Call it changing on the fly.

What I really wanted to do today, sitting here in my customary Wednesday chair at a most unusual time, was compose a sad song, my personal lament for the end of the Connecticut River salmon-restoration program we’ve followed for two generations. No matter how hard they tried — and indeed they gave it their best (well, except for the power companies exploiting public resources for private gain) — they just couldn’t bring Atlantic salmon back to the Connecticut River in quantities justifying the expense. It finally came down to simple math at a time when the government is counting pennies to haul us from the abyss opened by Wall Street criminals who these days are likely sunbathing on calm seas, oblivious to the drought, sipping noontime Tangueray martinis and reading “The Journal” on private yachts somewhere between Cape Cod and the Bahamas. Yes, I’m sure they’re enjoying their eight-week summer sabbaticals from investment firms sinisterly afloat on taxpayers’ backs.

Unfortunately, my salmon serenade must wait, just too many distractions and time constraints brought by a special visitor. Grandson Jordi has been in town going-on two weeks and I am temporarily filling the role of parent, which I do enjoy despite a routine dizzy in chaos. It all started last week when my wife carted the kid off to Point Judith and Block Island while I stayed home with the dogs. She said he had a ball. I wish I could have been there to teach him about outcast Roger Williams and the demonized Narragansett and Pequot tribes he befriended. That history lesson would have dovetailed nicely into our next stop, Fort Ticonderoga and the upper Hudson Valley of rich flintlock-and-tomahawk lore.

Actually, I did take off a couple of days at the end of last week and thus was not in the newsroom the day the story broke about the plug being pulled on our federal salmon program. On that day and every one since, I have morphed into my teacher mode, taking the kid under my wing on twice-daily river walks, meadow talks and swimming lessons that end today. By Sunday, I’ll be back to my normal routine, the soft, warm glow of retirement on a mellow crimson horizon, me reading and writing, trying to figure it all out and stitch it into something meaningful while pondering the future, one that promises to bring more reading and much more writing, which I can’t say I consider work. No, to me writing is just another game, the final one for a man who has all his life been a game-player — a fierce competitor, loyal teammate and friend, but seldom the coach’s pet, at least on school teams. As long as coaches didn’t try to deny my freedom and pleasures and, yes, a little mischief here and there, I was cool with it. But curfews and dress codes and team jackets with faux-leather sleeves? Well, they just weren’t for me, and I’m not ashamed to say they still aren’t. That stuff was created for a different breed of cat. The image reminds me of those silly bat-and-equipment bags softball players used to dangle over their shoulders and under their arm, bat handle sticking out the front. They’d lug them to the ballpark, through the town square and into the tavern for sacred ballplayer identity. Yeah, the fellas carried those bags proudly and, hey, some could even describe how to load and explode when shooting a 12-to-6 curveball off their back hip to the opposite field. Problem was that few if any had ever actually faced a 12-to-6, and fewer still could make consistent solid contact if challenged to do so off a tee. But, oh, how they carried those bags with that phony swagger which quickly vanished upon entering the white lines. It’s sad how much emphasis is placed on athletic accomplishment in this culture. What does it all mean after the skills, the strength, the reflexes and eyesight fade? Then, all that’s left is boring bluster and loud, drunken boasts.

Whoa! There I go again, getting carried away. How did I get from salmon sadness to hitting the breaking ball the other way, anyway? Oh yeah. Games … my past … my future … writing. Enough! Maybe I ought to go back and erase it all. Nah. What the heck? On to Jordi, what we’ve been seeing along the river, in the meadow; the dogs chasing squirrels and loud-mouthed killdeer screaming up and down the riverbanks, Chubby fired-up, determined to catch them, the birds even more determined to distract the dog from fleeing riverside offspring. Jordi soaks it all up, learning from a man introducing a style of thinking not always welcome in fluorescent classrooms, Sunday schools or cinderblock locker rooms. Thus far we’ve poked at a large painted turtle and observed the aforementioned killdeers along with kingfishers, crayfish, minnows, blue herons, birds of prey, all of them working the river above and below. We’ve examined the remnants of Irene, the fallen trees and other streamside debris, a huge pile of stones filling the bloated belly of a sharp river bend, a layer of fine gray silt enriching Sunken Meadow above.

More than anything else, we talk, focusing on the dogs, the sights, the sounds, the activity, how sad it is that humanity can’t function as harmoniously as nature. Jordi just wears this soft, innocent countenance, seems to “get it” with patient instruction. He’s learned about hayfield carnage and balloon scarecrows with large, colorful owl eyes that keep crows and other critters out of the garden. Apparently, those large, showy balloons hanging in the breeze on strings have no effect on black bears. The landowner who hung them stopped us on our way home Tuesday to show us large bear tracks angling across his garden. Likely a 200-plus-pound boar, alone, it had done some damage in a backyard but hadn’t so much as broken a squash or pepper leaf on its walk through the garden. The bear’s tracks, bigger than some men’s, were impressive indeed to a boy of 6. He won’t soon forget them.

Passing that same garden Wednesday morning, Jordi was quick to point out a solitary crow perched atop one of many tomato stakes between the intimidating owl eyes, and he found it quite amusing. I explained that there are always daring individuals, those willing to buck the tide and challenge authority. They’re the ones who end up in the principal’s office, get expelled from school and will never be candidates for floor manager at Dick’s Sporting Goods. You must be brave to be independent, I told him. Some who dare to be different find success, but most don’t. It’s always easier to follow rules and cower to authority, but not necessarily better in a philosophical sense. Jordi just looked up at me, somewhat bewildered, trying to grasp the gist. He’s a little young. Hopefully he’ll revisit the concept again and again when confronted with similar scenarios. I’m proud to plant such seeds, ones he’d never learn at Boy Scout camp.

Someday, I may teach the kid how to hold a bat, line up his knocking knuckles, roll his wrists, keep his eye on the ball, see it leave the pitcher’s hand. Maybe I’ll teach him to throw a baseball, show him how to create movement with different grips and release points. Then again, maybe I won’t. My priorities have changed dramatically as I’ve grown older and wiser, all the while sitting in the catbird’s seat overlooking small-time ballparks and gymnasiums. Given a choice about who my grandsons become as men, I guess I’d prefer free, critical thinkers over rigid hometown heroes who sport their team colors with pride and have no freakin’ clue.

Gotta go. Back to that thirsty river with a young grandson who loves to ramble with his gray, loving, mischievous mentor.