Walt Bennett is doing well @ 93......

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Yesterday, my wife Marilyn, my mom, Betty Kiene (90) and myself went to visit Walt in his care facility near Fair Oaks and Fulton (Munroe) in Sacramento.

His brain still works better than mine, not saying much.

My mom and Walt talked about the World War 2 era. Both had great memories of those trying years.

Walt was one of the best fly fishers we had. He worked for years for the Fenwick Rod Company as a fly fishing instructor. Later helped Sage too.

Walt is in the movie, Rivers of a Lost Coast.

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Sunrise of Sacramento

345 Munroe Street

Sacramento, CA 95825


http://www.sunriseseniorliving.com/c.../overview.aspx


His personal phone 916/666-0372

Give Walt a phone call or stop by if you can.

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[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Forrest Oldham, one of the old bunch of Sacramento fly fishers, just emailed me that he visited Walt yesterday.

I know that Walt really appreciates it when an old friend stops by and talks about the good old days.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Cal Guin, one of the old bunch of coastal fly fishers told me some stories about fishing with Walt back in the 1970s.

Cal said Walt would invite him and Al Perryman into his cabover camper or trailer for hot cakes at breakfast. Cal said it was nice to get warm and get something warm to eat before standing all day in the Gualala River in the winter time.

I think Al and Cal usually sleep in their vehicles, really roughing it.

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[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Walt Bennett was part of the Greatest Generation. He was a baker in the US Navy in WWII.

Walt was part of the group of old timers I met around 1970 in the sporting goods stores I worked in as a kid in Sacramento.

There was about a dozen of them that seemed to adopt us younger guys, the baby boomers.

They took us hunter and fishing. They taught us to tie flies. We listened to all their stories of what it was like to grow up in the United States between WWI and WWII.

Some of them lived out in the country and set trap lines for the furs that they sold to buy their first rifles or shotguns or fishing rods.

We can only imagine how the fishing and hunting was in America before and just after WWII.

These old timers are all but gone now but we will never forget them.

Around the shop, we lovingly called them the Geezer Patrol.

When you see a really old person, remember they have better stories to tell than we do.

Some old guys were on the big landing in the south Pacific near the end of WWII.

Some of these old women in rest homes built aircraft and ships to help win the war in the 1940s.

As baby boomers, I think we are very connected emotionally to our parent's generation. Not so any more for these new wipper snappers. To them we are just old warn out people who can't run a computer very well.

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