Once in awhile my dad took me fishing. Fishing was heaven compared to sitting around watching him grade papers for hours on end. I always asked him why he didn’t grade the dumb things before he would pick me up and I never got a straight answer. I can’t say as though I really liked fish, but fishing meant we were going to a place out in the middle of nowhere and it was an excuse to look at unfamiliar woods or a stream that was raging towards some unknown place.
The best trips were up north around trout stream country. These small rivers were crystal clear and would always be situated in the most idyllic settings. It would take an hour or two before we reached these streams and we always stopped by the hatcheries first. That was where we could have a look at the trout before they were let out into the real world so to speak. The area streams were always stocked with trout. The hatcheries were needed to insure that there would be enough fish for the fisherman and they helped Mother Nature out at the same time.
There were so many fishermen out and about that the fish would almost be extinct in a matter of minutes. It was common for fishermen to hide out in their cars and wait for the hatchery trucks to drive by in hopes they could tail them and see where the day’s secret delivery spots would be. The tank trucks were carrying water and of course hungry fish, and they changed the time and destination of their drops because of such un-sportsman like conduct.
Some mysterious old passer by would always walk up to our car and say a hatchery truck was spotted in the such and such area and they were pulling them in by the dozens. I could never tell if these old men were serious or just pulling our leg, but we of course where tempted as much as anybody to check these places out. As soon as we would arrive on scene people were leaving with such a catch that it was a real challenge to fish anymore in that particular spot. The water was so clear that if you didn’t see fish you probably were wasting your time. We drove allover the place and would sometimes bring in a few but never dozens like the others. There were limits on the amount one could keep before they had to start throwing them back, but my dad always said that people were probably taking home way more than the legal limit and that’s why we ended up with so few. I didn’t really see people taking home more than their fair share but my dad said all the coolers in the back seats and trunks were holding lots of fish and not six packs and bologna sandwiches.
My favorite thing to bait the hook with was corn. Jigs were great fun to use because they were so funny looking and came in a wide variety of colors. Jigs weren’t meant to simply sit on the bottom, like a worm, and you always had to real them back and make them dance along the way in order to catch the fish’s attention. That was a great way to waste time, but like I said, my favorite thing to bait the hook with was corn because, as you know, corn is not alive! The worms would drive me insane when they were fighting for their lives. The worst part was when they squirmed around and became skinnier where you were pinching them in order to get fatter in an attempt to muscle their way out of your fingers. Then it was like you were crucifying them as you ran them through with the spear of death. They always kept squirming even after the punishment, and on top of it all you were going to drowned the sons of bitches! Of course all this made me forget that my main intention was to offer them as a sacrifice snack to the slimy fish gods! How much torturous could this get, I thought?,br> Cleaning fish was a real nightmare if ever there was one. My dad showed me how to do it but I kind of blocked it out of my memory. It wasn’t so bad after I got the hang of it but that was because my mind and fingers were going numb. My mind was drifting and my fingers were someone else’s. Talk about gruesome! You might as well have shoved your fist down someone’s throat and put their supper back on the table! Your job was to cut them up and save the good parts before you threw the rest in the woods for the bears. It was kind of like dissecting someone’s lungs. The good parts! There were no good parts for Christ’s sake; this was about as appetizing as maggoty monkey brains. But like I said, I didn’t enjoy cleaning fish.
Whenever we went on a fishing trip we took his car, his only car and that was just fine with me. It was a compact sort of thing because at that time the energy crunch was on and little cars were the big hit. It had a little rust here and there but it ran great and at least it had a radio. He had driven a Volkswagen when I was younger, but I guess it was getting to the point of no return and he sold it for an undisclosed amount of money. He was always worried about his new car and did everything he could to prolong its life.
One day he decided that our occasional fishing trips were too much wear and tear on it and he actually went and bought a second car. I couldn’t believe it when he told me he had bought another car. I considered him one of the penny pinchers extraordinaire and thought he had gone crazy. He would pinch pennies so tight that they would actually drip blood all over the place; this was life or death. Well anyway, he picked me up one day and drove me to his house so I could take a look at his new purchase. It was almost kind of exciting, almost like he had bought himself a Christmas or a birthday present; this was going to be great.
As we pulled up to his house I asked him who was parked in the grass by the side of his driveway. Nobody had done that before. A car was parked close to the lot line, but it was technically in his yard and it should be moved, I thought. The car looked like death warmed over and it was the smallest car I had ever seen. We stopped and got out. I ran over to it and said the neighbor guy just walk around the corner and he’d better go tell him to move his stinking car. My dad didn’t really listen and watched me running over towards it. He said, “Yes I know, it is a great car isn’t it?” The door to his garage was shut and I thought he was talking about his new car inside, and I replied, “I can’t see through the garage door dad, I don’t have Superman vision.” Boy was I wrong, that sad old thing was the new car and I felt embarrassed.
The first thing I asked him was if it even ran. “Well of course it runs, how do you think I got it here?” He said in fact it ran great and it only cost twenty bucks or something. He said it was the beater car and we were going to take it out of town when we went on trips. That was a scary thought. “What if it breaks down?” I asked, “What if we get stranded and have to walk up and down the road looking for help!” I remembered going fishing along a river with my grandfather and there wasn’t anybody around for miles. I remember once a little girl stumbled up to us and was covered in blood. She was in shock and said her and her father had been in a bad car accident and needed help. I was terrified! My grandfather went and took the little girl to the nearest town and her father had apparently walked away from the crash and was God knows where. The car was turned over on its roof because they hit a stone embankment that ran along the side of the gravel road. This thought was flooding my brain. This accident had nothing to do with the motor breaking down, so to speak, but it was simply the idea of people being stranded in the middle of nowhere that made me very anxious. After all, it looked like something Fred Flintstone would have driven to work. This thing looked like it had been carved out of a block of wood and the color of a zebra carcass after the vultures were through with it. And another thing, it didn’t have a radio; how in the hell was I going to survive a trip without a radio?
One of the main reasons he bought it was to save money on gas. He said his other car didn’t get the best gas mileage and this sucker would do wonderful. It was by all means a very small car, kind of like something one would see driving around in Europe or somewhere, but it was so brutal. He opened the hood and had me walk around to see the engine. Engine, I thought! I bet there’s a giant squirrel under there running on a tread mill hooked to one of the axles. That’s what would explain the good gas mileage! But wait, I thought, I bet he’d complain about the cost of squirrel food next, and then we’d have to figure something else out. So I walk over and looked at the engine; they all looked the same to me but this one looked like it might take a whole gallon of gas just to get started. I dreaded the day I would have to ride in the thing.
The one time I actually went on a trip in this thing was a nightmare. He was afraid to go the speed limit in fear that it might be too taxing on the motor, or should I say the giant squirrel, and the car was so loud it was like being at the stock car races. It took forever to go anywhere. People were always passing us and he acted like they were threatening his manhood or something. Well anyway this thing made me sick, I mean real sick. I was sitting in the back; I don’t know how this car was capable of having a back seat; and stretched out to kind of relax. I had a monster of a headache and was always complaining about the smell of gas. I told him this car wasn’t getting good gas mileage because it smelled like it was leaking out all over the place. He tried to ignore me. Just as I was about to puke I looked down at the floor and saw a curious thing. I could see the road; the road was right there for all to see and I quickly told my dad this thing was falling apart and I was going to probably fall out. “Oh, its nothing, he said, “it’s just a small hole where the floor boards are rusting through.” That was pretty obvious, but that hole was big enough to stick my fist through or even get my foot caught in. It dawned on me that the hole was where the gas smell was coming from. I figured it was the exhaust because he had mentioned that the car needed a new muffler and he wasn’t going to spend the money. That was why you couldn’t hear yourself think. I was planning on dieing before the trip was through and was hoping somebody would remember to feed the hamster in my bedroom.