We were rarely in a hurry.
Fishing in a row boat lends itself to a leisurely pace. Not that manually fighting against wind and the waves was itself a breezy effort - it was a slow, steady workout, churning up little whirlpools as we nursed the fourteen foot aluminum boat along at just the right pace to keep the trolling lures dancing behind the boat. I personally believe that the fits and starts of a fifteen year-old oar man produce a tantalizing, lifelike action in the lure that trout find irresistible.
After a morning of fishing on Anahim Lake, we nestled our little rowboat in a cove and set up a temporary lunch camp. The weather was grey and cool, so we built a fire using the abundant driftwood on the windward side of the lakeshore. My dad cooked lunch cheerfully at the portable Coleman stove, while my friend and I warmed by the orange flames, which reached up hungrily, like begging orphans.
Never in a hurry, us boys always chose the course, if not the curriculum: "Use a smaller stick," my dad instructed, "and hit pebbles, not rocks." The beach was the ultimate poor-man's training ground for baseball stars-to-be. Dad encouraged us to take a slender piece of willow, maybe an inch in diameter. Then he would set up a few feet away and toss one small pebble at a time while we took turns batting them out in to the water. "If you can consistently hit a tiny rock with a skinny stick, think how easy it will be to hit a baseball with a big old hickory club!"
But I was infested with pride. Bigger is better. I picked up a two-inch thick, four foot-long piece of driftwood and began hitting golf-ball sized rocks out in to the lake. The weight of each hefty swing felt manly, but connecting with the rocks was as sweeter still. Forget the hand-eye coordination -- bigger rocks make bigger splashes. The old guy was less than impressed, but just stood by. The mute coach.
The stamina so abundant in a teenage boy is not companioned with the wisdom of their weaker elders. I didn't feel tired, but my grip must have been weakening just a little. Finally, in as ferocious of a swing as I ever recall making, the driftwood slipped right out of my hands and hit my father at full velocity, square in the side of the head. He fell with deadweight, landing flat on his back, a corpse.
Suddenly I dropped my disdain for the older man, and fell to my knees beside him, cradling his face in my hands: "Dad! Are you okay? Dad! Dad! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Dad! Dad! Wake-up!"
I looked over at my friend, beckoning. His mother was a nurse, which made him as close to a camp doctor as we were going to get. He shrugged his shoulders.
I pondered the nearby rowboat. The labourious journey to help would be incompatible with the emergency at hand: "How will we move him without causing further damage to... the body?" What have I done?
Finally the patient stirred, opening his eyes, whispering: "What happened?" He laid there for a few minutes, gathering his wits. Then, much to my relief, he stood up and quietly shook off the blow. He never mentioned it again.
Oblivious to the discipline at hand, too many swing for the fence with their money. Not content with small victories, they hope to time the market perfectly. Maybe they heard about the guy who mortgaged his house and bought resource company shares during the market crash of 2008, then benefitted from the miraculous comeback, and now sit on a stack of capital gains.
But as fun as it might have been to watch the home run, part of the magic is in the gentle, sweetness of the swing. In fact, the home run makes the highlight reel, but the game is usually won on the more methodical plots of pitching, fielding, walks, singles and the odd double. The investor who can earn conservative returns on his portfolio and outpace inflation by a comfortable margin has done well. People won't write headlines about him. He won't brag to his friends, but he has found a sweet spot and should stick with it. Over time he will probably beat out the lottery style of investing, and his down days will be far more livable than most.
Mark Ryan is an advisor in Prince George with RBC Wealth Management, Dominion Securities, and can be reached at [email protected].
