KINGS OF THE RIVER

I was born in the middle of the Baby Boom generation. Growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, I made many fond memories fishing, hunting and trapping the abundant streams, rivers and woodlands available for all these adventures.

- Randy Rizzetto

Some of those places are gone, and they are dearly missed. But even more painful is the loss of the many great men who helped instill me with my love and respect for the outdoors.

In my pre-teen years, my dad took me fishing and dove hunting. At the age of 12, I hunted deer with him and my uncles at a beautiful deer camp in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.

The camp was purchased by a group of guys who had grown up in the same Italian neighborhood in Allentown. These were guys with nicknames like Bep, Cheech, Bugsy and Duke. They’d gone to war in Europe, fought the Nazis and survived, then returned home with a new appreciation for the things they enjoyed doing before they’d left for the war.

These men got jobs, started businesses and families, barely skipping a beat. They were the amazing “Greatest Generation,” and it was easy to take men like these for granted. They never wanted special treatment, they just wanted to get on with their lives and be treated like everyone else. But they were special. Even as a kid I could see it.

You’d see these older guys moving along the rivers in their chest waders, reading the water, making casts and sometimes bringing in two trout in a retrieve. They had it all figured out, from presentation to bait selection. Then they’d move on silently. Gone, as if they’d vanished.

My Uncle Bep was such a man, wearing his drab green ball cap, chest waders, and fishing vest, he was a delight to observe. Even better to talk to, when he had the time.

We’d sometimes chat for a little bit. He’d give me the success formula for the day, and then we’d go our separate ways. Bep had seen World War II action in Europe and received a Purple Heart. He was one of the founding members of the Clearfield County deer camp.