Founding Father

Jody Founding Father

 

I write this with a very heavy heart.  Today I lost one of my best friends, brother-in-law and lifetime fishing partner.  Jody slipped into Gods hands today, and I know that he is at peace.  

My wife Mary and I were there to wish him well, but we never said goodbye.  Goodbye is forever; we told him we would see him on the other side. 

I know that he heard me, and Mary.  I also had my son talk to him on speaker phone.   Ted and Jody had a long-standing difference of opinion on physical health and exercise, they had their stances, but I knew that some of what Teddy said to him got through over the years. Ted was in after my sister Elyn passed and took pictures of everyone.  He and Jody still went at it and it was fun to watch the zingers they still had for each other, and for that I am glad.

I will always remember the exhilaration he got from planning our annual fishing trips.  From the amount of money, each one of us would have to pay to, what was going to be different on the menu this year.  He loved planning the trip, as much as the trip itself. 

Jody experienced some setbacks in health in the later years, but the trip was always a motivating factor, to rally and make one more year.  And the last year for him was a great year. We always hold a fishing contest, and although Jody was on our team, he fished with John and Vince on the “Piggy Bank”.  “He would always tell me, you need to fish with these guys, they are a blast”, but I never did, I always wanted him to have that time to catch up with his son, and with Vince's family.   I am sure he would spew his “fatherly advice”, but I know deep in his heart, he treasured every second on that boat with his son and Vince.  I know this because, even when he wasn’t feeling that well, he would never tell them to bring him back to the cottage, he would endure, just to spend that extra minute with them.

Our Friendship goes back a long time.  Carl, Joe, Jody and I have been friends for a very long time, and decided to form a club, called “The Canadian Fisherman” we spent many years at Marco’s Cabins, and we always thought of new ways we could make the trip better.  But as we learned later that stuff never mattered.  It was having time with each other, catching up on family and the things that were happening in each other’s lives that were important.

Later on, we moved away from Marco’s and Lake Roddick.  We expanded and fished in a lot of other places, both in the United States and Canada.  We lost little Joe in the summer after the finger lakes. 

We continued with the Kielbasa fundraising that helped pay the expenses with the trip. After Pop had passed, and we no longer could smoke Kielbasa in Moosic, we were lucky enough that Timmy offered his house and grounds.  We built a smoker there with the help of Joey, Timmy, Jody and Carl and Ted. 

I will not lie, the first two years were crazy there.  Three people with type A personalities was a bit much.  Tim, Joey and Jody fought like cats and dogs.  Sometimes to the point where when the yelling was done, they would all leave, and Carl, Bert  and I would just shrug our shoulders and carry on.  But to their credit they would eventually work their way back into the garage, mutter some kind of  sorry and we would move on and get the job done.

A year or two after moving to Tim's’ house, for kielbasa, we learned that Joe had developed cancer.  He fought it bravely, even helping us to service the bearings on our trailers, before the trip he couldn’t make. He passed shortly after that, and it rattled us.  The first founding father, that passed..  We continued, making kielbasa at Tim and Bert's’ house.  Two years later, Tim began to have some issues.  We thought it was hip problems, but things went downhill quickly.    We were sitting on the balcony of the Harbor Inn Hotel at 6:45 am looking at the St Lawrence Sea Way when my phone rang, I saw it was a call from Bert (Tim's wife) I knew the minute I pressed the green button what I was going to hear..  Tim had passed.   But we continued. Bert said we should continue to make kielbasa there and we did.

I will never forget the Friday night calls I would have with Jody, sometimes talking about the trip, sometimes talking about life and family, and sometimes talking about politics, and each one of us slamming our phone down and cursing at each other.   But the difference was, we were like brothers, and brothers forgave each other and so did we.

So here we are.  Are we going to fold the club, are we going to quit.  Hell NO! That is not what we founded this club for.  We started this to reconnect every spring, share our lives stories and take a minute to be one with nature, and one with each other.

I will miss you more than you know my friend, but I will keep my promise I made to you a long time ago, the TCF will remain rooted in the people that came first and the people who will come after.  God Bless you Jody, my friend forever.  (Never Good Bye See you Later)

 

Ted

 

TheWebMaster