“Let it be…”
Dateline: A picnic table, Kentucky Lake
Between us, it will always be known, simply, as the Kentucky Lake Talk.
Between us being Jerry McKinnis, and me.
Alone at a picnic table, Jerry framed by Kentucky Lake behind him, me with the woods of the state park at my back.
It was not a boss to employee talk.
It was not a rich guy to a not rich guy talk.
It was friend to friend talk.
Respect to respect talk.
It was two old guys who have lived through a world of hurt, a world of love, a world of failure, a world of success…talk.
Both of us wore shades, not for the sun.
Both of us knew exactly what was to come.
What was to come was not a book review, that was already agreed upon even though it was never asked for.
Both of us knew I was not sitting there to increase book sales.
What was to come was never negotiated, neither one of us give up easily, “Our Way” of doing things.
In spirit, we are equals.
In drive, we are equals.
In shootouts, we are both quick draws.
Our friendship is one of Lava and The Sea, passion and peace bind us together.
Fire and ice with a 360 page book lying in-between.
“…and in my hour…”
“Hey db, this is Jerry McKinnis.”
And with that phone call greeting this picnic table talk became destiny.
“Hey boss.”
I’m home in Connecticut, just got off the plane from a two week “out west” tournament deal. I was tired, I was hurting, I was in no mood to be talking to anyone, but when my cell phone rings and Jerry’s face appears on it…I answer.
Not because he is the dude who signs my check, but because he is my friend that always hugs me when we meet up.
“db, I would like to ask you a favor…”
“Shoot…”
“My book is coming out soon and I would love for you to read it and tell me your opinion of it and if you like it write a blurb for the back cover of the book.”
My wife, Barb, is sitting on our family room couch looking at me, I just give her a look that after 41 years of marriage needs no explanation.
“Sure,” is the only answer I have for a friend.
“Thanks man, I’ll send it to you, see you in Kentucky Lake.”
As I put my cell phone down on our coffee table, I look over at Barb and she says to me, “What was that.”
And I say exactly this to her, “That, was a rock and a hard place.”
Two hours later a ding of my computer announces that a PDF version of Bass Fishing, Brown Dogs & Curveballs by Jerry McKinnis has arrived in my inbox.
“…of darkness…”
Paul McCartney sings of Mother Mary, the darkness behind my home office window shows my reflection lit by my laptop screen.
It is 14 minutes into the new day, I was asleep, as everyone else is now, but in the middle of the night I get up to open the PDF I know is waiting.
As I right click the mouse, Let It Be on repeat whispers and calms me through the Bose headphones.
My first glimpse of Jerry’s work is via the dark window I’m staring at.
At dawn I hit send on this email to Jerry:
It’s a bottom of the 9th game winning Home Run for the American Dream. Take it from Belle: “If you try you can do it.” It is the only advice you need in life and my friend, Jerry, took his mother’s advice, he tried, he did, he does knock it out of the park with this book. America was built by those who try, even when they shouldn’t, even when they couldn’t, and I thank God for those like Jerry McKinnis who stand at the home plate of life, and swing for the fences.”
db
Best of Luck my friend, I’ll buy a copy or two when it comes out.
Swing deep man, swing deep.
The words in italics can now be found on the back cover of Jerry’s book.
A few hours later another computer ding brought me this:
db…….I put db down, then about a half dozen dots down, and sat here for 15 minutes as the black thing then kept flashing as in “o.k. let’s get this letter started”. My point is I don’t know what to say to you now……..except to say you made me cry, damn it. I will talk to you more later, but for now it occurs to me that I have been on an Escanaba Wind for 78 years and so blessed……thank you for being my friend….Jerry
The “Escanaba Wind” reference refers to a previous story I wrote, and is in the automatic signature under my name on my emails.
About a week ago as I’m starting to pack to come here to BASSFest a little number one suddenly appears on my Facebook Messenger App and when I open it I see the message is from Jerry:
This book thing is making me more emotional than normal, and then I made the mistake of, as I was just messing around, coming across the article you wrote, Moments of Magic, about when I played ball then met Forrest. Actually running across it wasn’t a mistake. Reading it was where I got into trouble. db, it was like you started writing my book 2 years ahead of me. All I can say right at this moment is I am blessed to have you close by, and there is no doubt that there is an invisible hand involved here. Can hardly wait to hand you a book my friend.
Yesterday, framed by the Kentucky River behind him, a week to the day of the Facebook message, Jerry and I are sitting at a picnic table when he opens up a box, and hands me a signed copy of his book.
“db, I’m so happy you are writing this story, lets talk.”
And for the next hour, we did.
Talk.
“…she is standing…”
Every great work of art has within its soul, a confession.
Confessionals made of song, of canvas, of ink on paper.
Works of Non-Fiction allegedly highlight the truth for you, but even within fiction, there are always whispers of fact.
The final story written of mankind will end with three recitals of the rosary and a couple Hail Mary’s.
“I owe all of this to so many people db. People have more friends than they realize, I never knew I owed so much to so many until I wrote this book.”
Jerry is leaning on his arms on the picnic table, he is quiet, as am I, I put down my pen, he leans forward, tractors behind us are setting up BASSfest, birds overhead are squawking, leaves rub into one another, Jerry knows something is coming from me, he just doesn’t know what.
And so comes this: “Jerry your book is about five things my friend, it’s about Friendship, it’s about Family, it’s about Love, it’s about Faith, it’s about Dreams. If it wasn’t I wouldn’t be sitting here, boss or no boss, friend or no friend.”
Jerry swallows hard, pushes his sunglasses deeper into his face, and just listens.
There are for me five pillars of human existence.
Friendship.
Family.
Faith.
Dreams.
Love.
Anything else, to me, is just nonsense, static, dust in the record groove.
The day to day morality play. We spend billions of dollars every year to find life, LIFE out there in the heavens, and so far only one hand has ever waved back.
The hand that guides us all.
Life, is not water on Mars.
Life, is not atmosphere.
Life, is not carbon, hydrogen, oxygen.
Life will not be found out there, life will only be found, within.
Within, us.
“Dude, your book is about life, it’s a Thank You to all those paths you have crossed.”
“Do you think db I’ve written the final act of my life, my career. I wonder about that a lot.”
“No.”
“Why do you say that.”
“Because if what you have written is the truth, the thank you in this book are real, then no, it’s not the final chapter, it may be the first real chapter in your life.”
Jerry just shakes his head yes.
“And it all begins with family my friend.”
“I know db, I know, and when I was young, when I was young I hurt my family db, I hurt my family.”
And through his sunglasses came a glint of a tear.
“…right it front of me…”
“It’s much better now with my family, much better, I can truly say I work with my best friend my son Mike, my daughters smart wonderful people, love them, everything is almost perfect…”
I don’t need to ask the next question.
“..it’s great with 3 out of 4 of my kids, my son Mark, we don’t talk, been years, we just don’t talk.”
It’s here where, to be honest I break all the rules of journalism but uphold the rules of friendship, “…do you want me to write that about Mark.”
“Yes, it’s the truth, wish it wasn’t but it is.”
I only told my father I loved him, when he was in his grave.
When he was alive, kindness many times was out of reach, I did not hold his hand as he died, I did not sit by his bed as he died and it has ripped my soul apart, and it has cracked open the gates of hell for me, and it shames me to my core.
And because of that at the picnic table I couldn’t tell Jerry what I wanted to tell him as my lip quivered, as his lip quivered, but I can damn sure type it now.
Make peace my friend, make peace with Mark.
Learn acceptance, because I know in the darkness that haunts my heart over my father, I know that when we stand before the only person, the only hand that matters at judgment time, I know that when at those gates you are asked a question, “three out of four,” won’t be the right answer my friend.
Won’t be the right answer.
“…speaking words…”
“If you try, you can do it.” Belle McKinnis.
“My mom was so creative, she just didn’t do things like other moms.”
Many folks light up the eyes of my friend, but none more so then, Belle.
“If you can try, you can do it,” said to an 8-year-old boy growing up in the midst of a world war.
Said during a time when Man…Kind, wasn’t.
Said in the shadows of historic body counts.
Said while hell stalked earth.
“My mom believed in me db, my mom said all things were possible, she didn’t do things for me, she let me do them myself, but she instilled in me that all things are possible, possible.”
“What do you remember most about her.”
“Oh so many things, Thanksgiving dinner, wow, that was her day, her day, she would make the whole dinner and 10 or 12 pies, apple pie, I can smell her kitchen right now when I think of that.”
“What would she say now to you, what would she say to you after she reads this book?”
“Boy db, that’s a hard one, I don’t know, I don’t know, what do you think she would say, what do you think.”
“It worked.”
Belle, what you told your son worked, what in his book you tell us all, “If you try you can do it,” will work for us all.
And as I was about to ask Jerry another question a big smile broke across his face and he looked upward to the shy and said skyward, “You know what db, you know what you just made my mom very happy in heaven, you just made her very proud.”
Faith.
Love.
“…of wisdom…”
“db, I never really thought, or set out to write a book about friends, family, love, faith and dreams but you made me realize that it is what the book is about, stories of all that.”
When you write about life, and you do so honestly, that’s all any book could be about.
We live in a loud world, but it is the whispers that we need to listen to.
Jerry’s book, whispers truth.
A man who built a career on fishing, writes only of people.
I told Jerry that in time this book will become human to him, will become his best friend, and is a book he should read.
Read as an 8-year-old boy sitting in Belle’s kitchen among the apple pie and turkey giblets.
The postscript for this book is that PEOPLE, not fish, brought Jerry the American Dream, and that people will do that for you as well.
Family.
Faith.
Friendship.
Love.
IS THE AMERICAN DREAM.
And then as we were leaving I told Jerry of a dream of mine:
“This is how I’m going to end the story Jerry, when you sent me that Facebook message you mentioned Forrest, Forrest Wood and how your life changed when the two of you met, how he was a guide, how your lives have mirrored each others…”
“Yes…yep…”
“Well dude as soon as this story goes up on Bassmaster.com I’m doing this, I’m calling Forrest and come October I’m going to get in my truck and come down to your house in Arkansas and I’m going to pick you up and Forrest up and I’m going to rent a boat and put both of you back in a boat together one last time, no camera’s, no notebooks, just you two, I won’t even get in…”
And across the picnic table came a trembling hand that rested on my arm.
“Wow, I would sure love that.”
Family.
Friends.
Faith.
Dreams.
Love.
Sometimes it’s an open book.
Sometimes you have to write the book to understand.
The future will only know us by our spoken or written words, I hope the words I leave behind are as kind as the words left by my friend, Jerry.
I pray that long into the future, through books like this, those who come after us will still see us as, still know us, still call us…
…man…kind.
“…let it be.”
Let It Be
The Beatles
db
P.S.: Forrest I’ll call you tomorrow…