07-09-2021, 10:33 PM
Here's a bad story !! I had an uncle who was in the import business, they ran a gift shop in the Hotel Utah for over 50 years. He was also, unknown to me, an avid fly fisherman. He made his own bamboo fly rods. Had all the equipment to split the bamboo, shape it, glue it, wrap with silk thread, the whole works. He had his own supply of Tonkin cane, imported from Viet Nam. According to my cousin, there were bundles of "bamboo" in the warehouse that were thrown away when they shut the business down after the Hotel Utah closed. By piecing the account together, there were in excess of 2 doz bundles of cane, all about 18" -24" in diameter, and 4-6' long. When she told me this, I was sick to my stomach because I knew it was the cane he used to build his rods. What a waste !! I was also sick to find out they had taken his tools to DI after his death. In all the years we visited them, I never knew he was such an avid fly fisherman. It makes me ill to this day to think about it!! This ranks right up there with my mother throwing all my baseball cards and comic books away !! Another tale !!