this GIS project, fishing reports, the internet and what I want to teach my daughter.

As i'm walking i was thinking of my grandfather - who taught me about following the elk tracks to the streams, the moose to beaver ponds, the effect of glaciers on terrain, when to use a black ant, and how to tell if a brick had the right mixture to be strong. i was thinking of my dad that taught me not to stick with the pack, but try new things in new places, and my grandmother who taught me all kinds of things about reading patterns and cycles and making sense of them, that the moose come back to the creeks when the willows bud and leaf out, and the willows don't bud out until the creek flows again.

Among the things that i noticed along my walk:
all the acacias are blooming, but the cherries are not (who planted those things anyway?)
the egrets are back though not yet in force
the storm is blasting SSW
the dog has now found four tennis balls, only one of which is actually a sphere

I realized that what i wanted to teach my daughter is to notice these things...then match them to patterns or cycles.  I hope I'll be doing that fishing with her (like my dad and grand dad did for me).

for me these things meant:
spring is almost here, but its not here yet
when the egrets are here in force, its almost striper time...i know that the egrets come just before the worms bloom (or spawns?) in the flats around the islands, i know that the baitfish come for those blooms
the door is open, and i'll bet we have a long cold, wet spring.

My daughter will be able to reach into a huge mass of data, and pull out whatever she wants with just a few keystrokes. Heck we could do that today with fishing reports here. I am sure she will be able to consult a map that tells her when and where to go fish (we can do that now).  She will be able to integrate real time tides, currents, weather, among other data that we can't even conceive yet.

The difference is all these are only data - not information.

I've got a bunch of yearly notebooks about stripers around marin (they only go back four or five or so years), with dates, locations, tides, conditions, lures, etc...but that isn't information only data.  If i follow it to the letter, I likely don't catch any fish.  However, if i take all that data, find the patterns and cycles then I can catch fish.

It is the pattern recognition and data processing that we do that matters.

My dad, grand-dad and grandmother did it for me, helping me to realize that the same patterns that worked in one place would work in another. In a community such as this, i would hope that those with experience would help those with lesser experience to develop their own unique version of pattern recognition.

,,,,,,, thinking about,,,,,,,,, what I want to teach my daughter.........

.............about reading patterns and cycles and making sense of them,,,,,,,,,,,

I realized that what i wanted to teach my daughter is to notice these things...then match them to patterns or cycles............... 


My daughter will be able to reach into a huge mass of data, and pull out whatever she wants with just a few keystrokes.............

........... find the patterns and cycles ...........

Thanks for the great thoughts, sounds like the patterns and cycles involved in handing  down wisdom from generation to generation and on to generations beyond our own,,

Good stuff

Very nice, Steve.  So much of the soul is for me tied to the generational relationships we have.  I hope you'll be able to share all that you have with your daughter and also be around to see in her the recognition of and appreciation for what you've shared with us here.  Try to get a little more time for the Cove trip if you can.   

Wow, that was am amazing tribute to your teachers as family. I think you very wise to try to impart these discoveries to your daughter and others while on the planet. Kids are shuffled off to the Tv and I don't really think that alot that is taught in school is really that important to succeeding in life. It's the smal things that make us most wise. I remember my Dad taking me to favorite hole on a trout stream when I was very young. He showed me how to impale the dragonfly nymph on #14 and drift it down into the hole from above. All the older men were right down in the hole trying to catch fish. He told me to be quiet and what to do and don't make noise. I proceeded to catch alot of trout that day. Right in front of all the men who weren't doing that great. This was one of the many gifts he gave me.  Walk quietly on the stream in reverence.

  Try to get a little more time for the Cove trip if you can.   

I will try...my wife will jsut have run her half marathon so maybe i'll have built up enough waf to do an overnighter

Wow, that was am amazing tribute to your teachers as family. I think you very wise to try to impart these discoveries to your daughter and others while on the planet. Kids are shuffled off to the Tv and I don't really think that alot that is taught in school is really that important to succeeding in life. It's the smal things that make us most wise. I remember my Dad taking me to favorite hole on a trout stream when I was very young. He showed me how to impale the dragonfly nymph on #14 and drift it down into the hole from above. All the older men were right down in the hole trying to catch fish. He told me to be quiet and what to do and don't make noise. I proceeded to catch alot of trout that day. Right in front of all the men who weren't doing that great. This was one of the many gifts he gave me.  Walk quietly on the stream in reverence.

Funny you say that i learned that exact thing from a friend of my grand-dads- Tol Chapman...he was born in 1889, so he was in his 80's when I met him. He was a homesteader in jackson- i think the place is now called Butler Creek ranch. We used to fish with him in the summer on the creek below my grand-dads place. He would use little "red-bellied humpies", and measured the catch in limits not fish.  The guy was kind of a local legend- you'd see his name scratched in trees all over the Snake river range (he used to say everytime he'd shoot game he'd do that). He also miraculously got a moose permit every year.

The other thing i remember really well about him is he would always release the biggest fish...seemed strange to me, but now i know why.

Wow, that was am amazing tribute to your teachers as family.

I agree. Lots of good wisdom there.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts (and family).

Al

I will try...my wife will jsut have run her half marathon so maybe i'll have built up enough waf to do an overnighter

Which half is she running?

Craig - great story of the trout tutorial.  My Dad taught me the same thing up in the Salmon Mountains.  He showed me how to sneak up and drop a one egg hook (w/ one egg on it!) into the riffle and let it float down into the hole, and the key was the stealth.  There's so much to learn from little lessons like that.  It was really more about your approach in life than it was about hooking a trout.  God I loved that guy.