My girlfriend, M’Rae, accuses me of collecting seventy-five-year-old men. The first time she said this, it stung, but I have to admit she’s right. (And isn’t part of a modern relationship being able to see yourself through the other person’s eyes?) In my fifties I have sought out and befriended many older guys, men who hail from another, more literary, world, a fabled land of failed marriages, bankruptcies, and plantar fasciitis.
Right now I’m in Loreto, Mexico, with a few hours to kill before I meet my septuagenarian friend Rich at the airport. Rich and I both write fishing stories, which we try to sell to the few remaining print journals where we still have contacts. As soon as he found out I wanted company in Mexico, he bought a plane ticket and began tying flies — intricate, boutique patterns he painstakingly creates at his vise. That’s something I like about guys Rich’s age: they’re talented in unexpected and extraordinary ways. Plus they are more or less fierce. And they won’t steal your girlfriend.
