There's no need for a fancy introduction to Michael Marlow's letter, sent to me Tuesday night.
The man has a way with words, and I'll let him tell his story about the loss of his best fishing buddy. Maybe someone out there can help.
Hello Candy:
My 34-year-old, 16-foot Lincoln canoe--a Waldeboro, Maine, classic and the only canoe I have ever owned--was stolen sometime in the past few weeks from the boat launch at Prettyboy Reservoir, where it was chained to the communal fence with all the other canoes and a hodge-podge of jon boats. The villain, or I suspect villains, used a bolt cutter to commit the crime.
I should have known better. But my decision to keep the canoe at Prettyboy rather than secured in my garage was to let many of my canoeing and fishing friends have access to this old war horse whenever the mood struck. About a handful had the lock's combination, and now we are all in mourning.
This was more than just a canoe. My father and I bought this gleaming dark green beauty from the Spring River Corp. in Ellicott City on Aug. 14, 1976 for $321. A pair of beaver-tail paddles cost us $29.70. My dad, then 58, wanted to be reminded of his days as a boy in the Adirondacks. He also wanted adventure with me. Sadly, he died only four years later. But the canoe was just beginning its adventures.
Over the next 30 years, that Lincoln, with its name "Leviathan" emblazoned on the bow, helped me catch bass in Maine's Third Machias Lake and brook trout in ponds at the base of Mount Katahdin. It spent a few years in Montana, leading me to rainbows in the treacherous Missouri River. When I lived in Austin, Texas, we fished the Highland Lakes over and over again, and back home in Maryland, we explored the rivers of the Eastern Shore for pickerel and bass. Then, too, there were all those wonderful sunrises and sunsets that only fishermen in canoes can understand. I owe them all to my Lincoln.
That scarred-up and faded canoe, with its patchwork of Prettyboy permit stickers smeared all over its bow, was my trustworthy fishing buddy for most of my adult life, and now it's gone. It wouldn't be so bad if it had suddenly filled with water and drifted peacefully to the bottom of some bay. But it's now in the hands of someone who has no knowledge of its journeys or appreciation of its spirit, and that is maddening.
The attached photo shows my neighbor Chris Wilk's 5-year-old son, Riley, holding the last fish ever caught--under my watch--in Leviathan. That's me in the background.
I'm going to miss that canoe. I'm going to miss it a lot.
Michael Marlow
4614 Keswick Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21210
410-467-1134