Free Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan Page B

said. “I wouldn’t care to practice medicine under such conditions. No thank you. No thanks.
    â€œI like to hunt and I like to fish,” he said. “That’s why I moved to Twin Falls. I’d heard so much about Idaho hunting and fishing. I’ve been very disappointed. I’ve given up my practice, sold my home in Twin, and now I’m looking for a new place to settle down.
    â€œI’ve written to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington for their hunting and fishing regulations, and I’m studying them all,” he said.
    â€œI’ve got enough money to travel around for six months, looking for a place to settle down where the hunting and fishing is good. I’ll get twelve hundred dollars back in income tax returns by not working any more this year. That’s two hundred a month for not working. I don’t understand this country,” he said.
    The surgeon’s wife and children were in a trailer nearby. The trailer had come in the night before, pulled by a brand-new Rambler station wagon. He had two children, a boy two-and-a-half years old and the other, an infant born prematurely, but now almost up to normal weight.
    The surgeon told me that they’d come over from camping on Big Lost River where he had caught a fourteen-inch brook trout. He was young looking, though he did not have much hair on his head.
    I talked to the surgeon for a little while longer and said good-bye. We were leaving in the afternoon for Lake Josephus, located at the edge of the Idaho Wilderness, and he was leaving for America, often only a place in the mind.

A Note on the Camping Craze that is Currently Sweeping America
    As much as anything else, the Coleman lantern is the symbol of the camping craze that is currently sweeping America, with its unholy white light burning in the forests of America.
    Last summer, a Mr. Norris was drinking at a bar in San Francisco. It was Sunday night and he’d had six or seven. Turning to the guy on the next stool, he said, “What are you up to?”
    â€œJust having a few,” the guy said.
    â€œThat’s what I’m doing,” Mr. Norris said. “I like it.”
    â€œI know what you mean,” the guy said. “I had to lay off for a couple years. I’m just starting up again.”
    â€œWhat was wrong?” Mr. Norris said.
    â€œI had a hole in my liver,” the guy said.
    â€œIn your liver?”
    â€œYeah, the doctor said it was big enough to wave a flag in. It’s better now. I can have a couple once in a while. I’m not supposed to, but it won’t kill me.”
    â€œWell, I’m thirty-two years old,” Mr. Norris said. “I’ve had three wives and I can’t remember the names of my children.”
    The guy on the next stool, like a bird on the next island, took a sip from his Scotch and soda. The guy liked the sound of the alcohol in his drink. He put the glass back on the bar.
    â€œThat’s no problem,” he said to Mr. Norris. “The best thing I know for remembering the names of children from previous marriages, is to go out camping, try a little trout fishing. Trout fishing is one of the best things in the world for remembering children’s names.”
    â€œIs that right?” Mr. Norris said.
    â€œYeah,” the guy said.
    â€œThat sounds like an idea,” Mr. Norris said. “I’ve got to do something. Sometimes I think one of them is named Carl,

but that’s impossible. My third-ex hated the name Carl.”
    â€œYou try some camping and that trout fishing,” the guy on the next stool said. “And you’ll remember the names of your unborn children.”
    â€œCarl! Carl! Your mother wants you!” Mr. Norris yelled as a kind of joke, then he realized that it wasn’t very funny. He was getting there.
    He’d have a couple more and then his head would always fall forward