Looks like the perfect place from some aquatic therapy—fly fishing on the South Fork of the Snake River in Idaho.

“…most of the trouble that afflicts human beings in their lives can be traced to a failure to love.” – Barry Lopez, “Love in a Time of Terror”

If you had told me in my twenties that I would need trigger finger surgery twice in my fifties, I would have laughed at you. Honestly, I didn’t even know what trigger finger was and, at that age I was still somewhat bulletproof, at least in my mind.

These days, however, it seems like there’s a new ailment or a new surgery or procedure ever year or two. In 2022, it was trigger finger in the middle finger of my right hand. Now, my ring finger has joined the list.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not complaining. I realize how fortunate I am to have my health. However, the reality of growing older hits harder some mornings than others, like when you must use one hand to “unlock” a finger on the other hand before rolling out of bed.

Whoever said, “growing old is not for the fainthearted” was correct and, admittedly, I was warned by my elders. “One day you’ll understand,” still echoes in my mind, but some days it’s still hard to believe — or admit — that “one day” is now.

It seems that only yesterday I was sitting at my desk in high school contemplating the mysteries of the Pythagorean theorem, and today I’m in my mid-fifties contemplating the mysteries of trigger finger.

It hit me this week that what these middle-aged bones need most is a little aquatic therapy. I need to find myself, like the title of one of my favorite John Gierach books, “Standing in a River Waving a Stick.” I need to go fly fishing. Clearly, it has been way too long.

While I’m on the topic of the hard to believe, I feel led to comment on a trend that I’ve noticed a lot recently on social media. However, first let me say that if you had told me in my twenties what this platform was going to morph into — and morph us into—, I would again have laughed at you.

I’m sure, like me, you’ve seen these posts: “If you believe (fill in the blank), unfriend me!” or “If you don’t believe (fill in the blank), unfriend me!” Perhaps it’s just my feed, but these seem to pop up a lot.

These posts go to the heart of what’s wrong with social media—no eye contact. If something really matters, it needs to be handled face to face. Raising children in a time of social media, G and I always tried to stress this to Tate and Dan.

First, let me say that social media — Facebook in particular — terminology is inaccurate. We shouldn’t label people as our “friends” if we are willing to “unfriend” them so easily.

Friends are people, like the great Tracy Lawrence sings about, who come running in the middle of the night, no questions asked, when you “get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere.”

They’re also the people who will sit down and have a discussion, face to face, with you when you have a disagreement or difference of opinion. Facebook makes it easy in these instances to “unfriend” at the push of a button. That’s not friendship, so perhaps “follower” is a better term.

Furthermore, the great thing about real friendship is that you don’t always have to believe the same things to be friends, you can have differing opinions. In fact, that reality may actually enable you to grow personally.

I try to keep this column apolitical, but for the purposes of this discussion let’s say you’re a Democrat and your friend is a Republican and you both love fly fishing. Humor me.

At the end of an epic day of fishing, you sit down and talk about the fish, about the mountains and the river, eat some nachos and share a beer. Maybe the conversation turns to politics or perhaps even religion, and even if you disagree, you head back that night to a sweet riverside cabin as friends, no one is “unfriended.”

It seems that’s part of what’s wrong with our country, and the world, today. There is no longer any reaching across the aisle, no compromising. Our discourse quickly becomes bitter and divisive. Social media seems to foster this divide.

I’m reminded of a close friend in high school. At one point, our lifelong friendship drifted apart over a girl. In the end, after the girl was gone, we realized that the friendship was much more important.

We actually talked it out face to face while fishing. As I recall, we talked very little about the girl, we just fished and talked and, in the end, no one was “unfriended.”

I referenced the Barry Lopez quote at the beginning of the article as I think it goes to the heart of this matter. I believe that if our default response were love there would be far fewer problems and a lot less unfriending going on.

Until next time, here’s to seeing you out there, face to face, in our great outdoors.