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The Jungle

Started by otter, October 31, 2012, 01:54:30 PM

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otter

The Jungle

Tears streamed down the young boys face as he watched the car and boat trailer pull out onto the main road, the grinning faces of his older brothers as they peered back at him .  Mammmmmmy, "I want to go with them, it is not fair".   It is hard for a seven year old , so used to getting his own way, hard to understand why he cannot do what the older siblings do, after all he was now seven and well capable of looking after himself. Mammy had been there before and consoled the now whimpering child, "when you are eight son, when you are eight."

Young Otter sought solitude in the jungle, a narrow band of wasteland, sandwiched in between the Post Office and the field that ran behind his house.  The old wall , its numerous notches, smooth  from the many hands and feet that had over the years  found hand and footholds in the crevices. It was just about possible for a seven year old to climb up to the Jungle. To an adult the Jungle was full of potential dangers, trees, nettles, rocks and numerous other possibilities for getting hurt. To young Otter it was a canvas where adventures were only limited by the ever growing boundaries of his imagination. Today, there were no Indians about, no cattle rustlers to shoot, no sheriffs to avoid; today there was  no fun in being Jesse James.

Otter was alone, his nose damp from the still flowing tears. Sitting against the stony wall, wiping his nose, the world seemed a very cruel place and he could only imagine the fun of being on the boat as it left the pier heading out into the vastness of the bay.  In one corner of the Jungle grew some bamboo like plants, their existence probably responsible for the name given to the place by some now, very much  grown up children.

An idea formed  and soon Otter was racing into his fathers shed seeking some string. A few yards of thin blue baling twine was located between some bits of timber and it took some time to unravel.  Once free he whistled and his eyes lit up when he spotted a rusty two inch nail on the floor and it too was secured and put in the pocket of his short trousers.

Armed, he quickly returned to the Jungle. Carefully selecting one of the bamboo like plants some three feet tall he grinned, as he sawed at it with a broken piece of slate. It was hard work but soon the sinewy threads frayed and the plant yielded. Ripping off the leaves and side shoots Otter surveyed what would be his fishing rod, he balanced it in his right hand and forgetting its purpose he threw it at the wall thinking it would be a fine spear, a spear good enough to kill a lion.  Picking it up again he held it by the butt and felt its springiness as he whooshed it back and forth, it felt just as good as his father's rods that he was occasionally allowed to hold.

How much time and heartache would be saved any young boy had he been taught some knots at an early age. Otter struggled to tie the twine to the tip of his fishing rod, each time it looked perfect but a sharp tug and it would come away. Double knots, treble knots, even quadruple ones, it did not matter , one tug, gone. Pondering this immense problem took time but time is the gift of youth and eventually a solution was found. Otter cut some two inch lengths of string and then tied the main length of twine to the top of the bamboo, the knot being two inches down. Taking the small pieces he bound these over the main line and rod tip and grinned when it held firm after five tugs. Reaching down to his holster, he quickly drew his six shooter, spun around and fired a few shots at a nearby tree, hooting in triumph, " take some lead Mr Tree".

Next he got to work on the rusty nail, laid it on a rock, half on, half off.  Locating a tennis ball sized stone, he held the nail and struck the free end, ouch,  it stung like hell as the head of the nail bit into the hand holding it. I bet you have been there or at least somewhere similar.  As he waited for the throbbing hand to recover he contemplated the latest dilemma. Were he seven to-day he would probably have raced indoors and got his mother to google a solution but google was light years away so he had to rely on old fashioned trial and error. Otter did the obvious, he placed a stick over the nail and tried again, the stick lifted after impact and the nail flew up in the air. Next attempt was placing another stone on top of the nail, almost worked and he knew he was tantalisingly close but even after a dozen attempts,  the nail  lay straight and true. He knew he needed something to hold his fledgling hook steady and the Jungle despite its many secrets did not hold an answer but just maybe, his fathers shed might.

Back down the wall and into the dim shed, relying on shafts of light from the gaps in the old slates. The workbench had various items but the only one that he knew anything about was the hammer. Then it dawned, eureka as is said, the old metal thing that was attached to the front of the bench. He had seen his father using it for making weights for sea fishing. He would hammer on the ends of a pipe until it closed in and then placed it in the jaws of the thing to hold it while he poured in some liquid lead stuff. Otter twisted the handle and soon understood the mechanics of it. He placed the nail between the jaws and twisted the handle until the nail was held firm then taking the hammer and with a loud grunt he hit the nail with all the force he could muster. He may as well have invented the wheel for when he looked the rusty old nail had a decided bend, and boy was he proud of himself. Three more smacks and for all the world it could, with a wee bit of imagination be considered of the genus Hook. A few more shafts of light appeared through the roof as he placed his six gun back in the holster and raced back to the Jungle, his new hook firmly in his pocket.

A single knot was tied onto the hook and though well pleased, something was missing, he needed a feather, like the ones his father used on the mackerel flies.  The Jungle was as every jungle is, a home for cats and this jungles cat regularly had success and a carcass of some poor small bird was always to be found. Hard to say what the bird was in life but a few feathers lay beside its carcass. Otter poked one away from the grisly remains with a stick and returned to his engineering workshop beside the tree. He shoved the feather into the knot and tightened hard and whelped with delight.  Job was done.  Now every hooting tooting hornery hombre knows that to shoot your six gun you need a target and to fish you need something to catch. A cat would be fun but they were too quick and none were in the jungle at the moment.  Tin cans were good targets for a bow and arrow and the Jungle was littered with several in various condition of rusty splendour. Otter gathered up three of the finest ones and laid them side by side at the base of an ash tree. It was the only tree with braches low enough to climb.

Perched on the lowest branch, rod in hand Otter swung his bamboo rod backwards and made his first cast. The nail-fly lifted and darted forward right into the back of his head almost knocking him from his perch. It was his first mistimed cast and though he did not know it, many more would follow over the next forty years and each one would remind him of the very first.

Lesson learned, the next cast was less powerful and away from his young head. The nail-fly darted towards the target and dropped missing by inches. It took about fifty casts to get one to drop into a tin and slowly the rod was raised, the nail-fly catching the lip. Lifting quickly, the tin moved but the hook hold was not good and the tin escaped capture. Otter dropped from the tree and did some engineering work on the tin, angling the half sheared lid downwards. Next successful cast seen the hook hold firm and the tin was triumphantly brought to hand.

Cast after cast, tin after tin, soon young Otter was a mighty good fisherman and when his father's car and boat trailer trundled up the drive,  Otter raced over to show him his new rod and fly and demonstrated how to catch a tin. 

His father smiled knowingly, "Son, it is not just  the tin that has been hooked to-day"

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