Off the Top of His Head

Like every good fisherman, Dad had a sturdy felt hat. His was faded from the sun and discolored dark above a thin leather band. The molded crown had lost any of its previous features and was now a simple rounded dome. It had character gained over time, scars and splatters, the remnants of sunshine, rain, and live bait.

Whenever we went fishing, the gray-green hat went too. It came to symbolize one of our most precious possessions—time outdoors with our dad. It fit him and us; anytime we wanted to put it on, it was ours for the wearing.

It was atop his head for long hours at Alturas, our favorite lake in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. His green plastic fishing creel was always there as well, smelling of hard marshmallows, pungent red salmon eggs, and traces of trout. The evening meal was often the fresh fish pulled from the lake earlier in the day.

The next morning, pancakes were cooked in the same electric frypan that had seared the lightly floured, peppered fish. While the pan had been carefully scoured, you could sometimes still taste a little of yesterday’s spinning reel success. And strangely, you didn’t mind.

When I was young, still in grade school in Buhl, Idaho, Dad took us out to Clear Springs to fish. There were large fish in there and plentiful as you were casting into a glassy slow moving stream near the fish hatchery.

As we fished, a brisk gust of air whooshed down the valley, snatching  Dad’s hat from his head and sending it top over brim right out into the water. Just out of reach, it then slowly began to drift away. As the hat moved beyond the shallows, we were still anxious to dive in and recover it. We were pretty good swimmers and it was still pretty close. But we would need to jump in quickly. Dad put out his arms and let us know he wasn’t about to allow any of us to venture into the undercurrents of that cold, clear stream.

Instead he tried once to cast in with his pole and retrieve the relic, hoping to snag it with his line. But it was in vain. The hat began to take on more and more water as it floated slowly away. A sense of longing and loss came over us as the fishing hat got smaller and smaller, bobbed one last time, then disappeared below the surface.

It seemed strange to let something go that had been a part of us for so long. At the time I couldn’t understand why Dad wouldn’t let us jump in and swim back with the hat.

But now that I’m a dad, I get it. It was just a thing, easily replaced. And while he often joked—when his children were in a situation with potential peril—that “it’s easier to get another one, than to worry about it,” there is good reason to believe he never truly meant it.

Full Bleed: Winning and Losing

I play on a BYU intramural team comprised of university employees—accountants, graphic designers, and other administrators. I recruited a handful of guys from the group I play with three times a week: a strong inside player, a mid-range shooter, a three-point sharpshooter, a defensive force . . . all willing to pass the ball to a teammate with a better shot. While older than the students on other teams, these guys can really play. I had a few shots go in, but my guys are the ones that really wreaked havoc, averaging 3.7 points per minute (89 points in two 12-minute periods . . . this is with a running clock).

The previous game we had a similar fast start but then had a letdown after halftime, only winning by 3 or 4 points in the end.We were determined to not repeat that mistake and played hard the entire game. The obvious question, I suppose, is, at what point should a team “take it easy,” and not run up the score? One of my teammates shared this quote after the game.

“We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. Here, in the streets, in competition: A man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy.”


 —John Kreese (Cobra Kai sensei), Karate Kid, Part I

I’ve been on the losing end of athletic contests before. In two years of high school football, our team won only one game (to the Shelley Russets . . . that’s a potato, if you don’t know . . . the only mascot our Mighty Beavers could dominate. I have a warm spot in my heart for Shelley, and potatoes, even now.)

We lost our Homecoming game to the Preston Indians 76–0. It is still vivid as I played the whole game and never stopped trying to get to the quarterback. In the end, there’s nothing I hate more than a team that gets a big lead and then stops playing. Win or lose, I want to fight until the buzzer sounds, and leave feeling I did my best and so did my opponent.



If you show up to play, there is no expectation that the other team should “take it easy” so you can feel good about yourself. True players want to earn respect through their efforts. So when a game is out of reach, and you see that one guy who looks a little foolish because he continues to play as hard as he can? He’s the one who loves the game the most.


TANGENT 1: My pathetic football career had a bright side. It helped me to build character. (I’m a character . . . ask anybody.) And, thankfully, my parents were in England at the time and did not have to witness it. My sweet big sister, however, would faithfully show up to the games. I think losing is always harder on the spectators than the athletes. For her support then and myriad other reasons, I love her even more than potatoes.

TANGENT 2: The team name is Full Bleed, which means “to be printed so as to run off one or more edges of the page after trimming.” Seems appropriate.