STRIP FISHING

                                                                       

     There is an old saying that goes something like this-- Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day.  Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.  Well, it has been my experience that this clever little phrase could be amended slightly.  Something more like-- Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day.  Attempt to teach your young son to fish and you’ll stand around in your underwear all afternoon.
     Years ago, my family and I were returning from a trip to my mother and father-in-law’s home in West Virginia, when as usual, everyone was suddenly hit by excruciating hunger pains only minutes after pulling away from their house.
     “Why didn’t you eat before we left?”  I asked the obvious question, since my father-in-law always had a hearty breakfast prepared for us before we hit the road.
     “We weren’t  hungry then,” came the reply from the back seat. Normally we would stop off at a fast food place near the halfway point  to quell the hunger until we arrived home.  But, this time the pains hit miles from our usual stop off point.   Due to my yearning to make the best drive time possible, I was able to hold off stopping for a couple more hours.  Finally my passengers couldn’t stand it any longer and begged me to stop.
     “There aren’t any places to eat here,”  I stated, obviously irritated that we were about to wreck a world record time for the trip.
     “Well, I’m hungry and so are the kids, we need to stop,”  Kristi, my wife, shot back, glaring at me for putting my record time ahead of our hungry offspring.
     “Oh, ok,”  I said, still staring at the clock on the radio.  “There’s a fine little spot  right up the road.  See it? That should suffice.”
     “I’m not taking MY children into a strip club for lunch!” my wife barked, clearly using the word ‘my’.
She often referred to our kids as ‘her’ or ‘my’ children in times like this.  When they misbehaved or set something on fire, they were ‘your’ kids.
     “Hey, the food is usually very good in those places!”  I explained.
     “How do you  know how the food is in THOSE places?”  she snapped.
     “I’ve heard.  I mean I’ve never personally eaten in one of those places, but I’ve been told.”
     “Whatever.  There.  Pull into this little diner.  It looks, well, kinda nice.”
     I wheeled the car into the gravel parking lot of a place called Granny’s Kitchen.  Obviously the lunch crowd hadn’t shown up yet, as our car was the only one there. Apparently, the maintenance man hadn’t shown up yet either, if ever.  The little porch was a bit rickety, and the screen door had seen it’s better days, and a neon sign blinked ‘cash only’ in the window, but there was a very pleasant aroma wafting through the dusty screen.
     "Are we going to die?" Sidney asked, starting up at me as I inched slowly toward the door.
     "No honey, we're not going to die," I replied, wondering the same thing.
     As we carefully advanced into the little diner, with me in front (Kristi always makes me go first in uncertain situations), I was pleasantly surprised at how homey the little dining room was.  There was an assortment of odd tables and chairs sitting around, a few animal heads on the wall and many pictures that had most certainly been hanging in their spot for years.
     We took our seats and a charming little old lady whom we assumed must be Granny ambled over, smiled, and took our order.  After she happily walked away, heading toward the kitchen, I began looking around more closely at the décor, when a certain piece of artwork caught my eye.  I stood up and walked over to peruse the picture more closely.  A man and a very young boy were fishing along a bubbling brook, which gave me a sense that my son and I could be that man and boy.  Both figures held a fishing rod, and  the man, whom I decided must be the boy’s father,  had one hand placed gently on the boy’s shoulder.  Peaceful.  Serene.  What fathers and sons should be doing, I thought.
     We finally finished our lunch and set out to complete our journey  home.
     “Ya know, I think Ryan is old enough to take fishing,”  I said, staring straight ahead to avoid the look my wife sometimes gives me when she thinks I’m about to do something stupid.
     “He’s not yet five.  Maybe in another year or so.”
     “Nonsense.  I started around that age, and  I did fine,”  came my reply, purposely omitting the fact that my older brother had to have a hook surgically removed from his calf due to my ‘being ready to fish’ at that age.
    We finally made it home and straight away, I went to the garage and began taking inventory of my fishing gear. 
     “Looks like all I need is a few minor items like a couple rods and reels, lures, line, stringers, bobbers, hooks, sinkers, tackle box, pliers, and maybe some other insignificant trinkets and we’ll be set,” I told my wife as I entered the kitchen, where she was already unloading suitcases.
    “You don’t have anything,”  came the wry retort.
     “I did.  I used it just last summer.  Remember the cookout at Sherando Lake?  I used it then.  I just can‘t find it.  I do wish you would leave my stuff where I put it.” 
     “Oh yes, I do remember.  When you loaded the car, you placed all of your fishing junk on top of the car.  Remember?  Those little clanking noises we kept hearing every few miles on the way home? Then when we pulled into the garage it suddenly dawned on you that you had left all your stuff on top of the car. Remember?”
     “That was planned.  I knew what I was doing. Besides, you kept hassling me about getting home,” I replied, placing the blame where it should be.
     “Your plan was to have your fishing gear scattered all over the road for twenty miles?  Good plan,” she teased, while heading to the laundry room with a load of clothes.  There is no way to win with her.
     I went to the outdoor store and bought all of the tackle, rods, reels, etc. that had to be replaced due to my old fishing gear being lost as a result of my plan from the year before.
     On the day that my four and a half year old son’s fishing training was to start, I put new line on each reel, and loaded my shiny, new tackle box with all of the necessary items need to train a young lad to fish.
     “Where we goin’ daddy?”  questioned my little boy, dressed in blue jeans, a tee-shirt and new boots.
     “We’re going fishing.  It’s time you learned about the great outdoors.”
     Ryan sat quietly until we pulled into a worn spot along the dirt road that ran parallel to the river that I had thought most resembled the one in the painting I’d seen in Granny’s Kitchen.
     “Go ahead and get the poles out of the back, I’ll call your mom and let her know we made it.”
     “I don’t think I’m big enough, dad.”
     “Here, hop over the seat and get the poles.  Of course your big enough, you’re my big boy.”
     I began to punch the numbers in to get my wife on the phone, and before I even finished, a mighty ruckus arose from the far back of my SUV.
     “What’s wrong buddy?”
     “The hook is stuck in the seat!  I can‘t get it out!” Ryan barked, while tugging hopelessly on the fishing poles.
     “Oh. Ok.  Well don’t rip the fabric! Stop pulling on it!”
      I hung up the phone and exited the car, hurrying to the rear, to open the back hatch.  The ‘hook’ was a artificial minnow which had all three barbs dug deeply into the back of the seat. 
     “Are you mad?”
     “Of course not.  These things happen.  Just stand back and I’ll see if I can get this out.”
     “Daddy, I need to poop.”
     “Can you hold it for a minute while I get this hook out?” 
     At that point a very rancid aroma enveloped the rear of the car like a fog off the ocean.
     “I couldn’t hold it,”  came the simple answer from the red faced child.
     We each carried our respective poles down the grassy path to the river, complete with  Ryan and his Batman pole and shorts full of, well, you know.  This unfortunate incident caused him to walk sort of like Wyatt Earp heading to a gunfight. He followed me as I stared at my pole, which had a patch of seat still dangling from the lure.
     “Go ahead and strip off everything from the waist down.  You can wear your pants without undies.  I’ll wash out the underwear in the stream,”  I directed my son.
     “Daddy, it’s in my pants too.”
     Now, I’m a very quick thinker during these kinds of  predicaments,  even ones that involve poop.  Poop had been a major part of my life for almost five years., and to be honest, poop had in some way been a part of everything we’d done since our little boy was born.  Poop in church, poop in the grocery store, poop in the car, poop everywhere.  If he wasn’t pooping, our daughter was.                                                         “Oh.  Tell ya what.  Strip, and I’ll wash out your underwear and pants in the river and then you can just wear the wet underwear until the pants dry.  No problem,”  came my cool, calm directions.
     So while the little boy stood buck naked in the weeds, I bent down to wash the tiny clothes in the river.  The water was a foot or more below the edge of the bank where I attempted to wash out his shorts and jeans,  so as a result, I had to balance myself on a small, earthen cliff that jutted out over the water due to erosion from the constant flow of the river below.  Suddenly without warning, the bank gave way and in I went with a thunderous splash.  Thankfully, I was able to go in feet first and keep my balance without being fully submerged in the swirling, muddy water.   Ryan laughed uncontrollably while I thanked God that the lapping waves only came to my crotch.  After much scratching and digging, I was able to claw myself back up to dry land, although my pants and boots were caked with mud and grass.
      After a evening of enjoying some quality father and son time in the great outdoors, which included two more trips into the river to retrieve his fishing pole, and one additional poop in the weeds in which I used my sock to wipe his rear end, I heard voices advancing toward where we stood along  the river.  Suddenly a man and little boy appeared from the weeds carrying fishing poles and a tackle box.  I couldn’t help but notice the bright yellow and green fishing lure, firmly embedded in his shirt, dangling from the mans shoulder, complete with a short length of line still attached.
     “Had any luck?”
     “Naw, haven’t had a bite.  She’s all yours.  We’ve had our fill for one day, good luck,”  I answered pleasantly as I gathered up all of our gear and began our walk back up the grassy path toward the car.
     As we climbed into the car, Ryan stared at me with a quizzical look on his face as young boys sometimes do.
     “Daddy, do you think that man and his son thought it was funny that both of us were fishing in our underwear?”
     “Not a chance son, not a chance,”  I answered with a smile, staring at the small, broken end of a fishing pole still lodged between the door and the frame of the man’s car.
     I didn’t catch the name of the artist that created the picture in Granny’s Kitchen, but one things for sure.  The next time we go through that area, I will stop and get his name.  With any luck, I can find him and maybe he can shed some light on just how that feat in the painting was pulled off.  But in the meantime, I will continue to take my son fishing, and I’ll be sure to take some extra clothes.