Keys

By Jeff Zillich

Anyone who’s ever lived in modern society knows keys can be an important possession to hang onto while attempting to navigate our way through this world on a daily basis. We all use them, a small item we don’t think much about, but as life tends to remind us, we often never know just how important something is until its gone.

My keys hang safely in the same spot in our home on a daily basis. A structured routine exists upon entrance of our home to ensure I don’t spend half my life looking for the damn things. That process is in place due to the many occasions over the years of not being able to find them, teaching me just how much it can suck not being able to find your keys.

Prior to having a set of car keys to call my own, I was a freshman in high school and stuck in the lunch room at said high school on a daily basis, more often than not, eating my home-made lunch. I wasn’t the only freshman stuck in the lunch room on a daily basis. “Hey Fruit Boy!” Steve would often yell across the room. I would look up to see him laughing his ass off. The dude was a yoked 6’6” 230 as a frosh in HS, what do you say to that? “Hey Steve, can I interest you in a delicious apple, maybe an orange?”…Steve (Rickel) and I became great friends, who spent plenty of time on the snow blanketed slopes of Southeastern Washington, on the Snake River, etc, with our shared friend Cassidy. Cassidy was Rickel’s best friend growing up. Cassidy shared in the same reality I did, which was there wasn’t much you could say to Steve when he gave you shit, as Cassidy was a wiry framed dude himself at the time, only Cass was fortunate enough not to bring fruit in his lunch on a daily basis. Cass and I quickly bonded over that reality, but more so over the shared interest of snow skiing, a love for the outdoors and navigating the reality of this new place in life we called high school. I’ve considered Cassidy my best friend for the past 20+ years. He served as the best man in my wedding and our families, along with the Mazowieski tribe, led by Maz, are like a family, despite having the Country pinned across the map with regards to where we all live at the moment. So when I reached that critical juncture in life where I had my own set of car keys, even back then, it was clear the Northwest had turned into nothing more than Cassidy and I’s own outdoor playground, with Kennewick, WA serving as nothing more than a home base. As you may have seen from previous writings, I grew up fishing, dry fly fishing. My Dad took me to Wallowa County in Northeastern Oregon on more fishing and camping trips than I can count. So when Cassidy said he wanted to go fly fishing and we set out to go on our latest adventure, there was only one place I had in mind: the Wallowa River, and specifically the area in which the Lostine River dumps into the Wallowa. An area that even Bob Ross, instructed by God himself, wouldn’t be able to capture the full extent of its beauty in a painting. We decided to make a day trip out of it, and given how far we were going, my mother let us use her new 1999 Toyota Camry, which had a higher chance of successfully making the trip there and back than my beige 1989 Mazda B2000 pickup, or Cassidy’s Plymouth Arrow, which was technically a truck, but just know that he’d later own a pair of skis in high school with a street value higher than that Arrow, a truck that needed a screw driver to open the glove box (a story for a later time).

Just prior to lunch one day, we proceeded to load up my mom’s new shiny gold Camry with two fly rods and all my fishing gear. My mother has her shit together, as she had learned the life lesson about keys much earlier than I had. We always had spares of everything stashed away throughout our house. 3 copies of anything essential. Rings hung on the kitchen wall for all our keys. My father on the other hand, at the ripe age of 76, is still in the process of learning life’s lessons about keys, which is likely due to my grandmother’s ability to lose her keys more than actually use them, but again, stories for another time. Mom proceeded to hand me the spare set of Camry keys, as Cassidy consumed the Sandwich my mother made for him and politely insisted he eat (you could never stop at the Zillich house without Kendyl making you a sandwich, with some fresh fruit often accompanying those cold turkey sandwiches). Turkey, cut off the breast, store bought wheat bread, iceberg lettuce, your choice of Miracle Whip or Margarine, and Colby Jack cheese cut off the block. That was Mom’s go to sandwich. No offense Mom, as it provided much needed sustenance for Cass and the rest of us, but discovering Mayonnaise and the host of other items that can go on a sandwich at the age of 18 was an eye opening experience.

Cass and I proceeded to make the 3 hour trip down to Wallowa County. The plan was to fish the late afternoon and evening hatch before returning home that night. After you drive through the small town of Wallowa, OR, on your way to Joseph, OR, there’s a public fishing turnout just off the freeway a few miles outside of town. You pull off the freeway to the left into a gravel area that can’t be more than 30 paces by 30 paces wide, park and then you can head up stream of the Wallowa River. It’s just far enough downstream from where the Lostine dumps into the Wallowa that you can get a good afternoon/evening of fishing in as you work your way up to the mouth of the Lostine. We hopped out of the car and I began putting on my waders, followed by my wading shoes, swiveled my vest around my left shoulder and into place. The last step prior to heading up stream was locking the car and placing my keys in the lower left pocket of the inside of my vest. There was only one other car in the turnout at the time, which was one too many as far as I was concerned, but there was one car nonetheless.

We started out fishing somewhat together, a mere 30-40 yards up stream. That didn’t last long as I’m one to think fly fishing isn’t really meant to be done standing next to someone, “I’m gonna head up stream a bit, this is all good water, but I’ll head into the woods and pop out a ways up, and you can work your way up” I told Cassidy as I darted off into the trees, quickly losing sight of Cassidy attempting to get his line out of a tree. As I headed out, I passed a man and his son headed back down stream. A cordial exchange proceeded as we discussed the river and how their day had gone. Perfect, I thought, now I know they’ll be no one up river.

We proceeded to fish the afternoon. I would see glimpses of Cassidy downstream throughout the day, a quick reminder it was time to head farther upstream, as there was always another good fishing hole to get to. I knew the river well, and ultimately knew where I was headed, which was one of my favorite places in the world to fish and it was getting close to the primo fishing time of the day. Set against the beauty I previously described, the sun was slowly making its way to its eventual landing spot behind the mountains. In farm country nestled in a hole below the Eagle Cap Wilderness, the Wallowa River, just after the Lostine dumps into it, with cat tails along the bank, protruding out over the river, slow ripples fade into a calm stretch. It’s the perfect spot to tie on a big hopper and go to it. That was where I would fish the best part of the day. When you get in that moment, like any man who has ever really fished will tell you, there is never enough time, and it always seems to fly by. Eventually, you’ll tell yourself it’s time to quit, and think, one more cast, but keep right on fishing, as one more cast, turns into a hundred more casts. That night at dusk was no different. It had now reached the point where I was debating whether or not I could see well enough to tie on another fly, when I hear this faint “Jeffffff” in the distance. That could only be one person. He sounds alright, wonder what he needs, I thought. I kept fishing and that hollering got a touch louder as Cassidy must have made his way a bit farther upstream. Eventually that yelling stop and I continued along with my one more cast routine. By now it was pretty dark out and I figured I better make the trip back downstream or it would get to the point where it would be wiser to wait until it was dark, as the moon would provide better light for my return trip than the transition from light to darkness would.

I meandered back down stream and arrived to find Cassidy waiting at the gravel turn out area. “Where’d you go man?” Cass asked, as if to imply something went wrong. “I told you I was going up stream,” I replied, as I proceeded to enlighten Cassidy about what darkness really was when it came to fly fishing. It isn’t dark until you’ve one more casted at least a hundred times. I proceeded to take my wading shoes off, successfully achieving that great feeling of the pressure release upon slipping them off, a reminder you just had a long day fishing, similar to that feeling after a long day of skiing, as you peel your ski boots off your feet. As I took my waders off, I tried the door handle on the Camry to grab my tennis shoes inside. Oh yeah, I locked the car. I grabbed my vest and reached for the zipper on the lower left inside pocket. The zipper was open. Uh oh, I know that’s where I put the keys. That pocket was as empty as a politician’s promises. By now, it was pitch black. I began to search all around that gravel turnout with Cassidy, who was now filled with a new sense of pride as he was the one smart enough to bring a small flashlight, as I hadn’t. This wasn’t exactly the most traveled road in Oregon, as I think only one car had passed in the half hour or more we searched far and wide for those keys. So, as we were locked out, with no cell phone between the two of us, 3 hours from home, not enough money between the both of us for a locksmith, we began accepting our fate of walking back into town without really knowing our next step. As we turned to walk out of the gravel turnout, one last flash of Cassidy’s flashlight hit that gold Camry and an unnatural glisten appeared from under the driver’s side windshield wiper. Keys. Our keys. Howls of excitement ensued, ones that could only be matched by a wolf, along with much laughter as I grabbed the keys. We loaded the gear into the car and now had something to contemplate on our trip home. “It had to have been that guy and his son, I wonder where you lost them…’what if we had left with the keys still on the windshield?’…’I still can’t believe that’…etc” was the talk as we made the drive home.

I arrived home and after unloading the gear, proceeded to hang that spare set of Camry keys safely on the hook in our kitchen as my mother asked, “How was it? You have fun?” “Awesome,” I replied, with a not a mention of those keys….

Even as I write this story 20+ years later, for me, the real conclusion is there isn’t any life lesson about keys, as they’re just another item in our daily lives that facilitate the things that really matter, a means to an end, which in all reality is what all possessions really are, items that help facilitate what we cherish most, the memories and good times with those we consider family and friends. That day, a day of fishing with a friend that turned into a dusk, sunset and early night looking for a spare set of 1999 Toyota Camry keys, is now just a distant memory in the long list of good times I’ve shared with my friends, but I can’t help but think about how that story would be different today. GPS, doors that unlock with your phone, Onstar starting our vehicles, a cell phone in every hand, many of us never really wandering until we’re lost, and I’m thankful I got that life experience before all those things came to be. To quote Henry David Thoreau, “Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” I don’t remember how many fish I caught that day, or how much luck Cass had either, nor do I remember what all was spoken, but I’ll never forget the experience I had and the story I now get to tell because of it, which in turn, is what fishing is really all about: the experience, that, and learning to always zip up the pockets on your vest. ~