More About Fashion (Is This Really a Fly Fishing Travel Blog?)

I’ve circled around the topic of fly fishing in my blog recently, but my life is a little complicated.  I’ve been in the Memphis area the past week, helping out my parents – no time for fly fishing just now.  But there is time, sitting around my folks’ house much of the day, to refine plans and preparations for my long trip commencing in late May.  I’ve also been thinking more about the subject I covered in yesterday's post – the meaning of one’s personal fashion style.

Yesterday I mentioned how I was advised long ago to dress like the person I aspired to be.  Today I wonder whether that advice still applies to me.  If it does, I need to study old episodes of Walkers Cay Chronicles, because I aspire to be like Flip Pallot.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Flip, he’s one of the most famous and respected masters of saltwater fly fishing, and an accomplished author and freshwater fly fisherman as well.  For over two decades he has hosted a variety of television fishing shows including, most famously, Walkers Cay Chronicles.  I don’t know him personally.  I shook hands with him once at a fly fishing show in southern California – I’m certain he has zero recollection of that.  A few years later I spotted him sitting in the Philadelphia airport with his wife, Diane.  I thought about approaching him and considered what I would say.  The first thing that came to mind was something like, “Dude, I am so in awe of you!  You’re my hero!”  I was embarrassed for myself and decided not to bother him, but have speculated many times since then what kind of conversation would have transpired if I had blurted out my worshipful sentiments.  I’ll never know, but I still have an opportunity to dress like Flip, and I’m almost there.  My beard is gray and full like Flip’s, and I own several of the requisite fishing shirts.  I may soon break down and buy a Yeti, which is a brand of cooler Flip advertises.  According to Flip, I’ll never have to buy another cooler in my life, and I believe it.

On the subject of hero worship, I once made an actual declaration to the artist/sculptor Harry Jackson very much like the one I contemplated making to Flip Pallot in the Philly airport.  It happened in the Cowboy Bar in Meeteetse, Wyoming, so there’s a good chance my normal inhibitions were diminished by alcohol.  The effervescent sentiments I expressed to Harry were over the top, but I must have stroked his powerful ego.  Apparently he was quite pleased with the praise, a result that reminded me not to underestimate the power of flattery.  The first time I saw him, he was almost a ringer for Buffalo Bill Cody, sporting long pale hair and a beard, a fringed leather jacket and an oversized brass belt buckle.  I love that look, although I’m not quite ready to go there myself.   Sadly, Harry Jackson just died yesterday.  The world lost one of its true characters.  I only met him a few times, but he made an indelible impression on me.  If I owned a six-gun, I’d shoot it in the air a few times to salute the life of Harry Jackson.  I think he’d like that.

As for Flip Pallot, maybe I’ll get another chance to speak with him some day.  I’ll be sure to ask him for some fashion tips.