Today my Son... You are an expert...

It's official.

Today I am an expert.

I have the e-mail right here to prove it, although I soon intend to frame it and post it on the wall right next to my "Printer of The Year" plaque.(Which I paid good money to receive!)

The e mail is from Associated editor #3, and if anyone knows experts--it is #3. For those of you who are unfamiliar with #3, he is the heir apparent to #2. AND we all know what kind of career #2 has had and how well respected he or she is!!

Evidently, it doesn't take much to become an expert these days. I should know because I have never been an expert at anything before.

I have been fishing for almost thirty-five years and no one has called me an expert. I have been in the printing industry for twenty-five years, and I still can't tell you exactly how the miracle of putting ink on paper works. Heck, I have been breathing for fourty-seven years, and one day without the completion of that task, and I am pretty sure I will be relegated back to novice level and possibly be even considered a failure.

It's not that I am not appreciative, and honored by this lofty title I have achieved, it's just that writing and having one article published on a website hardly seems worthy of any titles or honors.

Nonetheless, Associated editor #3-- obviously an expert of some sort himself-- has cut through the long and arduous red tape and winding road that most of us have to take to become an expert, and seen my true potential. Why wait for a lifetime of effort and gathering of knowledge when I can use that expert title right now!!

Thank You #3.

Someday, I even hope to meet you in person, but looking at your twin on my keyboard may be the closest I ever come realizing that dream!!

This is posing somewhat of a dilemna.

Now that I am an expert, the pressure mounts, and I am completely vulnerable to the criticisms
of everyday common folk, who will be waiting for the daily gleaning of my obviously superior brain power and advice on... ahhhh.... you know what? I forgot to ask what I am an expert in??!!
Is it fishing? Fishing Alaska? Writing? Submitting e-zine articles?

My God, I am now going to have to take up some serious binge drinking as I contemplate the self doubts I will have that I am living my life as a sham. I don't even know what I am an expert in! People will be coming up to me and asking things like: "Hey AJ, I am going to Mongolia to fish for Taiman-- what kind of fly pattern should I use?"
"Why a triple ott Prairie Dog --and be sure to fish it dry!!"
Then they will bound off to the Mongolian highlands or lowlands, or in-between lands and start hurling Prairie Dog imatations into rivers and expect to catch large Salmonids.

Am I going to be introduced as "EXPERT" at cocktail parties? Am I going to have to go to cocktail parties? This is all so new. What about my business cards, my letterhead? Do I have to put special letters after my name, like CPA or FDIC,Phd,ROTC??

Ahhhhhhh!

Well, I suppose it is to late to turn back now. So I will just try to become comfortable in my new found skin and lend you my expert opinion when the situation deems necessary.

But if anyone sees fly fishermen hucking Prairie Dogs in any Wyoming trout streams...it wasn't me...I swear!