Manhattan, Mont. -- Something strange is happening at the house glowing in the distance. Or rather, a web of strange things, magic almost, if you'll permit what might seem on the front end to be hyperbole. A man named Tom Morgan lives here, making some of the most expensive and sought-after fly fishing rods in the world, which he does despite having been paralyzed from the neck down for the past 17 years. He's revered for what he calls "thought rods," where the instrument functions as an extension of the mind, delivering the fly where you imagine it will go, not where a series of clumsy physical muscle movements try to direct it.
In all of his rods -- both in the way he builds them and in the way people seek them out -- there lives a sense of the mystic. One old model is nicknamed "The Unity with the Universe." Tom once offended a conservative fisherman by joking that their accuracy was the result of prayers and incantations. He has that kind of faith in his rods. He believes in how they can connect an angler, if only briefly, to the soul of nature, and how they can connect him to the person he used to be. The rods are what matter, to Tom and to his customers, which seems like such an inadequate word to describe the relationship.
Most of the people who buy them are spiritual pilgrims, and some are literal pilgrims, flying to Montana to visit or pick up their rods in person. They come from as far away as Japan. They drive out of Bozeman, headed west, finally seeing the glow on a ridge to the right. A white bus named Moby -- yes, the people inside love Melville -- lets them know they've found the place. The house is surrounded by snowy peaks and a herd of buffalo, which move like ghosts across the high plains. The strangers arrive at the front door, the wind coming down from the Tobacco Root Mountains, blowing hard and cold. Tom's staff often joke when they hear tires on the long gravel road: "Get out the prayer rug." Some visitors don't even know he's paralyzed. A young rod maker once arrived for an apprenticeship and stuck out his hand when he met Tom. Nobody had told him. The rods are more important than the obstacles overcome to create them, and the anglers who travel such great distances don't want to unlock the secret of his life; they are grasping for understanding of their own. "It's like they're walking in to see the Dalai Lama," says that apprentice.
It's a lot to expect from a fishing pole.
A small epiphany waits at the end of their time with Tom, if they pay attention to the signs. There is no his life and their life, just life. The rods don't provide answers, only questions, about how you lived it before you arrived, and how you might live it after. The questions apply to Tom, too. There are secrets to be unlocked at the house glowing on the hill, about dreams and perfection and, yes, even love, but first you have to go inside.
by Wright Thompson, ESPN | Read more:
Image: Ross Detman
