Fishing
Cumberland Valley, Pennsylvania, where Whistlestop Bookshop is situated, is generously watered and drained by creeks renowned for their fishing. Conodoguinet Creek, which flows about 100 miles to the Susquehanna River and is nearest to Carlisle, is actually better known for the fishing in its two tributaries, Big Spring Creek out of the Newville area (only 5 miles) and Letort Spring Run, which arises south of Carlisle and flows north 9 miles to the Conodoguinet. The Yellow Breeches Creek, which flows along South Mountain for 56 miles to the Susquehanna, is internationally famous for its trout fishing.
Naturally, a trout-fishing and especially a fly-fishing culture has developed, sometimes thought to be mostly local, sometimes acknowledged to be of world interest — the world that loves the quiet and focus and solitary rewards of fly-fishing. Rarely, the local zen masters of fishing wrote books. Charlie Fox was once a customer of Whistlestop, and Joe Humphreys is still in print and in fact the subject of a documentary we carry. Fishing does inspire fine writing, after all — the names of Izaak Walton, Norman MacLean, Thomas McGuane, Patrick McManus, John Gierach suggest the range of approaches in writing about “standing in a river waving a stick,” to use Gierach’s famous descripton.
Dedicated to the memory of a great fisherman and an even better brother, Gordon Wood (1956-2020).
The Earth is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Flyfishing, Trout, & Old Men
The Earth is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Flyfishing, Trout, & Old Men
In this touching memoir of his boyhood on a farm in the Ozark foothills, Harry Middleton joins the front rank of nature writers alongside Edward Hoagland and Annie Dillard. It is the year1965, a year rife with change in the world---and in the life of a boy whose tragic loss of innocence leads him to the healing landscape of the Ozarks. Haunted by indescribable longing, twelve-year-old Harry is turned over to two enigmatic guardians, men as old as the hills they farm and as elusive and beautiful as the trout they fish for---with religious devotion. Seeking strength and purpose from life, Harry learns from his uncle, grandfather, and their crazy Sioux neighbor, Elias Wonder, that the pulse of life beats from within the deep constancy of the earth, and from one's devotion to it. Amidst the rhythm of an ancient cadence, Harry discovers his home: a farm, a mountain stream, and the eye of a trout rising.
Harry Middleton was a writer and author of five books on fishing and the outdoor lifestyle. He wrote intensely descriptive prose using a wide- ranging vocabulary to create sparkling stories about wild places and remote trout streams. He was a critically acclaimed author whose books include "The Earth is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Flyfishing, Trout, and Old Men (1989)," On the" Spine of Time: a Flyfisher's Journey among Mountain People, Streams, & Trout (1991"), "The Bright Country: a Fisherman's Return to Trout, Wild Water and Himself (1993)" and "Rivers of Memory (1993)." He is the recipient of the Friends of American Writers Award, the Outdoor Writers Association of American Best Book Award, and the Southeastern Outdoor Press Best Book Award.
Harry was born in 1949 and grew up in the south graduating from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana with an English degree. He earned a master's degree in Western history from Louisiana State University in 1973. He wrote the "Outdoor South" column for "Southern Living" magazine from 1984 to 1991. He passed away unexpectedly in 1993 at the age of 43. He is survived by his widow, and two sons.