North Texas is a heck of a place when it comes to weather, and today was no exception.

I was driving a friend I know down to the Sixth Floor Museum in Downtown Dallas yesterday, and we were about three-fourths of the way there when we were slowed to a blinding crawl, and finally as hail was pelting the car, a near stop.

This isn’t even a reach, there’s no fly fishing in this story. Instead it’s a glimpse into history, the darkest history of Dallas, Texas – November 22, 1963.

I’ve known Jerry for about ten years, and he comes from a time when I ate, slept, drank and lived (and sold a lot of) photography. Stories are something Jerry has in great supply, and one is about that day in Dallas.

Jerry is on the bottom right of this photograph in the museum, and of course on right today.

Jerry was a twelve-year-old at the time, and he is one of the last few thousand people who saw John F. Kennedy alive that day. Jerry was at Love Field when the planes with the JFK entourage took the quick hop from Dallas to Fort Worth that day. His parents, realizing his admiration for JFK, took him out of school and with the help of a pilot friend, was able to get up against the fence, and eventually watch JFK’s motorcade pass only a few feet away from the fence, close enough for a “high five.” Of course, “high fives” weren’t even invented yet.

I had contacted the Museum about recording Jerry’s recollections, and last year Jerry was invited to tell his oral story, on video, to add to the oral history archives at the School Book Museum, and with the extremely thorough and thoughtful questioning, an entire hour of history was captured in the interview.

Now, at sixty-years-old and almost fifty years later, the event still evoked emotional moments, and one of those youths of that day is still left to wonder out loud, “What would have happened if he had lived?”

After he finished the interview, we took a tour of the museum, and were surprised to see that it was packed on a Wednesday. We were surprised to find out that the School Book Depository is the number two attraction in Texas, only surpassed by The Alamo, in San Antonio.

It’s difficult not to wonder how things would have been different had John F. Kennedy lived when I dropped Jerry off at his car. Jerry’s car has been his home for nearly two years now.

NOTE – There were many languages overheard in the museum today, and I was pleasantly surprised at the thoroughness and detail, both historical and to my own taste macabre. There are white “X’s” painted on the street below, where each bullet hit its mark, and we could see it all so clearly as the clouds broke and the sun came out.

Whether it matters or not, there is another side of this infini-tagonal (like the new geometry?) life, and it’s wrapped ever so loosely inside a silver aluminum wrapper. Even before fly fishing came Airstream trailers. Actually way before fly fishing, came Airstream trailers.

Doorway to the future? A Vintage Airstream Safari at 23-feet.

If you spied that bald guy with the little kid in the top right banner photo, well, I’m not the bald guy. He’s my Grandpa, and he just loved, loved Airstreams. We would be traveling out west, and I’m about the age of that little kid in the picture, and my Grandma would get so mad when he would wake me up from a deep car sleep with, “Hey look at that Airstream! You know they’re perfectly balanced. And they don’t rust, and you never have to paint ‘em.” Looking back, maybe he was a little obsessive about Airstreams because he did that every time he saw one. Every time.

He could have had one, but somehow he never did. Grandpa was certainly on my mind when, about six years ago, I saw the chance to take a 1970 Airstream Safari ’23 off the hands of a legendary Dallas photographer, and friend of mine – John Tilley. The glint of aluminum in our eyes led to mechanical blindness. John is still considered a friend, wherever that Englishman is, but that’s only where this saga begins.

There’s no need to bore fly fishers with the details of how the Airstream, now named “Tilley” came to be stationary in our driveway for going on six years now, but let’s say it’s like fly fishing in reverse. In fly fishing, we build up gear a piece at a time, like Jenga in reverse. For Tilley, I tore it apart like pealing an onion with no end. There it sat, and sits for a little while longer. I will skip the economic explanations as to why this has become a saga, but let’s just say if someone on the in-law side wants to poke a stick in my eye, it starts with, “So how’s that Airstream going?” Insert blade, and twist.

Just one Bambi sized example of the Airstream Trailers at A&P Vintage Trailer Works, Inc., near Paradise, Texas.

Well, it’s about to be going good, and that’s because we finally found folks with the knowledge to bring it the rest of the way home, and finish the restoration journey. With ultimatum and financial backing firmly in her hand, my wife said it was time … time to get it done or get it gone. And that’s how I found Ann and Paul near a Texas town called Paradise. Does it get any better? Yes, it will, but that’s a great start in – Paradise.

THE DANCE

Now the only way I can justify a significant deviation into the Airstream World, from this the fly fishing world, is to explain to my fellow fly fishers my vision of how these two obsessions eventually get together for a Demon’s Tango.

George H.W. Bush coined a term sheerly by accident, but forever, when he mentioned, “…that vision thing,” and maybe what I see is one like his, but what I think I see is a time in the near future when the Airstream functions as nothing less than an escape pod (yes they were used on NASA launch pads), home away from hell home, and get this – as a guide’s outpost somewhere … out there.

The flip side, and there’s always a flip side, is that Leslie’s business, Cimarrona, is at it’s current core, a cold weather business. Guess what? Texas is hardly cold anymore. So along with putting wheels on the guiding, we are going to put wheels on Cimarrona, hitch up to the newly acquired tow vehicle and we’re gone. Who knows what trouble we’ll get ourselves into? Who knows what fish I’ll get myself into?

Stick around, and you’ll know.

NOTE – You can always read more about the Airstream at www.airstreamdiary.com, and I imagine the path of fly fishing and Tilley will cross a few more times. I hope you will enjoy this adventure as much as you are enjoying the adventures in fly fishing.

Once we get Tilley buttoned up, it’s going to A&P Vintage Trailer Works, Inc., and Ann and Paul have graciously allowed us to do much of the work on the trailer on their premises, under their supervision.

Inside Tilley, and getting ready for the “Full Monty.”

I have known for a little while that my guru, Joel Hays, was about to take the final plunge into the riptide of parenthood, and hang up his red-mud-stained flats boots. That day finally came today.

Joel is my drug dealer, and it seems like only yesterday he dealt me the addiction to fly fishing. His depth of knowledge, from the Colorado high mountain small streams, down to the steaming flats of summer at Ray Roberts, all were part of his repertoire. And I still get some new nugget every time we talk fly fishing, and all that information and knowledge will continue to be used on into the future.

Don’t get me wrong; Joel would talk me into bad things too, like this new obsession he has with me owning a flats boat of some kind – supposedly for poling clients in freshwater shallows for carp. It sounds romantic as hell, but I found the perfect woman and I want to keep her.

There may be something of a vacuum as one prominent flats carp guide takes an extended breather to raise a couple of fantastic boys, but I’m here to tell you, fifteen years goes by in the blink of an eye.

Caps off, a clink of the steins, and down one of Joel’s favorite brews, all to say THANK YOU from me, and those of us you have shared your knowledge and passion in this world of fly fishing. Just look what you’ve done!

You can read Joel’s post by going to www.dfwflyfishing.com, and comments are appreciated. And if you see a guy on this site, from time to time, with a BUFF to hide his face, it’s a pretty safe guess as to his real identity.