A brother's tribute

THE GHOST

By ELMER "JOE" SPRICK

He loved to fish, but his most enduring legacy will be as one of the Americans who helped hold a shaky world together in the middle of the last century. Most of his life was spent playing the hand he was dealt, a hand that often meant sacrifice, hardship and pain.

World War II took him far from the peaceful waters of southeastern Minnesota's Lake Pepin, where he loved to fish, and from the surrounding hills and woods he'd roamed as a child and young man. He never talked about the Purple Heart stored in an old shoebox in his closet. He'd been wounded at Normandy, but had recovered enough to rejoin the fight, to face the bitter cold and hard-fought campaign across Europe.

Near the end of the war, a German sharpshooter shot a hole through his canteen. For some reason, he thought the miss was intentional.

After the war, he bought a boat and motor so he could go fishing on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons. He caught a ton of fish that he filleted, froze and shared with friends. He supported his widowed mother and bought nice things for his nieces and nephews -- a new bike, even a Shetland pony. Other times, he bought them clothes or paid their medical bills.

He owed no one and was generous to everyone. At Christmastime, he gave each member of the family and his close firends a large ham or turkey.

The fishing rod he used was not expensive, but he worked magic with it. He usually caught the first, the biggest and the most when fishing with others. Then he would let them take their pick if they wanted a meal of fish.

In later years, suffering from lung cancer, he survived several major operations and also endured crippling arthritis that made it difficult for him to walk. The last year he was able to fish, he rolled into and out of the boat to and from the dock. He used to say, "Any day you can fish is a good day."

In his tough final months, those who were not close to him did not understand what he was going through. They just considered him another cantankerous old fisherman.

His name was not important, except to those who knew him. History will record the date and place of his birth and the date he died, but little more.

For a few years after his death, his ghost occupied the empty seat in my boat. The ghost would seem to say, "Let's try it over here for a while" or "Cast over toward that weed bed."

I often wonder if the German sharpshooter who spared his life survived to return home to help hold his part of the world together.

I hope so.

The ghost, of course is Uncle Edward Sprick, older brother of the author, Elmer William "Joe" Sprick, who died on Jan. 20, 1985. That's Uncle Ed in the top photo, fishing with niece Mary Catherine Miller (now Northrup) in the 1960s. The blue medal is the Combat Infantryman's Badge, a mark of courage if ever there was one. And the bottom photo is Ed doing what he loved best, fishing.