Robert James Warner
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Bert Maynard a trout fisherman had an inspiration one day and comes up with his Biggest and Best Big Idea: use a robot fishing lure to catch fish with. Catching fish with a robot fishing lure would be like catching fish in a bait tank! Bert hurries off to see Krong. Bert is in Huntington Beach, California, at the time. Krong agrees to make some robot fishing lures, and Bert leaves and goes back to Troutville, USA, where he lives near the best brook trout fishing; the best lake trout fishing; and the best brown trout fishing in all the world, its location is a well kept secret!
Some months later Bert gets his robot fishing lures, called robot fishing lures or RFLs. Bert names his two RFLs, Willy and Tilly.
Troutville, USA, has a trout tournament each year, which Bert has done very well at, being one hell of a fisherman. He figures with Willy and Tilly he has The Grand Slam sewed up: to win each of the three trout categories: brook, lake, and brown trout; for some kind of big prize money and the prestige of winning The Grand Slam!
Unbeknownst to Bert, his big competition, Jack Cheater Swiller, comes up with the same Big Idea almost at the same time, and, the Watchers, being fair minded, give Cheater some RFLs too.
Unbeknownst to Cheater, Bert gets Willy and Tilly and the battle is on!
Can Bert Maynard and Willy The Wonder Fish and Tilly The Wonder Fish win The Grand Slam trout tournament and beat Jack (the Cheater) Swiller and his RFLs?!
Robert James Warner was born and raised in Long Beach, California. He went to the local schools. He was drafted into the Navy on March 9th, 1944, during the 2nd World War, as soon as he finished his last semester in High School. He was discharged from the Navy on June 16, 1946.
Mr. Warner went back to school, Long Beach City College, on the GI Bill, taking mechanical engineering, and then he switched to journalism. After about a year and a half at City College he quit.
Mr. Warner had always been interested in writing, but he had huge handicaps to overcome: he couldn't spell (he still can't); and grammar was then and is now a mystery to him.
Mr. Warner first began to write when he was about 20.
During the next few years he wrote some songs, some poetry, and some short stories; but his output was quite low.
From 1947, after Mr. Warner left City College, to 1950, he had a number of different inconsequential jobs, the longest at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach, where he worked in the blueprint department for eight months, then he quit and loafed awhile.
In 1950 he enlisted in the Active Naval Reserve as a Week End Warrior, so he could learn seamanship, and get paid doing it. He has had a life long love affair with boats (building his own) and fishing.
About three months later, the Korean War started and Mr. Warner was called back to active duty in the Navy Aircorp for a year, getting discharged in August, 1951, serving on three aircraft carriers, operating off of Korea in the China Sea, bombing and strafing the communists!
After Korea, Mr. Warner went back to City College for awhile, then he got a job on a freighter as a deckhand, and made two trips to the Hawaiian Islands, about 30 days round trip, hauling bulk sugar for C&H Sugar in Crocket, California on the Sacramento River.
Leaving the ship in Crocket he went to Santa Rosa, California, where he washed dishes in some restaurants, and got a poem published in the local newspaper, a big day in his life.
Next, he went to Yosemite, and washed some more dishes, then he went home.
Mr. Warner has cleaned chicken dung from under the pens; he owned and operated his own auto wrecking yard; owned his own 2nd Store; was half owner of a Yacht Landing; speculated in Real Estate; and worked at some other odd jobs, going to work for the Long Beach Fire Department in 1953 for the next 26 years, retiring in October, 1979.
Mr. Warner got married in 1961, had his son in 1963, and then got divorced in 1973.
In 1974, Mr. Warner and his son, Jeff, drove to Alaska during the summer. On his return, Mr. Warner wrote his first novel.
Since 1974, Mr. Warner has written 31 novels, about 125 short stories, two Civil War books, and two poetry collections.
(Bert Maymard, the main human character, is having his troubles even though he is using a robot fishing lure, Willy The Wonder Fish. He is standing on the bank of the brook fishing with Willy tied on his line.)
. . . . then the @$%'Y#R%&Y#%$Y who was the cause of all of Bert's trouble dropped Willy, stepped on him, jamming him in to the dirt, which made him almost impossible to find in the semi-darkness of the early dawn's light since he wasn't supposed to reveal what he was which meant he just laid there jammed in the dirt, until Bert swearing savagely under his breath, some not so much under his breath, told Willy to get the #$%&$%'*'% back to him so he could go on fishing, which Willy tried valiantly to do, but he was half under the boot of %#%$'&$#%'&U$%'& who had fowled everything up so well, then as #%'$'%&*%'&* shifted his weight a little and moved his boot, just a little but enough, Willy was up like a bullet and sped back to Bert who put him on his line again, which had been untangled in the meantime, and Bert cast him out to where Tilly was trying to protect his big brook trout, which she had managed to do, then Willy arrived in a swirl of water, flicked his tail and the big brook trout was hooked, and the battle was on.
Bert, shoulder to shoulder, as usual, leaped straight in to the brook when his rod bent, he wasn't taking any chances this time, which was a damn fine idea except he fouled a number of lines that had become crisscrossed in the brook current, which caused the other troutmen to yell and scream at him, but he didn't care, he had the winning brook trout on and only death could keep him from landing him, a dedication all of those fiercely trying troutmen knew about and wanted, badly, and so they grudgingly, with a huge amount of bad grace and unrepealable sayings, not always under their breaths, gave a little ground, in this case, a little water, so Bert could fight his fish, all of the other troutmen cursing and swearing $%'&$'%&*%'&*'$%'* at The Fates that it was that lucky %'%'&*(%'&(%'&&(%&'!#@$%! Bert Maynard who had the big fish on and they didn't because a lot of them had the unwanted deep down feeling, that they were watching Bert fight the winning brook trout right then, and the brook trout tournament was all but over before the %$'%'&*%'&$#@!$%@ thing had hardly started!!! Which was exactly right! Except that Bert was having his own troubles, being almost chest deep in the brook, which had a fairly strong current right there, which was hard to stand against and fight the big brook trout at the same time, which was fighting magnificently, too damn magnificently to suit Bert right then as he stumbled on a rock and almost went under, staggering and fighting to keep his footing, all of the other troutmen wanting him to land the big fish and wanting him to lose it at the same time, so they could catch it themselves, which we won't blame them too much for since it is only human nature, human nature we all have!!!
To keep the big trout from breaking off, Bert had to keep going down stream as the trout used the current to help him get away, which meant that Bert was fouling the other troutmen's lines, all along the bank, which he couldn't help, which wasn't any help at all, as the troutmen began to yell and shout at him to keep the %$%'$'&*'%& away from my line you *%'&'%&*!#$% you, which Bert tried to do, but he couldn't even see the small monofilament lines let alone avoid them, then a lure caught him on his left shoulder, the one turned toward the bank, as he stumbled and staggered on down stream somehow by some kind of miracle keeping his feet under him and keeping on, the big brook pulling hard and swerving back and forth across the brook, picking up line after line of the other troutmen, turning the entire brook bank in to a madhouse of yelling and shouting troutmen who were trying to get out of Bert's way and keep on fishing!
Only five minutes after the start of the brook trout tournament had gone by and already mayhem had set in in the form of one Bert Maynard who had the winning brook trout on, but who had about the same chance as a snowman in hell of landing the big brook trout, and all of the troutmen knew it, and, most of them refused to do very much to help him cuz if they did, they were helping to defeat themselves, which they didn't want to do, of course, who would?, so Bert, having the trout fight of his life, managed, by some more of that miracle stuff to keep to his feet and keep the big brook trout on as he pulled loose from the lure in the shoulder of his shirt and continued to stumble and stagger on down stream until he came to a curve in the brook to the right, which had formed a sand bank on the left side of the brook, Bert's side, allowing him to slowly work the big trout up to the sand bank, fouling many lines as he did so, as he came out of the water to stand and fight the big brook trout on the sand bank, the center of a lot of angry yelling and shouting and lots of enthusiastic "keep it's head up, Bert!!!" from those troutmen who had some of the milk of human kindness in them, which were those Bert had not fouled as he came ashore.
By the time Bert had fought his way downstream to the sandbar he had been in the brook for about ten minutes, which had just about tired out the big trout, and, with extreme care, another five minutes and Bert brought in as nice a big brook trout as he had ever caught, which caused a lot of the troutmen to abandon their labors for the moment to take a look at what might have been for them if they had been Bert Maynard with a RFL! As soon as the big fish was at his feet, Bert reached down, grabbed it just behind the eyes with a death grip and got the hell out of there as quick as he could, trying to hide Willy, who was hanging on to the side of the trout's mouth, from the other troutmen, who, like all fishermen worth their salt, wanted to know what lure he was using so they could use the same one, if they could find one, so Bert began to shout out the name of a lure he had made, just to get them off of his back so he could escape with what all of the troutmen knew was a winning brook trout, and, maybe, the winning brook trout.
