Photograph #21: Teddy “Ballgame”
Ted Williams Fishing Cabin
“Would you like to see Ted Williams fishing cabin.”
“Um, Ted Williams the baseball player or just, you know, a Ted Williams who lives around here.”
“Nope…Teddy “Ballgame,” “The Kid.”
“Let’s go.”
And within 15 minutes I was standing in the inner sanctum of Ted Williams fishing cabin.
Hanging on the wall his waders just where he left them, on his fly tying desk, a lone fly.
His cot was made, the place was in order you could almost expect to have the man walk in the door.
I have been in some famous locker rooms but this small cabin, one man’s fly fishing paradise…beats all.
Soul.
Etched.
Godspeed #9.
Photograph #22: Family…K-Pink & K2
I have to break protocol here, but since I invented this in the 1st place, I’m allowed. There are some people on the tour who have truly become family to me, to Barb, to my children. They have not etched my soul; they are my soul as much as my blood family. A hundred or so words cannot even come close to doing justice to what they mean to me so when you see the title Photograph followed by a number you will also see this: “Family” and their names. And then you will only see photographs, but those photographs will speak more truth of Family than any words I can use.
Meet my extended family…
Family…
Photograph #23: Ray Scott
Ray Scott
The Showman
To be honest I’m not sure this sport could have made it if anyone other than Ray Scott wasn’t the first to hold the microphone. Larger Than Life at home on stage.
Quick story:
I was at some Classic somewhere, not sure which one, just had breakfast with Tommy Biffle, was waiting for an elevator to take me back up to my room.
Just as I got on and the doors were about to close a hand reached in, the doors opened back up and Ray Scott walked in.
Just the two of us.
No small talk with this guy.
“Hey, did I ever tell you how I came up with the idea of Bassmaster, did it while lying in bed in a hotel room in my underwear watching television…”
Suddenly the elevator stops, doors open, it is my floor, as I start to walk out, I stop, reach back in and hold the doors open and then looking at Ray I ask this:
“One question dude…boxers or briefs…”
Then I let the doors close.
And all I hear is laughing as the elevator continues up several floors.
There you go.
R.I.P Boss.
Photograph #24: South Dakota…The Badlands
I have my entire life, I mean from since I was a child, wanted to when I grew up dig for dinosaurs…I was too young to know the name Paleontologist that’s how far it goes back.
In high school when asked my career plans by the career planning office I once again said, “Dig for dinosaurs.”
“Well Mr. Barone it is called Paleontology and from your file here it doesn’t look like you can even spell that let alone become one, that’s college and I’m afraid…”
I remember the moment when I saw the next year schedule with BASS and it listed, South Dakota.
Two words popped into my head: Badlands & Dinosaurs.
I will never forget the moment I got out of the car and stepped on the soil of where the dinosaurs once roamed.
Never.
Forget.
I was given a wonderful 700+ mile tour of South Dakota by BASS member Troy Lantz and his daughter Katy, South Dakota is one of my all-time favorite stops on the tour…
…but it was the badlands that brought a 60-something year old man right back to childhood.
A dream come true to actually stand on the bottom of what was once Cambrian Sea millions of years ago.
ETCHED
ON
MY
SOUL.
