s.c.o.f

Spring 2023 issue no. 47

Graceland

Managing editor

John Agricola

Editor at large

Michael Steinberg

Creative Director & Chief of Design

Hank

Ads & Marketing Director

Samuel L. Bailey

Merchandiser

Scott M. Stevenson

Media Director

Alan Broyhill contributors:

David Grossman

Steven Seinberg

Craig Haney

The Dauphin of Mississippi

"Gecko"

John Agricola Sr.

Paul Puckett

Mike Benson

Shawn Swearingen

Dustin Schouest

Devin Davenport

Vaughn Cochran

Managing editor emeritus:

David Grossman

Creative Director emeritus:

Steven Seinberg copy editor emeritus:

Lindsey Grossman ombudsman:

Dale the Gamekeeper general inquiries and submissions: southerncultureonthefly@gmail.com advertising information: southerncultureontheflysam @gmail.com cover image:

Frank Armstrong 2023

Gone with the Wind Knot: A Meditation Against Overpowering Elements

My career path began before I was a glint in my father’s eye. It began the day my 10-year-old father got lost in the Atlanta Cyclorama. For a kid at the end of the 1950s, it must have been enthralling to see the sculptured Confederate and Union troops standing before the panorama of a painted landscape of the city of Atlanta under siege. It was formative for his later career as an artist of southern iconoclastic themes ranging from Elvis to Robert E. Lee to Martin Luther King, Jr. Then he became a real estate developer turning a family farm into a series of subdivisions. He moved away from art. As I grew older, he wanted me to do something I was passionate about, like art had been for him. But I didn’t know what I was passionate about, so I too tried art, becoming, for a short while, a curator of a small private museum.

Then he took me to the Grand Bahamas, and got my Alabama ass hooked on faraway bonefish. I have an addictive personality, so, with most things, if ever given the opportunity I would do it again, no matter what. I imagine my pursuit of fish to be sort of like the ayahuasca-based drug DMT, where you seek God in the middle of the trip, bonefishing can be just as revelatory. While mind-altering drug trips and world-bending consciousness expansion can only take a person so far, grappling with nature and her environs head-on can take you much further. From the memories of large groups of bonefish encircling themselves in a chasm of daisy chain to the many trips later building the skills up to chase the solitary hunters, I have never caught that double digit bone, or been certain of God’s presence. They are both wrapped in mystery. But someday my ultimate high will be reached. If I can stay in it long enough to get another opportunity. Hell, maybe a permit even… The great distance and expense of bonefishing led to my preoccupation with local Alabama carp. The carp flats experience was so similar that I began losing myself in the imaginative world of a guide’s mind. Soon I was scribbling those ideas in a journal that led me to bang out my experiences on a blog, and as a freelancer for some hip fly fishing lifestyle magazines. But fishing tales are never just about fishing. Once, I wrote a story about taking my girlfriend on a combo trip to Bozeman, Mont. I was there to get certified as a casting instructor, and brought her as a serious step in our relationship. It was a “who are you” trip that amorously morphed into conceiving our first child. We argued most of the trip, and after a sad Outback Steakhouse dinner alone (on my birthday), something changed between me and her. I gave up on trying to certify myself as a casting instructor. I was overpowering my forward cast and causing a tailing loop anyway, so I had already failed the test, and I gave in. I vowed to become a high school teacher, and put childish dreams of pro fisherman aside. “I could be a pro writer though,” I thought. I could write as a side hustle. Then one day my cast instantly improved once I fixed the twoinch creep and the overpowering press of the thumb. Funny how such a small problem can destroy your confidence, knock you off track from chasing your dreams. And at the same time, maybe help you discover them.

Fair notice bonefish. I am still coming for ya! And you can bet your ass I’m going to write about it.