Chapter 7 ~ Sounds Fishy to Me

I have a soft spot in my heart for fishermen and other liars.  Maybe that’s because fishing was the one outdoorsy thing I actually did in my life B.C. (before Carmon).  The first time my grandfather took me fishing, I was about eight years old and I caught one fish – a little 5-inch trout.  I refused to allow my grandmother to cook it until I had the chance to show it to my mom and dad.  Since they weren’t to come to pick me up until Saturday, nearly a week away, and since my grandmother didn’t own a deep freeze, that was to become a very aromatic experience.  My grandmother, bless her heart, took out the ice cube trays to allow me keep my fish in the tiny freezer compartment of her old Frigidaire.  My parents finally arrived, and they oohed and aahed over that fish as if I had landed Moby Dick.  I wanted to eat it for lunch that very day.  However, by the time I came back into the house after helping Grandpa with some chores in the backyard, the fish had mysteriously disappeared.  I was heart broken.  They only thing I had to remind me of my great adventure was the fact that Grandma’s ice cubes smelled of dead fish for the rest of the summer.

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 Carmon and I actually went fishing together before we were married.  In fact, our second date was a fishing trip to Lake Mead.  That our courtship survived was nothing short of a miracle.  Carmon didn’t own a boat in those days, although I was to be given our first boat as a gift for Mothers’ Day several years later.  Ever creative, Carmon invented what I liked to call the Tube Trawler.  This invention involved his fishing pole, a stringer, a bait bucket, a cowboy hat, swim fins, and a large, black inner tube.  He would attach the stringer and bait bucket to the tube, balancing them carefully on opposite sides so that the weight wouldn’t swamp the craft.  He would put the fins on his feet and the hat on his head, sit on the tube with his bottom through the hole and his feet hanging over the side.  Then, with fishing pole in hand, he would paddle backwards with his feet, trawling the water for bass, and singing Pearl, Pearl, Pearl, she’s nutty as a squirrel.  He always managed to catch his limit in the Tube Trawler, a fact that annoyed practically everyone else on the fishing trip.  On one occasion, he regaled his entire family with this spectacle.  They were duly impressed, although my sister-in-law, Dotty, thought the whole affair was proof positive that Pearl wasn’t the only one who was nutty as a squirrel!

Carmon loved bass fishing and would have lived at the lake were it not for the minor detail of having to earn a living.  I enjoyed the lake, too, once we got a boat, but I couldn’t take the steady diet of it that he would have enjoyed.  For one thing, it was hot and sunny most of the time.  Carmon, with his dark complexion, tanned to a deep, golden brown.  I, on the other hand, am a blue-eyed blond who sunburns under a 100-watt light bulb.  For another thing, while he handled the tough stuff, like making sure the boat motor had gas and the tackle was in good shape, I had charge of the minor stuff like planning, buying, cooking, packing, and icing down all the food; cleaning and packing all of the cookware and cutlery needed for roughing it; washing, folding, and packing towels, swim suits, clothes, and sleeping bags; bathing and dressing four kids, making sure they all had hats and zinc oxide for their noses.  When we got home, I got to do it all in reverse.  I even had the opportunity to help package and freeze the fish he caught and cleaned. 

There was one really memorable fishing trip to the lake.  The children were older and could help me with the minor stuff while Carmon took care of the tough stuff.  Then, on Friday night, Carmon loaded up the truck with all four kids and took off down the road, leaving me waving good-bye from the driveway.  Although my niece, Lola, thought him rude to leave me at home alone, I will always remember that as the best fishing trip I never took – an entire weekend all to myself, lying in bed, in a quiet house with a good mystery and a box of chocolates.

© Gebara Education, 2001. No portion of this book may be copied by any method without the express written permission of the author

Picture of fish on line from www.featurepics.com

Picture of man fishing from inner tube from www.flickr.com

Picture of Whitman's Sampler from multiple sources