Trinket Hoarding & Fishing Licenses
I’m a trinket hoarder. Figurines, collectibles, stones, antiques, junk, stickers, cards, coins, letters; if it fits roughly in the palm of my hand, and there’s a story attached, I’m very interested. Shoe boxes are the perfect storage vessels for trinkets and, at this point, I have a half-dozen filled.
While home in Maine last year, my parents and I went through some trinkets that belonged to their parents. What fun. Stories filled the room while we went through the various photos, jewelry, papers, and knickknacks, as did questions: ‘Do you know where she got this?’, ‘How old were you when they went there?’, etc.
The old letters we found were such great reminders of their senses of humor and personalities. I especially love the hand written pieces; they connect me to the author in ways that I can’t fully describe. To think that their own hand ran their own pen across this very piece of paper and now, decades later, I’m holding it and reading their words. It reminds me of a passage from Stephen King’s On Writing about what writing is: “We’re having a meeting of the minds… We’ve engaged in an act of telepathy. No mythy-mountain shit; real telepathy.” Amen.
Of the letters and notes and scribblings we uncovered was the above; my paternal grandfather’s last fishing license, issued April 6, 1973. There, written by his own hand, are his name, address, and his signature. The J and the Robbins look just like how my father writes it, which is just how I write it. I am so glad that this license exists and that I got to put it in my hand. Bless my grandmother, who saved it, and my parents, who saved it when my grandmother gave it to them.
Buying a fishing license used to be a planned-event; something to look forward to with excitement just like opening day itself. January 1st, April 1st, whatever the date licenses are available, we went to the fly shop or the town office, filled out the forms in ink and in our best hand writing, and at the end of the affair, we had - in the palm of our own hand - the legal document permitting us to angle. Storage of the license was personal and painstaking, for we surely didn’t want to lose it.
When we bought our licenses, it was a necessity to get one of those special plastic baggies in which to store the license so it wouldn’t get water-logged. Curiously, even though the baggies were stamped with Department of Fish & Wildlife, their dimensions didn’t quite seem to line up with the printed license itself; kind of like how hot dogs come in packs of eight but hot dog buns come in packs of six. There was a special way to fold the license so that it fit neatly into the plastic baggie. If you were smart, you brought last year’s baggie, with last year’s license, and you could refer to what you did a year ago. I remember when licenses came to be printed on waterproof or water-resistant paper - unbelievable!
Now, we buy our licenses online or on an app, as if we were paying a utility bill. We just input a bunch of characters and numbers - it’s all 0’s and 1’s anyway, right - and click “PAY.” How lame is that? We’re just a digital angler paying digital money for a digital receipt. I’m so sick of apps and logins, a constant cycle of ‘retrieve username’, ‘reset password’, and, inevitably ‘use a password you haven’t used before’. The forgetful nature of the login process carries over to the carrying of the license itself; the thinking being, “It’s on my phone.”
I’d like more accountability in fishing licensing. Make me go to a fly shop to buy it, and have the fly shop make some money off it. Have me fill out a form by hand and sign my name on it. Pin-prick my finger and make me put my fingerprint down in blood. Make me carry a little piece of paper with me when I’m fishing and someone, please, check it!
And at the end of the fishing season, I’ll place that fishing license in a shoe box, hope that my grandchildren look at it some day, see my signature, and think of me fishing.
