Rick's Retrospect: Smartphones & Sticks

Len Thompson, Syd and Richard Pallister (1959)

Len Thompson was my grandpa.  He was the proverbial “good guy”, a soft spoken man who adored both the outdoors and his young, rambunctious grandsons, Syd and Richard.  After we moved to Lacombe from Abernethy, SK in 1958, we went fishing a lot, often to a trout pond or to the locally named “Burbank”, where the Blindman River runs into the Red Deer River at a 90 degree angle.  There has been a very good hole there for decades, a prime holding spot for Pike, Goldeye and Walleye, and if the stars lined up, the ultimate prize of a Brown Trout, which very occasionally wandered down from further upstream.  It was a very busy place on beautiful summer evenings. 

Grandpa was always zoned in on catching fish or experimenting with his spoons but Syd and I would lose interest in casting for fish quickly.  It was a great place to play.  The cliffs, hills and woods offered many opportunities to climb, run around, skip rocks, capture frogs & insects; all those things of great appeal to children, which have seemingly been replaced by smart phones. Regardless how fascinating computer technology is, I’m always pleased to see young families enjoying Burbank and learning the really important lessons of life.

Our computer guy David, once told me that he took his children of a similar age to that spot.  He told me that they didn’t catch anything but they’d had a great time; “the kids got to poke a dead beaver with a stick”.  You can’t duplicate that experience with any phone I’ve seen.

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Richard Pallister is the Director of Thompson-Pallister Bait Co. Ltd. He has been with the company full-time since 1974. "Rick's Retrospect" is a series of blogs where he will share his tips, tricks, opinions and stories.