5/24 Daily Hampshire Gazette
“Philosopher on the Bridge”
Bob Flaherty
CHANCE ENCOUNTERS
“Philosopher on the Bridge”
Bob Flaherty
HOLYOKE/SOUTH HADLEY – Tommie Riggins conducts his fishing in a vigorous way. He prowls the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge from one end to the other, reaching back with everything he has and casting powerfully into the churning white water some 35 feet below. Then he prowls some more, ever-present cigar, Black & Mild, clenched in his teeth.
He is proud to say that he spells his name exact same as John Riggins, the Hall of Fame fullback who made first downs with half the defense clinging to him.
“People still talk about big John,” he smiles, uncorking another cast.
He’s caught two already this morning, a smallmouth bass and a striped one, both set free to swim again. Not big enough.
“Not at all, not at all,” he laments, “but the smallmouth was nice, about 18 inches.”
He seems to read the ocean-like current and is quick to try another spot if he detects a shift. “I missed one!” he cries. “Ohhhh, he was right on the edge.”
“I am 51 years old, with 51 years left,” he insists, as he moves about, his herring-like swimbait dangling from his hook. “God bless it—every day I get to wake up and open my eyes and God tells me to go.”
The voice is deep, resonant, mirthful, and can easily be heard over the steady bridge traffic and the pounding river underneath. Think Samuel L. Jackson with a dash of Obama for emphasis.
The Miami native moved up here with his young family in 2008. He and his wife, Marisol, who hails from Springfield, had worked together in a Florida medical facility.
“I noticed every time she talked to her mom and her sisters she’d get teary eyed, and I was like, yeah, my baby’s homesick. So I told her if your mom’s willing to put us up for a couple months til we get on our feet, lets go, lets do it. And she says ‘Are you for real?’ And I said yeah, let’s get out of Miami.”
They settled in Indian Orchard. “I told her, long as I got a place to fish, I’m good. She told me I could fish in the Connecticut River. River? What do you mean a river? ‘Yeah, a big river!’ OK, let me go and see. Man, that was a great day, a great day! Down south ya got the ocean … but this river, this is different. I got a hit a few minutes ago damn near pulled the rod out of my hands.”
The couple has raised two boys and four girls, and their first grandchild was born late last year in Washington state. “Hopefully I’ll get to see her soon. I gotta go and put my arms around that baby girl of mine. Oliana, I love you baby!” he hollers so fish can hear.
Riggins and his friend Paul, who’s not fishing, just keeping company, both rejoice in other anglers’ success. “Whoa!” they cry, as one of the half-dozen lining the banks way down below has a promising strike. “Oh, he’s hittin’ on shad bigtime!” says Riggins. “Damn!”
Though the annual shad run is just underway, Riggins is no fan of the fish. “No! I cannot get past the smell. They’re heavy in iodine, all that stuff they eat in the ocean. I mean, literally, when you cut ‘em open you can smell the iodine. No thank you.”
He and his rugged rod, a Tsunami Five Star, have other ideas, specifically, he says, “a keeper striper. I got my PB yesterday, my personal best, a 43-inch. 40-pound striper. She was a beast.”
Made it to the table?
“Oh yeah. Dinner and breakfast both. Kids love it, either baked or fried, mm-mm-mmmmm.”
Sharing the Wealth
Sometimes the catch of the day ends up on another’s table. Riggins laughs. “I was talking to a neighbor last night; she wanted some fish. I got a fish! ‘I want some!’ Not a problem.”
“All the neighbors looking at me: ‘There he goes again, he got another one,’” the fisherman cackles.
As Riggins hustles across 116 to sample the milder water where a striper might be turning back into the choppy waves, an elderly couple from Connecticut, as if on cue, gets out of a car with a wrapped present for Riggins, who gave them a fish the other day.
“This is for your wife,” said the woman.
“I thank you so much,” said Riggins.
“It was wonderful, so good,” she tells him, as they get back in the car.
Aside from bringing home the bacon, Riggins says the sport relaxes him. “It’s a way to free my mind,” he says. “My mother was the first one to put a fishpole in my hand and I never let one go since. When I was young she took me on a trip to the Keys. We were on a boat and I literally was the only one catching fish. I remember catching like fifteen—grunts, snappers—and I had THE time of my life! Every year she’d ask me what I want and I said I want a bike and a fishing pole.”
Meanwhile, a near-hookup. “Ohhhh!” he reels up. “I’m wondering what that hit was. That was scary. Oh man, I don’t think I woulda got that one, bro, the way that thing hit. He was going under the bridge for a purpose!”
“A damn purpose!” seconds Paul.
Well, it is, ahem, that time of year.
Though he’s a work in motion out here on the bridge, playing the waves below, Riggins is reminded how bad his back is.
“Nine years in the army didn’t beat me, I get out in the civilian sector and get the worst injury of my damn life,” he said. He wrecked his back trying to lift a hospital patient into a bed. “Comes with the job.”
He’s a Lyft driver these days and works his fishing around the schedule.
One More Cast
State of the world? You won’t catch Tommie Riggins dwelling too much on it. It’s just politics, he’ll tell you. “I’ve been in the military,” he grins. “I’ve been through Bush, Clinton and then Bush 2. Nothing really changes. They’re just figureheads. The same problems still exist in the world. All you can do is try to take care of your own corner of it,” he says, checking his bait.
Riggins’ brother was murdered in 2008. “Unfortunately, that’s Miami life, man, the wild wild west, one of the main reasons I had to get my kids out.”
Some might say that Springfield and Holyoke can be as dangerous. “Indeed,” he says, “But it’s really all about the people. Miami’s a rough area … the crack cocaine epidemic took away a lot of good families, just like the opioids up here. But people don’t take advantage of you here, and there’s a lot of beauty you can take in. You got springtime green wherever you look and in the fall you got so many colors it’s ridiculous.”
He has time for one more cast, which can often be as satisfying as catching something. Then he packs up and hurries to the car. He needs to pick up a regular customer in Springfield. “I’ll take him to Bradley, then I’m right back here,” says Tommie Riggins, who can be found later in the exact spot where he caught his PB, like a gambler on a hot slot machine.
Bob Flaherty 