The practice of designating days, words, or letters of great significance as red-letter days goes back to early 500’s AD. I never really looked into this before, thought about it, or even noticed it – even though it was always there… my red-letter Bible with the words of Jesus in red, a calendar with special holidays noted in red instead of black, the first letter of chapters of books in red, or my great-uncle Canny smiling and saying “today sure was a red-letter day”. Turns out we folks on earth have been utilizing that phrase for centuries upon centuries….bringing attention to that which is uncommon, that which is rare, that which deserves and requires our notice of the significant.

Last Sunday certainly qualifies.

My son returned home from the Army last week and we got to spend Sunday afternoon doing what we do best… driving my truck through the mountains to a distant headwater, and then walking a long way to a tiny stream in search of trout.

I deliberately headed for our favorite stream – one of the last places we fished before he had shipped out last year. But instead of going downstream, we decided to bushwhack upstream to the where the blue lines merged with the topo lines on our map.

A mile in we were climbing over deadfalls and doing our best not to break our rods…. a half a mile further and it all paid-off…

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A beautiful evening, my Son back with me, and a stream full of willing trout… this certainly did not go unnoticed. This was, indeed, a red-letter day, and a day for which I was thankful.