It been a rough go this last year...

How My Late Mother Introduced Me To Riverine Rights at 12

I lost my mom a year ago this week….

Its been a tough year since she passed living a full like into her nineties passing away in Richmond, Va. I had meant to kayak over to the first fishing spot along the banks of the Upper Potomac River she ever took me fishing in area that is present day Algonkian Regional Park on the Virginia side of the river but the river has been completely blown out for almost a week with rising water levels due to all the of snow melt and rain the region has sustain thus far this winter.

She had always been my both my inspiration and confidant over the years. It amazes me these days how today’s socio politcial atmosphere seemingly diminishes the very strength that my mother had for our family growing up. She basically was a stay at home mom raising eight children and though she did have her “hustles” as we call them today her primary focus was always on our family.

I was blessed to be born in Virginia for a number of reasons and thankfully my family determined to move to the Commonwealth the year before I was born. I am the only child born of my mother born south the the Potomac River. Mom was a Washingtonian. As in the District of Columbia. She could tell you all about the historic nature of the district and we visited all of the monuments and museums throughout the city routinely. My mom was big on knowing who you are and where from where you came. She was the first environmentalist or I guess naturalist I ever knew. It was not uncommon for my mom to live in her gardens throughout the day as if her gardening began and ended with the rise and setting of the sun.

I was either playing sports, hanging with my mom in her garden or out at the farm most summers where the dairy cows roamed until fishing took root.

I was raised basically a stones throw from the Upper Potomac River. A river today that once again is my home river and fish almost every week. Well until this winter anyway which has taken the Potomac up and up in water levels throughout the winter.

The Potomac was the river I learned to fish on. I remember being on site I believe for the opening of Algonkian Regional Park on its banks in the 1970’s and how that park opened up easier access to the river. As it stood we had to trek through the woods a bit to reach the banks of the river and the old dam that stretched the Potomac River. A dam that had locks that still remain today on the Maryland side known as Violettes Lock. Above it is present day Seneca Landing.

The river was much the same as it is today save the catch rates. This was a period long before to great development boom that happened both in Virginia and across the river over in Maryland’s Montgomery County. I spent much of my early days on the Virginia side of the river and strangely enough these days I access directly across from from Loudoun County where I grew up from the Maryland side. Back in my youth it was not uncommon to catch one hundred smallies in a full days outing wading and fishing from the rocks. The river was flush with cover and grass for Smallmouth. Grass could be so thick you could almost not lift your foot up as you walked through the water. Back then its was mostly live bait until the Sassy Shad by Mister Twister came along as well as the Mepps Spinner.

Not a day goes by I do not miss and appreciate my mom for the values she instilled and demanded frankly especially when it came to our nature and the outdoors. Mom was the person who always took a bag with her to pick up others “left behinds” as she would call them long before there was the whole “Leave No Trace” thing. She was heavily involved in Girl Scouts and ironically it was being the child brought along to this troop events my mom ran that I learned much of what would benefit me both in the military and later in life in the outdoors.

I just bought boxes of cookies outside a Safeway this week and could not help but remember all those cases of cookies stacked up in our family room almost every year from 70’s to the 80’s. Of course back then they were like $1.50 a box. Today well $6.

Yikes.

When we left Loudoun County as a result of my father taking a job further south in Richmond, it was mom who pulled me aside knowing it would be me who would have the hardest time making the transition after her of course. The first thing she had me do was point out Richmond on a map and asked me if I noticed anything about where Richmond sat on the map. I quickly realized that Richmond was centrally located along the banks of the James River. My mom made it a point to make sure that I knew there would another river for me to fish in after we moved.

It did not take long for me to be catching James River Smallmouth the same way I was catching them with light spinning tackle wading in the Potomac River only the James was quite a different beast all together. The river was considerable wider than the Potomac River I had fished and the current faster. There were far too many rules pertaining to safety that I can remember. An area commonly known as the “Pony Pasture” because a central meeting place for everyone in the community it seemed. Back then high schoolers could drink beer legally if they were 18 years old and trust me my mom flipped when she saw all the empty beer cans around about the rocks and such. I knew if we were going to that area on the river where my mom would sometimes take walks that I would be picking up cans BUT there was an upside.

My first self purchased rod and reel (Shimano KX) came from collecting beer cans and taking them with my mom to the Reynolds Recycling center and getting paid. Some kids mowed lawns. I saw a different path. I stapled a bag along a fence and hand wrote a sign that said “You Drank It! Now Drop It” (with arrow point down). I added three other drop bags over the summer before of course my first run in with the city came which at the time was not doing much really but it had formed the James River Park System a few years before we moved to Richmond. The city had annexed the area from Chesterfield County in 1970’s.

I was stopped and told I could not collect cans any longer along the river by city employees. Of course being Scottish I was not having any of that. Some of the river goers came to my aid with “Let the kid have the cans” and “Leave the kid alone he aint bothering nobody”. I went home tucked tail with my last cans in hand and sure enough it was my mom right there when I got home.

After spilling the story in one breath seemingly my mom simply looked at me and asked “Ok. So what are you gonna do about it?” I had no clue. My mom knew how much it meant to me and I think honestly collecting those cans kept me out of more trouble than not. I stopped going down to the river for like two weeks before one day my mom had me go with her. She had told me she wanted me to see something. It did not take but a second upon arrival for me to realize what she wanted me to see. The banks of the river were full of cans. Frankly I had no clue there were this many different kinds of beer. Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller High Life, Coors, and Pabst Blue Ribbon littered the banks.

It was then she had me sit down and write a letter to the parks and then another and then another only the last one went directly to Mayor Henry L. Marsh. Marsh just recently passed away last month as well. Marsh was the first ever African-American elected Mayor of Richmond City. I still have the his written reply to this day.

What I learned from the the whole collecting the cans endeavor was that the city could not control what I could do “in the river” as the Mayor put it but it could control what people can do within the confines of the park system. This became my first true experience with riverine rights. Something that has stuck with me to this day and it all stemmed from my mom pushing me to stand up and fight for keeping our river systems clean.

I thought about these kinds of interactions and events that have transpired in my life and the fact that my mom was always there. Never with the big stick you but always with the soft word. My mom was the epitome of “soft power” both in our family and in the communities which we lived.

As I crossed both the Potomac River and then the James River on a trek to Amelia County, Virginia many of these events came back as if they were just yesterday. Amelia County is home to the Virginia Veterans Cemetery where my mom rests today alongside so many other Virginians that over the course of time have served or been family of those who have.

As I and many of you fight for riverine rights and free access to waterways both at the local and state levels every time the issue arises I think of the words of my mom would always say:

“If not us than who”.