My neighbor across the road couldn't resist comment either. He had been watching me the whole time I was getting this together, and strolled over when it was done. "My Gawd!" he drawled, "the carnival has come to town." Ditzy Mitzy, our dog, immediately took to him, allowing him to scratch her ears, so I knew he was good guy. "This old place has been needing a sense of humor, and now we have one," he laughed. Art was a tan, sinewy, vital man of indeterminate age with turquoise eyes. He was never without a cigarette, using it as a baton, for emphasis when he talked. He had been a laborer and truck driver for years. He had grown children, an ex-wife, and several years he couldn't account for. He no longer drank. When he met Joy his life changed. She had pared life down to the real meat. All she wanted from life was peace, love and fishing. Art realized that was his dream too. So they took up residence in a camper perched on a faded blue Chevy truck and set about being happy. It worked. They bought a little truck, fished and loved each other until cancer took her away. Art said he was bitter for awhile, but came to see her as the irreplaceable love of his life, sent to show him what was important and what was not. And so he lived with his cats and his bird feeders in the camper they had shared and was content. "I'm never going to find a another woman who would be content with a camper and an old coot like me; and besides no one could filet a fish like Joy."

It took a whole summer to get this much talking out of Camper Art. Behind his Buddha smile, each word waited until the proper moment to reveal itself. Sparse words forming a simple philosophy based on "The Golden Rule" and "Carpe Diem". Art would say "live each day like you think it was your last; 'cause one day you'll be right!" Art worked as caretaker and office staff for the trailer park for his rent. He ran shuttles for extra cash, and collected his social security, and he was a rich man in ways impossible to calculate. When life gets complicated, I visualize Art's cigarette dancing in the air, "Keep it simple, but don't forget to add a few fish lights just for fun.

Art the Fart was another matter entirely. He and his Japanese wife lived in the trailer behind us. He was loud, grumpy and a creature of habit. Raised in an orphanage, he lied about his age and joined the navy when he was 15. Buy the time they found out, he was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He like the regimentation of the service and the security of institutional life. He often told me they were his "real family". The older men treated him like a kid brother, and he found true affection from them. In an attempt to follow their example, he even found himself with "twin props" tattooed on his rear. Someone had told him they would keep him from drowning, since he never learned to swim. When he retired out of the Navy, he was lost for a while, but found a job at Kaiser Steel in Napa, California. Once again, he was part of a large institution, and found his niche. Now retired from that job, Art split his time between a Napa trailer and the Feather river trailer. I never found it hard to get Art to tell me what he thought about anything, and at length.

Like Camper Art, Art the Fart had reduced life down to what worked for him. Every day he dressed in overalls and waders and headed for the same riffle in the river. Armed with his wading stick and his favorite rod, he fished for steelhead with puff balls he made himself. He never fished for salmon, which he pronounced "saalmuns". If he happened to hook one on his light tackle, he promptly cut them off. "They stink", he told me, "and I only let my wife cook them once in a while outside the trailer." "Don't give her any either." When Art hooked a fish, you could hear it for miles. He never yelled "Fish On" to warn the other anglers he had hooked up. All you would hear was "Fish" at the top of his lungs, and a string of profanity a mile long if you didn't get out of his way. At 10:30 every day he would head back to the trailer for lunch and his daily episode of "The Young and the Horny". Then he napped and was out at the riffle for the evening bite. He hated a full moon, and would go home to Napa every time one was eminent. "Fish don't bite on a full moon, gets em as crazy as people." "Hate the damn things!" And off he would go. His wife was quiet and put up with a lot of guff from him, but I had a feeling that when she put her foot down that was it for Art. We were allowed to give her one piece of salmon all summer, but she beamed when I insisted that Art let her have it. He liked us.

Steelhead were the love of his life. When he found out I was smitten as well, we shared many fish stories with each other. No lies, but maybe some exaggerations. He made some approving noises over a picture of my first steelhead on my fly rod, a ten pounder out of the American River. "Don't like them fly rods, too much flappin around and not enough fishin." End of subject.

One night we had gone into to town for dinner and got back around 11pm. Art's trailer was lit up, which was unusual at that hour. As soon as we got out of the truck, he came running down dressed in his pj's, robe and slippers with a beer in his hand and a glow on his face. "Been waitin' all night fer ya, where ya been? Hurry up here, I got a really big un!" So up to the trailer we trooped, waiting in anticipation for Art to open the lid of his ice chest. We peered in, and Art bellowed "Gotta be at least twelve pounds". Well, eight might have been closer, but we voiced the appropriate "Ohs and Ahs" and begged him to tell us all the details of the battle. By one o'clock we were able to retreat to our trailer. It seemed so quiet in there.

Dan and I carry a compliment of characters with us every day. We learn something from each of them. Every time we see a full moon, one of us will say to the other "Well, Art's in Napa tonight, that's for sure". I even find myself yelling "Fish" occasionally when I hook up. Fly fishing will always be my passion. But I have noticed that I tend to look down on anyone dressed to the teeth in L.L. Bean and peering intently into a seine net. I'm a fisherman, not an entomologist. Sometimes I like to try to match something in my fly box to the bugs on the water, but more often than not I pull out a purple woolly bugger or an invention my husband has tied up for me.

"Keep it simple, but don't be afraid to add a few fish lights just for fun".

Columnist Joan Carter co-owns, with her husband, Dan Carter's Guide Service.