I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the Old Girl – but with visiting dignitaries from the Greater Bay Area, I was hoping she wouldn’t simply disgorge undergarments and turn the evening into a lingerie-fest.

Being known as a Brownliner has its downside, typically it’s in the middle of the Pristine speech, where you’re recounting all the bright spots in neighboring flora and fauna, water clarity, leashed pets, and tidy beaches – and then a corpse floats past…

That’s when the Bronx Cheer and catcalls start, intermingled with, ” you drug us all the way up here to fish in …”

But the mighty Underwear River was on good behavior, and we only snagged three gym socks – which gave a good account of themselves before being flung in the general direction of the beach.

I hosted Brothers Eberle; SMJ – who recently confessed to being the elder, so I’m only talking to him via the comments section – and younger sibling Jeff – whom I falsely accused of fly stealing, pilfering, and worse.

…  and while I’m busy extolling the virtues of clean living and cleaner water, I bury a “carrot” fly just behind the dorsal of a Sacramento Sucker – a decently large specimen whom I’m now obligated to tow sideways up the river – while he does his best to do likewise with me.

It must’ve been the Kashi Bar chilling in the vest pocket – it’s a chum line into the heart of anything with an inferior mouth, like Tarzan yelling “Kree-gah” and the forest erupting with a herd of Pachyderms willing to stomp grass huts and wide eyed tribesmen alike..

SMJ had never been “kissed” by a Shad, and heretofore the Underwear hadn’t seen fit to show him anything but the cold shoulder. As luck would have it – careful scouring of the river bottom yielded every tree limb ever dipped in cold current, and some fish – real ones, chrome bright hellfighters …

I kept thinking SMJ was the “cigarette girl” as he’d lashed a laundry hamper to his waist hoping to cash in on all the free underwear I’d bragged about – and like everything else I’d promised – even the underwear were a disappointment.

I half expected him to enquire “Cohiba, Beef Jerky, or Marlboro’s, Sir?” – but he was intent on fishing and reluctant to share precious angling resources. I did manage to find a token Kashi bar to add to his larder – bursting with soy-goodness it would have been a musical footnote to the drive home.