Opening Day Part I

"Hey Cinderella, I found your slipper." With that, a sparkling silver stripper-shoe fell to my feet.

Stripper-shoes, including the one atop my wading boot, have seven inch heels and four inch platforms (measurements courtesy of WikiStrip). Genuine stripper-shoes are available in only two makes and colors, silver vinylette (like the one pictured) and clear plastic. Most dancers opt for the clear plastic model. It's a little more practical and much more versatile than its metallic cousin in that it matches nearly any g-string and resists stains from beer, watered-down blended whiskey, day-glow body paint, and whatever else might mar the finish of one's shoes during a lap dance. Clear plastic stripper-shoes are a working girl's steel-toed boots.

By comparison the silver shoe is only ever paired with sequined thongs, and must be meticulously cleaned and maintained. Only dancers in what is euphemistically called an "upscale gentleman's club" will opt for the silver shoe, and even then it is donned only for brief stints in the champagne room. For fear of being sued by the ACLU, I must also mention that roughly twelve percent of San Francisco's male population opts for silver stripper-shoes during the city's Folsom Street Parade. I digress.

It was 7:30 in the morning. After five months of being frozen and home bound, almost one half year of winter, I was fishing one of my favorite early season trout streams. I had already been on the water for two hours. I was feeling revitalized by the chill mountain air. I was losing myself in the rhythm of the stream and casting a fly. I was at peace with myself and confident of my place in the universe, and at the height of this Zen-like moment Adam threw a stripper-shoe at me.

Are you freakin' kidding? This has to be a joke. Nope. Not kidding at all.

Mountains.
Stream.
Stripper-shoe.

I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was. Opening day isn't just trout fishing. Each and every opening day is a story. Sometimes the story is about the fish, but more often than not the story is about the landscape, the camaraderie, the quintessential big picture. On April 1st, 2009, a small part of the story was a stripper-shoe.