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When life casts shadows on Bart Chabot, his resilience usually wins. Partial blindness led to a new career. Losing a leg led to a vocation of volunteerism.

All of it, he says, was in God's plan.

Now 71, Mr. Chabot recently received a national award from Trout Unlimited, the coldwater fisheries conservation group where he's volunteered for three decades. Add that to the work he's done as a Boy Scouts of America leader, a Northeastern Woodworkers Association member and a rehabilitation hospital volunteer, and he's a busy man.

"There's not enough time in a day. Quite honestly, I think I'm going to be cloned," Mr. Chabot joked. "You've got to make yourself get up and do things."

That's also his message for amputees he counsels at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital in Schenectady and other hospitals and nursing homes.

"I tell them that life has not ended," he said - adding that he usually shocks the patients at the end of a visit when he lifts his pant leg to reveal his own prosthetic limb.

"It's all above the eyebrow. God's only going to give you challenges that you can handle, and how you deal with them shows you what you're made of."

His visits stem from his pastoral care work at St. John the Evangelist Church in Schenectady, where he and his wife are parishioners.

Home waters
Mr. Chabot leads Trout Unlimited fishing trips for elderly veterans and people with physical and mental disablities, in addition to lobbying for docks and access to fishing waters for disabled people.

"We've put a smile on a lot of people's faces," said the busy volunteer. "And there's the reward right there."

Mr. Chabot also participates in the Trout in the Classroom program, teaching high school and college students about ecosystems; water cleanliness; preserving salmon, steelhead and trout populations; and stimulating the growth of amphibians.

"I do enjoy trout, and those species can't survive in polluted water," he explained. "Anything we can do - even miniscule [efforts] - will be of benefit."

Mr. Chabot leads fishing clinics for Schenectady children, teaches Boy Scouts about the catch-and-release method of fishing and sets up programs at wildlife festivals to demonstrate fly casting and tying flies.

Douglas Howard, immediate past president of the Clearwater chapter of Trout Unlimited, called Mr. Chabot a "pied piper" in educating youth on conservation.

Mr. Chabot and hundreds of other Trout Unlimited members spend their free time fishing across New York State and elsewhere. They monitor vegetation, rock structure and trout so the state Department of Environmental Conservation knows how to classify streams.

Over the past 100 years, about 90 percent of brook trout habitats have been destroyed, Mr. Howard noted.

Bart's background
When he was 12 years old, Mr. Chabot caught 79 herring with a net on the Charles River in eastern Massachusetts.

"I just said, 'This is a good thing,'" he remembered. "I got hooked on fishing."

He started fly fishing in the early 1960s and joined Trout Unlimited in the early 1970s.

Mr. Chabot's first career was kitchen remodeling. He planned to return to it after he finished serving as an aircraft mechanic in the U.S. Air Force in 1959, but an off-duty construction accident blinded him in his left eye and left the right eye weak for years.

So he went into hairstyling - where he met his wife, Lorraine. The couple married within a year.

"I just couldn't say no. I think it was fate that I ended up in that particular trade because I wouldn't have met her" otherwise, Mr. Chabot said.

After owning his own salon, he returned to remodeling after his good eye recovered. Then, in 1982, while working on a construction site, a truck crushed his right leg. After 30 operations, doctors decided to amputate. Side effects left him with an inner ear disruption and insulin-controlled diabetes.

"Other than that, I'm the picture of health," he told The Evangelist with good humor. "I'm lucky to be here, so I have to thank God and I have to be optimistic."

His optimism seems contagious.

"His handicaps were not a handicap to him," said Mr. Howard, who has known Mr. Chabot since the mid-1980s. "He's just a lively member. Everybody feels good around him."

(Learn about Trout Unlimited at www.clearwatertu.org or write to P.O. Box 9686, Niskayuna, NY 12309.)

(11/18/10) [[In-content Ad]]

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