Thursday October 6, 2011
GUILFORD — for the past 20 years, Robert Gorman’s spot along the Green River has been his refuge.
There he lived in a refurbished Airstream trailer, splitting his time between the banks of the river and his nearby shop where he handcrafted bamboo fly-fishing rods.
At one time, Gorman was an architect living in Richmond, N.H., but he began making the bamboo rods and eventually he found a new calling. His craftsmanship was so refined and exquisite that he eventually had customers from around the world.
Over the course of just a few hours on Aug. 28 his friend, the Green River, washed that all away when, swollen by the rain of Tropical Storm Irene, it flooded his workshop and destroyed his machines, tools, supplies and all his works in progress.
“It was the perfect setting for a rod maker and now it’s gone,” said Gorman. “My favorite place in the world is gone.”
Like many others in similar straits around Windham County, Gorman didn’t have flood insurance. He received some money from FEMA to replace his Airstream, but most of that has been spent on cleaning up his property, which was covered in mud and debris.
And at 78, he doesn’t have a way to pay back any low-interest loans that are being offered by the Small Business Administration to help people rebuild after the flood.
Gorman is staying with a friend in Bellows Falls but hopes to find a way to return to his land in Guilford.
“The future? I have no idea,” he said. “I’m still kind of in shock.”
Walking through his small shop on the river, seeing the damage, the moldy walls, the destroyed equipment and drawers filled with tools and supplies accumulated over the years is hard for Gorman.
“My shop was my home … my center,” he said.
Sasha Gorman, his son, said his father is an incredible craftsman who’s been “twiddling away” in the woods for many years making bamboo fly rods, building a reputation and receiving well-earned recognition from anglers.
Gorman, who lives in Madison, Wisc., said he hopes his father can pick up the pieces and start over.
“We’re trying to figure out how to help him,” he said. “But there’s not enough resources.”
Other than recovering his life, Robert Gorman said he is concerned about the future of the Green River. Just upriver from his land there is a large debris dam that has rechanneled the water’s flow.
He hopes the town and the state can figure out a way to remove the debris dam before the next big downpour makes it worse.
Though Gorman lost his livelihood, he recognizes that he still has his life, and for that he owes a great debt to a Guilford volunteer firefighter named Chris Laflam.
When Gorman realized how high the river was rising, he grabbed his dog, Eloise, a Tibetan terrier, and tried to wade through thigh-deep water to get to the road.
The current swept his feet out from under him and he found himself clinging with one hand to a tree and to Eloise with his other.
Laflam and fellow firefighter Ryan Snow were checking on people on the Green River when they found Gorman holding on for dear life.
Laflam was able to grab Gorman and drag him and Eloise out of the river.
For his part, Laflam, who’s been a firefighter since 1994, said his rescue of Gorman was “no big deal.”
“It’s just one of those things,” he said. “You just do it.”
“That’s the norm for Chris,” said Guilford fire Chief Jared Bristol. “When something needs to be done, he figures out a way to do it.”
Former Guilford fire Chief Dan Stoughton said Laflam is a no-nonsense kind of guy.
“He’s the kind of guy who puts other people first,” said Stoughton.
Herb Meyer, Guilford’s emergency management director, said pretty much the same thing about Laflam.
“He doesn’t say much but he’s there and he does things,” said Meyer.
Laflam said he and Gorman didn’t trade many words that night, but Gorman was thankful.
“He definitely was tired,” said Laflam.
“That guy was a hero,” said Gorman. “He was here when I needed a hand.”
Now Gorman needs a different kind of hand, but he’s a proud man who doesn’t want a handout.
“I don’t want money,” said Gorman. “I have had everything taken from me but I don’t want to be a mendicant, too.”
He just wants to get back to making fly rods again.
Gorman was infected with the fly fishing bug in the 1960s but didn’t know it at the time.
During his honeymoon, he and his wife Judy, who at one time wrote for the Reformer and died last year, were visiting Yellowstone National Park and were driving along the river in the early morning.
The mist was rising over the water and he glimpsed what he thought was a man practicing Tai Chi in the river.
It was more than six months later that he realized the man was actually fly-fishing.
He said he was drawn to fly-fishing because of what he witnessed that morning, because of its “aesthetics” and the attention it demands to do it properly.
“The things that aren’t relevant fall away,” said Gorman.
Tom Dorsey, of Thomas & Thomas, which makes bamboo fly rods in Greenfield, Mass., said he’s known Gorman for at least 20 years.
“He was a customer,” said Dorsey.
He loved the Thomas & Thomas rods so much that he often stopped in the shop just to watch them being made, said Dorsey.
“He learned a lot,” he said, and when Gorman took up the craft, he became a skilled rod maker.
“He makes beautiful stuff,” said Dorsey. “It’s really sad that this happened to him.”
Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com, or at 802-254-2311, ext. 160.
