My Dad Fishing

Doug Morse

30 Sep 2025 — 1 min read

He is younger than I am now
Hunched over his rod
Eyes focused on the water
Intent and unaware his photo is being taken.

He seems so small
I see in him my dad, my brother, and myself
September 1984, I am in college
He and my mother living their own secret lives now.

My brother and I out of the house
I know by 1985 my mother will have breast cancer
Cancer concealed until one day in the emergency room
Presented in a away she could no longer deny

And my father here on this riverside
On a warm autumn day
In the middle of the San Juan mountains
The two of them backpacking, camping, fishing

And yet what she is hiding he does not know
And cancer will take from him his wife and his future
I wonder if he felt betrayed even as he grieved
Like she kept a secret lover that stole her away

My mother terrified of hospitals
All of this in one old photo

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A History of Whaling at Lake Pend Orielle

Introduction History is usually made from what is known, events, people, facts. Much of history is obscured by secrecy; shame, embarrassment, or state secrets obscure much of what we know of history. It's these small secrets obscured by time and the deaths of the small number of participants

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New Use of an Old Camera

Ghosts in the Forest

Use of AI in my Writings

A History of Whaling at Lake Pend Orielle