Knock on Wood Part Two

An extract from Richard Brautigan, *Trout fishing in America* (1961? 68?). I clipped this today having just found a pdf copy online, arbitrarily because it's set in Brautigan's childhood - his first trout fishing expedition - in Portland Oregon . . and Portland is where Ward Cunningham lives and works. Download here pdf

One spring afternoon as a child in the strange town of Portland, I walked down to a different street corner, and saw a row of old houses, huddled together like seals on a rock. Then there was a long field that came sloping down off a hill. The field was covered with green grass and bushes. On top of the hill there was a grove of tall, dark trees. At a distance I saw a waterfall come pouring down off the hill. It was long and white and I could almost feel its cold spray.
There must be a creek there, I thought, and it probably has trout in it. Trout.

At last an opportunity to go trout fishing, to catch my first Trout, to behold Pittsburgh.

It was growing dark. I didn't have time to go and look at the creek. I walked home past the glass whiskers of the houses, reflecting the downward rushing waterfalls of night.

The next day I would go trout fishing for the first time. I would get up early and eat my breakfast and go. 
I had heard that it was better to go trout fishing 
early in the morning. The trout were better for it. They had something extra in the morning. I went home to prepare for trout fishing in America. I didn't have any fishing tackle, so I had to fall back on 
corny fishing tackle. Like a joke.

Why did the chicken cross the road?


I bent a pin and tied it onto a piece of white string.

And slept. The next morning I got up
 early and ate my breakfast. I took a slice of white bread to use for bait. I planned on making dough balls from the soft center of the bread 
and putting them on my vaudevillian hook. I left the place and walked down to the different street Corner. How beautiful the field looked and the creek that came pouring down in a waterfall off the hill.

But as I got closer to the creek I could see that
 something was wrong. The creek did not act right.
There was a strangeness to it. There was a thing about its motion
 that was wrong. Finally I got close enough to see what the trouble was.

The waterfall was just a flight of white wooden stairs leading up to a house in the trees.

I stood there for a long time, looking up and looking down, following the stairs with my eyes, having trouble believing. Then I knocked on my creek and heard the sound of wood


I ended up by being my own trout and eating the slice of bread myself.

The Reply of Trout Fishing in America: There was nothing I could do. I couldn't change a flight of stairs into a creek. The boy walked back to where he came from.

The same thing once happened to me. I remember mistaking an old woman for a trout stream in Vermont, and I had to beg her pardon.

"Excuse me, " I said. "I thought you were a trout stream." "I'm not, " she said.

I've revised this fork to remove unwanted new lines by converting markdown items to paragraph with vi. Further examination of the pdf had me splitting a few more paragraphs. Also changed title to title case.

An inventory of Portland outdoor public stairways with each stairway having 100 or more stairs. Most of these stairways are described in Laura O. Foster's book, "The Portland Stairs Book". Go to publicstairs.com for more info and stair maps for other cities. site