Fishing is a very old form of recreation.

Actually, it was meant to be a form of subsistence,but men quickly found out that everyday chores like cleaning sabor toothed tiger rugs and starting fires, could easily be avoided while lazily floundering at sea-well out of the earshot of Mrs. Cro Magnonson.

One way you can tell that fishing is very old,is by the vocabulary and words that were formed to describe the acts of fishing.

Let me explain.

Words like "fish", "net", "worm", "bait", "row", "carp", "hook", "boat" and so on are words that we use to describe fishing.

Much like having an account at your local bank that reads number "0124"--the use of three and four letter words must have been used early on in the timeline of the"word forming process". So, just like being an early customer of that bank with a low account number, the two or three cavemen that sat down around the ring of fire and started forming gutteral sounds to help describe actions, obviously tried to keep the syllables to a minimum, and then progress into multi syllable words as language moved forward.

Why work harder than you had to?

"Grog" might have pointed to that "thing" in the water and grunted out "FFHHIISSHH".

Lo and behold, that "thing" became a "fish".

OK-- that may not be the most accurate depiction of how words were created, but you still get the point, that it would make sense that the less complicated words of language must have emerged early on , in the communication process.

Good thing too, because by nature, fishermen don't communicate much.

In fact many of the same gutteral sounds uttered by early man, are still used today, especially when fishing.

"Beer"

"Huh?"

"Beer!"

"Here"

"Thanks"

And that is a rather chatty session.

Sometimes, it's just "odd body sounds" that help make up a good heart to heart fishing buddy chat.

But that's another topic.

Enter the pharmacist.

Modern medicine and it's seemingly endless discovery of new wonder drugs, is obviously a modern day phenomenon. Sure, they used to be called "drugs",(and again keeping with the one syllable- been around along time theory) which was easily grunted out and then administered after the "medicine mans" lengthy disco fire dance and ritual.

Now, they are called "pharmaceuticals".

Whoa, that alone ought to tell you these things haven't been around very long.

Maybe it was early man's propensity for wacky ritual and lengthy fire dance,before sending the patient into his herb induced hallucination, that evolved into today's lengthy names for "pharmaceuticals".

Kind of a disco fire dance with words, before treating Grog's hemmorhoidal itch.

Names like:Esomeprozole magnesium, Acetaminophen, aminoglutethimide,carbidopa levodopa, medroxyprogesterone,and my personal favorite,Desogestrelethinylestradiol.

Try running those through your spell check!

Or, if you happen to be a Cro Magnon-try gruntin' one of those words out of your larynx.

Could you imagine having a nice twenty five inch rainbow trout laying broadside next to the boat and having to ask for the Fluticasone Propionate, so you could get your Propylthioracil Lederele on board.

That's enough to give a fisherman gastroesophogeal reflux disease.

I don't know about your pharmacist, but my pharmacist is a man of few words-AND IT IS NO SMALL WONDER!!

After a day of flutacusamotapheneolathenes, and arythamythaprophalactix, --"hello" and "thanks" are about all the poor chap can muster up.

Just like the plumber who most certainly has no interest in replacing a washer in his own faucet, the last thing a pharmacist wants to do when he gets home is use multisyllabic words.

If we are only given so many syllables in this lifetime, a pharmacist would hate to have spent his allotment on Mrs. Weinstein's festering Histoplasmosis.

So. "Dave", my pharmacist, goes fly fishing.

And I've got to think, that "Dave", couldn't have helped being drawn to this simplistic recreational pastime we call fishing, in part because all he needed was a "rod", "reel" and "fly".

It doesn't get much simpler than that.It's like dropping into a soothing tub of monosyllable words.

Anything more would be a real cause for using hydrochlorothorizide.....

A.J. Klott Author, writer of fishing humor,and "fly tack" peddler. A.J. writes about the people, characters and modern day events that surround the fishing world. His first book is due out in December of 2005. If you need a laugh or a fun gift, visit his website at: http://www.twoguyswithflys.com