WRideout
12-29-2016, 07:04 AM
Love your enemy
Matthew 5:44
The striper run had begun up the Sacramento River, and the fish had made it as far as Yuba City, in the northern Central Valley of California. The sand bar I stood on had a few other fishermen, mostly older locals who watched their lines from lawn chairs set up near their propped-up poles. We were already past the time of the cottonwood bloom, which signaled the start of the shad run, and now as we approached summer, the stripers, as well as the sturgeon, were moving up from San Francisco Bay to spawn in the frigid river. I rigged up my tackle with a large chunk of sardine and a half-pound of lead, pitched it into the racing current, and propped the surf rod into its holder, stuck in the sand. I stood, silently sipping coffee from a thermos while watching intently for the telltale movement of the nylon line that indicated a bite.
I was lost in reverie when a voice behind me asked, “You catch anything today?” I turned to see an older man in jeans and blue shirt behind me. He did not have a pole in his hands and it was obvious he was just checking out the action. “Nothing yet, I just got here,” I replied. We traded a little more small talk during which I alluded to the fact that I was a college student from Chico State, using my GI bill stipend. “I was in the army,” he said. “WWII; I was in the engineers.” Then he added quickly, “But I never killed a man.” He told about going into Germany, then staying in the occupation forces after VE day. He said they had built a prison camp for former SS soldiers whom he described as “tough SOBs.”
“One day I just wanted something to do, so I borrowed a jeep, took my M1, and went off to the woods. I bagged three deer out of those woods, but I couldn’t really take them back, so I went looking for someone to give them to. I found a farmhouse where an old couple lived. They had nothing, so I gave them the deer. The old man just looked at me with tears running down his face and said ‘Danke, danke’ over and over. That man was no enemy of mine.”
We talked for a few more minutes; then the war veteran walked farther down the sand bar, and queried the other fishermen along the way. I stayed a few more hours but the fishing was off that day, and eventually I gave up, packed my gear, and drove the hour or so upriver to Chico, past green flooded fields of rice, and well-tended farmhouses. So ended my meeting with one of the most Christian men I have ever known.
Wayne
Matthew 5:44
The striper run had begun up the Sacramento River, and the fish had made it as far as Yuba City, in the northern Central Valley of California. The sand bar I stood on had a few other fishermen, mostly older locals who watched their lines from lawn chairs set up near their propped-up poles. We were already past the time of the cottonwood bloom, which signaled the start of the shad run, and now as we approached summer, the stripers, as well as the sturgeon, were moving up from San Francisco Bay to spawn in the frigid river. I rigged up my tackle with a large chunk of sardine and a half-pound of lead, pitched it into the racing current, and propped the surf rod into its holder, stuck in the sand. I stood, silently sipping coffee from a thermos while watching intently for the telltale movement of the nylon line that indicated a bite.
I was lost in reverie when a voice behind me asked, “You catch anything today?” I turned to see an older man in jeans and blue shirt behind me. He did not have a pole in his hands and it was obvious he was just checking out the action. “Nothing yet, I just got here,” I replied. We traded a little more small talk during which I alluded to the fact that I was a college student from Chico State, using my GI bill stipend. “I was in the army,” he said. “WWII; I was in the engineers.” Then he added quickly, “But I never killed a man.” He told about going into Germany, then staying in the occupation forces after VE day. He said they had built a prison camp for former SS soldiers whom he described as “tough SOBs.”
“One day I just wanted something to do, so I borrowed a jeep, took my M1, and went off to the woods. I bagged three deer out of those woods, but I couldn’t really take them back, so I went looking for someone to give them to. I found a farmhouse where an old couple lived. They had nothing, so I gave them the deer. The old man just looked at me with tears running down his face and said ‘Danke, danke’ over and over. That man was no enemy of mine.”
We talked for a few more minutes; then the war veteran walked farther down the sand bar, and queried the other fishermen along the way. I stayed a few more hours but the fishing was off that day, and eventually I gave up, packed my gear, and drove the hour or so upriver to Chico, past green flooded fields of rice, and well-tended farmhouses. So ended my meeting with one of the most Christian men I have ever known.
Wayne