To Dad, Story Master of My World

My six-year-old body lay stretched across the hot rubber side tube of the raft. It was in that moment,cradled by the sweet breeze, warm sunlight, and low hum of the rapids behind us that Dad began his story, “When I was younger I once counted every rock in this river larger than a man’s fist...” My eyes grew wide as I turned my head towards the mounds of rocks heaped along the shoreline. I imagined all the dark wet hidden rocks, at the bottom of the river—Protectors of the crawfish kings, touched solely by the reverent kisses of passing rainbow trout. And then the rocks beneath those, entombed in thick mud, wrapped in leafy robes from many golden falls ago. I imagined my Dad’s strong, callused hands gripped around every last one of them. At the time it seemed perfectly logical. Only my dad could hold an entire river bed in his hands. Only my dad could count past a million. In nature with my father, my passion for stories ignited—stories conceived in dreams, memories, reality, or some fusion of the three. Factuality was always the least important detail. And when it came to my father, I embraced the truths with the half-truths and the myths because they filled my world with infinite wonder just the same. And as I move through the years of my life it becomes ever clearer to me that counting every rock in the river is one of the least impressive feats my Dad has (or hasn't) accomplished. Happy Father’s Day to the man who can achieve anything. Your greatest stories are downriver...