db: Backstage portraits

I’m on the road every year for 16-18 weeks, that’s about four months away from home.

“I’ll be there for you…”

Dateline: Behind the Bassmaster stage

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.”
Jim Morrison

I could not do this job if it wasn’t for the people I do it with.

Bottom line.

I’m on the road every year for 16-18 weeks, that’s about 4 MONTHS away from home, and yeah, I love what I do, but it is a love that is bittersweet.

As you know, I write often about my family, my wife of 41 years, Barb, my daughter, Ashley and my son, Jimmy.

Even the dog, Riley, makes the columns.

I love and miss them every moment I’m out here roading through America.

I have another family though, a family I never knew until I came to this shindig called B.A.S.S., without this family, B.A.S.S. would have been firmly planted in my rearview mirror years ago.

This, my other family, doesn’t get the press my real family gets, but they should. I have been around big time events of three decades now, Super Bowls, Olympics, Final Fours, this and that Playoffs, and I can tell you based on actual firsthand experience…

…I’m working RIGHT NOW with the best backstage crew that I have ever worked with in my professional life.

Hands down.

I have watched my friends work backstage in weather that I wouldn’t get out of my Tundra in, watched them sweat, watched them freeze, watched them launch the anglers at first safe light in the morning, watched them take the stage apart using flashlights that same night.

They punch in while most are in bed in the morning, punch out while most are in bed at night.

My backstage friends, are family, hard working blue collar working stiffs, and they make my life easy out here on the road, they care about me, they watch over me, and throughout this year I want you to get to know them as you have my family at home.

Know them through portraits only a “family” member can take, relaxed, smiling, buddy shots, come, meet my friends who pulled this Southern Open #2 together down here on the Alabama River.

Portraits of my friends who work backstage.

“…when the rain…”

Max Leatherwood is a good friend, would be a GREAT friend if he would sell me that 1975 Corvette he is standing next to, “Bought it years ago db for something like $6,000 dollars, guy got married and couldn’t keep it…”

I offered him $12,000 dollars on the spot, double his money, Max just smiled.

The Corvette is still in his garage. Not mine.

The Southern Open was on the Alabama River not far from Max’s house so one night before things got really crazy at the tourney, Max and his wife, Jane, put on a BBQ for his fellow backstage workers…and me.

“db, I’ve been with B.A.S.S. now about 10 years…”

Before that Max was a college prof teaching Computer Science for 32 years, before that he was the computer guru at the FBI Criminal Justice Center.

“I never travelled much before taking the job with B.A.S.S., in fact the first time I went out on the road with them was the first time I ever used a GPS in my life, when it started talking I wasn’t expecting it, I about left the truck I was driving at the time.”

Max works backstage as the “Bumper,” which is the guy who makes sure the fish brought in are the right size, are alive and counts how many are in the bag, “I’m on the road about 26 weeks a year now, love the travelling and meeting people all over the United States.”

Max reaches over and opens the top of the Big Green Egg, the meat has been cooking on it all day, Max looks down at it through the smoke, “ummm looking good…”

I agree, as I stare through the smoke at the convertible Stingray sitting behind him.

“…starts to pour…”

“My mother’s name is Kathleen, she is 86…”

Mike Wall, been with us backstage since about 2004, from Syracuse, N.Y., he is a long time member of the New York State B.A.S.S. Nation, fishes with the Rochester and Salt City (Syracuse) Bassmaster clubs.

Mike was in the Handyman biz back in Upstate N.Y., but what he really is, what I know my friend to be, is a good son to Kathleen.

“Last year my mother was really ill…”

Mike is sitting in a chair in Max’s living room, behind us BBQ is being served and eaten, the air is full of smells of dinner, and friendship, this is safe ground among friends.

“…really ill…”

And Mike can’t say anything else…

Me:  “…it’s okay man, I know, I know…”

In truth, I don’t, I was never close to my Mother, I wasn’t the FAV in the house, wouldn’t friend her on Facebook if she was still around so I’m always somewhat amazed, somewhat in awe of sons and mothers relationships.

“…ill…db…I’m an old school family value kind of guy, my dad died in 1995, he did everything for my mother, now she is alone, I live with her so that she doesn’t have to worry about things…”

And again, Mike takes a moment to catch his breath, I reach out and touch his arm, don’t say anything…

“…I love the sport, I’m on the road 16-18 weeks a year, but when I’m home I’m home with Mother helping out.”

I admire Mike for his dedication, love for his mother.

Sometimes I wish for that as well.

But not often.

“…I’ll be there for you…”

“db, please don’t forget to mention Corky Spencer…”

Russ Bradshaw, been setting the stage up, tearing it down for three years now, a retired carpenter from Portsmouth, Ohio, “Love this job, love the fact that we are all friends, all family, it’s my extended family now.”

And with friends, with family, you open up, “Corky is my fishing buddy, I know you and Mac are fishing buddies so you know how I feel, Corky is real sick now, real sick…”

Corky Spencer has cancer, like so many of us, Corky is being attacked from within, “I don’t know what I can do, what I would do if something happened to Corky…”

98 percent of the time that I see Russ, maybe 99 percent of the time the dude is smiling. Russ doesn’t have to tell you he loves the job, doesn’t have to tell you he is happy, he wears happiness.

‘till we talk of Corky. “Friends can become…”

And the ever present smile begins to fade.

“…can become family, you know db.”

I do, and when the rest of the backstage crew heard what Russ had to say, Corky became family to us as well.

God bless ya Corky, we are praying for you, please know Russ and his friends are waiting for you back here, backstage.

“…like I’ve been there before…”

Technically, they are “sponsors,” that is to everyone else.

To us, James Chevrier & Vivian Ho, are family, are friends. Both work for Dynamic Sponorship and manage the Toyota and Carhartt booths, “We’re probably on the road 10 months a year…” James says as Viv nods her head, “Been doing that since 2007.”

To tell you the truth, I don’t think I have ever been to an Elite event or Open that I haven’t been hugged by both of these friends.

Both are from Michigan, James is an, “everything Detroit fan,” Viv is a “…cook, I love to cook when we get back home.”

Home is Charlotte, Viv:  “We’ve been together 11 years now and…”

James, “…we are engaged to get married.”

When home, “…James is out working in the garden, but me, I love the couch. I’m not home much so when I get there I just love to lay on the couch and watch TV, Criminal Shows.”

I have to tell you a secret, whenever I get to an Elite event, when I come in the front way to the shindig as I walk through the crowd I’m always that first day scanning to find Vivian and James, and when I do, and when they see me they both stop what they are doing and come over and ask how I’m feeling, if I need anything, and then give me a hug.

In the middle of huge crowds, it’s huge to me to have, friends, family.

“…I’ll be there for you…”

Dig this, I’m at the BBQ and I’m complaining about the government and the never ending taxes, talking about how much I hate the IRS start soap-boxing about taking money from working stiffs and giving it to stiffs who don’t work when I turn around to the new guy, new friend, sitting on the couch listening , his name is John Norris, and I ask him exactly this, “So dude, you are new here, only a couple of months, what did you do before this.”

John:  “I’m retired….”

Me:  “Nice, retired from what…”

John:  “…31 years with the Treasury Department, was a Supervisor with the Alabama Criminal Investigations Division, did IRS tax investigations.”

Oops.

True story.

Then John starts laughing, me, I don’t, not so much.

No, not so much.

“db, I wasn’t listening, don’t worry…”

I’m thinking, yeah right. I had just asked, OUT LOUD, wonder how much time I would get in Tax Jail, could I trade some tax cash for one of those Federal Country Club lockups for a couple months…no one knew the answer…

…except maybe John who was sitting over on the couch smiling.

Yeah, I bet he knows.

“I was mainly involved in money laundering cases (yeah I was talking about that too) once made a bust of a guy who was falsifying tax returns and throughout the years collected 4 MILLION dollars in refunds…”

I might be safe, I haven’t gotten a dollar back in decades.

I’m not to worried though, as I left the BBQ I went up to John and told him, “Welcome to the family and I’ll forgive you your past, we’ll be friends, and just in case you don’t know…”

John, BTW is a huge guy, towers over me, maybe 6’ 100” or so, so as I shake his hand goodbye, “…case you don’t know, if these guys haven’t told you who I am, just so you know, I’m…”

And as John bends down to hear better…

“…I’m…Kevin Short…S…H…O…R…T, from Arkansas….Mayflower to be exact.”

“…’Cuz you’re there…”

“As a whole db, we are fishing gypsies.”

My friend, Chris Bowes, fellow upstate New Yorker, Senior Tournament Manager with BASS for 11 years now.

Chris is front center stage, but I don’t hold that to much against him.

“We travel all over the country as a group, we work together, we are around each other 24/7 for weeks at a time, you become close…”

Chris just paused, what was left unsaid, I’ll say, if you don’t become close, you become gone. You can’t work that much, be around each other that much and be a jerk, “…db this isn’t like a normal job, you can still get your job done even if you don’t like the people you have to work with because at days end you can go home, we don’t have that out here, out here there is no where to hide, you better get along and become part of the family quick.”

For the record, I have never seen someone NOT become family.

In 2009, Chris needed all the family he could get.  “My wife Cyndy died, we had been married almost 20 years, it was by far the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life.”

I was only at B.A.S.S. a year or so when this happened to Chris, new to backstage, but it was this event that opened my eyes to what I call family of B.A.S.S.

“db there is more going on out here than just the game being played, we all become an extended family, we all become close friends, we work under all sorts of tough weather conditions, long hours, long drives but what helps gets us through is, we are friends, we talk about our families, I know as much about Max’s family as he does mine (for the record he didn’t know either that John was a retired IRS guy and may be wishing he hadn’t agreed so strongly with me earlier in the night), when James and Vivian get married, I’ll be there, when you were sick in the hospital I was worried all the time, we are, all of us friends and family.”

You may be thinking I’m just blowing smoke up the shorts of these folks who work backstage but I’m going to let you in on some inside the park sort of stuff.

I originally began this story in Prattville, Ala., last week while I was at the Southern Open but while at the event I got word that my cousin in Buffalo, a dear friend I spent many a days as a child goofing around with, found out that James Long died after having been burnt horribly in a fire at his home.

When I found out I sent this exact email to Chris: I just got the call a moment ago that they are taking my cousin off life support today, his funeral will be on Saturday.

Would you be okay if I sent in the story of our behind the scenes BBQ last night where I write something about the people behind the scenes at the Open, I can write that next week and send it in, I’m just having a hard time focusing on it.

This is the exact response I got back from Chris:

I have no issue with that at all.

That is the spirit of what we spoke about last …family. Your family is our family.

Prayers sent.

You crawl in the trenches with folks like these, and other friends of mine here that I will introduce you to as well.

I could not do this job if it wasn’t for the people I do it with.

True.

They have my back, I have theirs.

I work harder because of these folks, I work better because of these folks.

And to them I say, simply this…

…love ya.

“… for me too.”
I’ll be there for you
Rembrandts

“Oh, you’re the best friends anybody ever had. And it’s funny, but I feel as if I’d known you all the time, but I couldn’t have, could I?”
Wizard of Oz

db