I've thought about it every year. For years. Heck, I've even said it several times: This year I should keep a fly fishing journal.

You'd think the pain alone would have driven me to it by now. How high is TOO high for fishing Clear Creek? Is it when the water is running against the third white rock up the bank from the bridge, or the fourth? What time of year was it that we caught them one after the other on scuds in the Hoover Hole? And was it pink or tan scuds?

The brain wracking, bickering, and second guessing could be over in minutes had I just been writing it down. But I never did and I regret it now.

And not just for practical reasons driven by my fickle memory, either. I've long appreciated the art of the journal. I'll never forget the first time a teacher read to us passages from the Diary of Samuel Peyps. I wasn't hearing what it was like to live in 17th century London, I was living there too.

Factual information, in this computer age will, forever be easy to come by. I have no doubt that our children and their children will be able to piece together our every move. Simply follow the trail of credit card gas station receipts, tut-tut at our appalling diet of diner food, and marvel at how one guy could order from the same online fly shop twice in one week.

But they won't know what I was thinking unless I write it down.

JMH