The road less traveled

Rolling Stone magazine a few years ago asked singer/songwriter Neil Young why he usually followed up a popular gold selling album with a weird deviation into an obscure and largely unappreciated musical genre.

Young, who has written songs, toured and made albums for nearly 40 years, replied that you never meet the most interesting people if you travel only down the middle of the road.

I have spent a good part of my life taking one of those less traveled roads. I want to tell you about someone I met along the way.

My next door neighbor, Merle Fisher, bought his house on the White River in 1950 for $3,000. He had lived in a couple other riverfront houses and this would be the one in which he would stay.

He taught children, stepchildren and grandchildren to hunt, fish, drive a motorboat and generally appreciate the outdoors.

A quiet and thoughtful man, Merle had some pretty interesting adventures in his younger years.

As a teenager, he and friends ice-skated on the White River from Noblesville to the Broad Ripple dam just to see if they could. That's a 27-mile journey. Of course, those were the days before road salt when rivers actually froze in the winter.

A few years later, Merle and his twin brother Earl decided to take Earl's Model A Ford out on the ice to tow people around. They sank the Ford and spent the rest of the day trying to pull it out of the river.

Five cars and a lot of towrope did the trick. They towed the frozen flivver to a garage in Broad Ripple that still is in business today, more than 65 years later.

The mechanic drained the oil, refilled it and the Ford started right up. The only problem was that the frozen seat cover turned brittle and cracked. Earl covered the spot with a phone book, which he sat on until he sold the car a few years later.

When he was out fishing one day, Merle noticed a pipe coming from a house up river was discharging soapy water into the river. There wasn't anybody to report something like that to 40 or so years ago, so Merle decided to do something on his own.

He quietly rowed his small fishing boat up to the pipe one night and plugged it. He figured the fellow would get the message that he shouldn't be dumping in the river.

The next day, Merle went by and saw his upstream neighbor digging the yard up with a backhoe. Merle felt bad that he was costing the fellow money, so he stopped by to confess and offer to pay.

The embarrassed neighbor told Merle to keep his money. He had learned his lesson and he wouldn't pipe water into the river again.

Merle passed away in his home in January. He was 89.

I never would have met Merle if I had been traveling down the middle of the road, doing the same things, living the same places, having the same dreams and interests as almost everybody else.

I hope you take a detour from what is normal from time to time so that you also can meet a character like Merle. It will enrich your life.

Stephen Sellers, editor