Heaven is in Montana

Of the six brothers, Patrick is the one who most loved fishing. We others did too, but not as whole-heartedly. Our childhood home was only two short blocks from the Fox River as it flowed from southern Wisconsin through northern Illinois to eventually merge with the Mississippi. In The Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot called that legendary river “a strong brown god, sullen, untamed, intractable.” Pat and the brothers closest to him in age, Tim and I, would have agreed. From our own experiences with the Fox we would have added “dangerous” to the adjectives.

We three don’t live in Illinois any more, let alone fish for bluegills and walleyed pike in the Fox. However, for Patrick life without fishing is unthinkable, unbearable. As you see in the painting, this river in Montana is not a sullen brown god. Dangerous? Yes, they all are. Pat, miles away from any cellphone reception, is fishing for trout — brown, cutthroat and rainbow — as he has fished here every September for more than twenty years. Two days ago, he invited me and Tim to join him. Too bad; I’ll be in Spain. But Tim will fly to Montana.

Years ago I painted this image and shipped it to Pat. He politely returned it and asked that I correct a mistake. No problem, I repainted my error and sent the canvas back to him. So what was the mistake? Well, the image you see here is not the corrected version but the original, the one with the error. No one, not even Pat’s fishing buddies saw it, but Tim noticed immediately: “Our brother casts with his right hand, not his left.”