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Voices
from another time and place
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One time I hooked a catfish sooo big it took three people (honest to God) to haul it in. That catfish was one big ugly sucker. It was the biggest catfish by far that I had ever seen. Of course I was only seven-years-old, so the fish's size was relative to my young scale of things, which was pretty pitiful back then.
My grandparents had taken me all the way to Key West the year before, but the not even the Atlantic Ocean's vastness or the long scary bridges connecting the lushly exotic Keys impressed me half so much as this enormous catfish. I caught the big fish at Lake Isabella, a little pay-to-fish lake outside of Cincinnati. I caught it on my birthday. Any trip to Lake Isabella was a treat, but this one was special. Almost everyone I loved was there. My grandparents, my father, my aunt and uncle, and all my best friends were there: Charley Stingley, Larry Brown, the Parrot brothers, Bob and Bill, Morton Epstein, and Eddie Southerd. There was birthday cake, hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, baked beans, fresh garden tomatoes, Grandma's homemade relish, Grandpa's homemade ice cream, and all the red pop I could drink. It was heaven.
I was never much of a fisherman. My line always got tangled; I couldn't tie a hook or bobber on it; could never cast properly or safely, couldn't bear murdering worms (someone else always had to bait my hook). I seldom caught any fish, which was just fine with me. I liked going fishing, it was one of the few manly things in my life, but I didn't like to fish.
Going fishing was exciting: waiting quietly by the gently lapping, shadowy water, intently watching the little red and white bobber jerk up and down as the unsuspecting fish nibbled away at the bait. Then suddenly, a fish would take the bait, and down and away the little bobber would go, disappearing into the murky depths. "You got one Parl," Grandpa would yell (I don't know why he called me "Parl").
"Careful how you reel him in, slow and steady does it," Grandpa cautioned.
But slow and steady was beyond me, and I would almost always yank rather than carefully reel the poor fish in. If the fish was lucky, which, thank God, most of them were, this would usually free it, the barbed hook sliding safely out of the liberated creature's mouth.
"Oh Parl, you lost him," Grandpa would say.
"You've got to learn to be patient, boy. Take it easy, let the fish come to you. Don't be so dammed grabby."
But I've always been grabby, and I lost a lot of fish, which was no small embarrassment in a family of highly accomplished fishermen.
Fishing was our favorite pastime. Everybody fished, all the men and all the women. We fished all the lakes and all the rivers near us, from Lake Erie up by Sandusky to Reelfoot down in Tennessee. We fished both day and night.
Our favorite fishing hole by far was Kentucky's Licking River, somewhere near Falmouth. The Licking's catfish (greatly prized by all of us) were especially sweet, creamy-white inside, and nutty-flavored (I sometimes used to think they tasted a lot like hot, soft, flaky almonds). Besides, they were big, plentiful, and easy to catch. And the river was so very beautiful near Falmouth.
Sometimes we would go there after everybody got home from work, maybe two or three cars of us even, the red summer sun lingering almost forever in the western sky, and fish all night long under the giant sycamores on the Licking's wide sandy banks.
Those were the best times. There was always a campfire, tons of food, loud happy singing, and bright laughter. Best of all, I was always the only child. Everybody looked out for me. I was spoiled rotten, and I loved every minute of it.
Then the sun finally set and the stars began to burn brightly over the Licking's slow, easy waters (I especially remember marveling at their fiery reflections on the almost still surface of the river). Everybody became very sober and very serious. It was time to fish. I never knew what went on after this, because I very quickly fell asleep, sheltered, warm, held, loved, and feeling absolutely safe.
The mornings were foggy, wet, and cold, with everybody bone-tired and me usually crabby. But even in my crabbiness I sensed something wonderful happening: an all but impenetrable mist surrounded us, milky, incandescent, and weirdly glowing; the river was arriving and leaving out of this milky incandescence; arriving and leaving from nowhere as far as I could tell.
Where do we come from? Where do we go? What is this? Who am I? Why is there something rather than nothing?
Even then, I was fishing for answers.
Breakfast by the river was a joy. It invariably consisted of sweet, creamy-white, nutty-flavored catfish, and homes-fries smothered in onions, all the catfish and home-fries one could possibly eat. Of course, there was campfire-blackened home-made buttered toast, along with jars and jars of Grandma's special jellies and preserves, and hot coffee-milk for me (one part coffee, one part milk, and one part sugar).
Then we would all go home, and some people would have to drag themselves in to work, and I would usually sleep the rest of the day.
It was a joy.
Grandpa was the greatest fisherman I have ever known. He never went home without at least a heavy bucket or stringer full of catfish. He could fish with the best of them. And he did. He even caught giant sailfish and swordfish, fierce barracudas and great rounded tunas, though not in Kentucky or Ohio. I used to have hundreds of photographs of Grandpa down in Key West posing by the side of some charter boat with trophy-sized fish. To me he was a kind of water deity: a tall, trim, uncommonly handsome man, with a large-scale smile, mysteriously blue-eyed, a tad devilish (deities usually are), with wavy flaxen hair, always ready for fun, always immensely proud of his catch. Somehow I lost those photographs.
The Licking, in my far from perfect memory, was a very beautiful river (despite being dreadfully sluggish and muddy). When I was younger (maybe thirty or so), I thought I might like to live by it someday, at least go fishing there again. But I guess I knew I never would.
In truth, I never went fishing after my grandfather died (none of us did), except once, very briefly, just to give my daughters some idea what it was like. We didn't use worms, and we immediately released the two or three tiny fish we caught. We fished a small northern Rhode Island pond. Obviously, it wasn't the same. It never will be again. I haven't seen the Licking River in years. I'll probably never go back, never see it again. But that's okay, I'm not sure I want to.
I have been thinking a lot about making some deeper, more harmonious sense out of my life of late, a different kind of fishing, I guess. This isn't the first time. But this is the first time I have set about it quite so intentionally and methodically; obsessively writing things down in numbered propositions even. It's rather weird, actually. I am doing this for myself, no one else. It's nothing I could ever publish. It's just something that I feel I need to do right now. Don't ask me why, I don't want to make more of this than it deserves. As I say, it's not new. I think maybe I have always been this way. Some people go fishing one way, and others another way. Some of us fish for the meaning of life. I'm afraid I'm this last way.
Do you fish for the meaning of life?
The other day, while I was thinking about the meaning of life (very deeply of course), I got to wondering what my grandfather would make of me now. Almost immediately, I felt unaccountably sad. Not because I thought my grandfather would be disappointed in me (I don't really think he would be). Not because I don't go fishing in real rivers and lakes or carry on Grandpa's other interests. I always had the sense that he was more than willing to let me go my own, rather bizarre way; he knew that I was like this the first time he tried to teach me to bait a hook. My sadness had nothing to do with anything like this: I felt sad because I never really thanked him for all that he did for me when I was growing-up, and now it's too late.
It suddenly became very clear to me (as maybe it has to some of you at some time or another in your life) that clarity and harmony in life, life's real meaning, has much, much more to do with thanking people who love us while we can, and loving them in return than anything else, even fishing.
Strange thing about life: it's often easier to grasp life's most highly abstract truths, deep mathematical, physical or philosophical ones, than to understand the simplest everyday truths by which we ought to live. Which is to say, love is often much more baffling than calculus, and simply opening one's heart is many times more difficult than quantum physics. Or am I the only person who feels this way?
What is of fundamental importance?
"To be or not to be" is not the sum of the matter. Nor are the philosophers on target when they ask: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Rather, the supreme question is: "To love or not to love." This is what is of fundamental importance.
Instead of "I think, therefore, I am," beginning with love means "I am loved, therefore, I am." The birth of a self and an identity is a bestowal of the love of others. The gift of love is also a gift for love; the gift of love is simultaneously a call. It is the birth of human agency as responsibility for the gift. Therefore, I love in order to be (Proposition 3.1224).
Strange thing: the truth is utterly simple, and I have already made it complicated.
"To love or not to love." This is what is of fundamental importance. Why not just leave it at that? Better yet, simply live this way. But we don't.
To love or not to love!
"You got one Parl," Grandpa yells.
"Careful how you reel him in, slow and steady does it," he cautions.
But slow and steady is still beyond me, I almost always yank rather than carefully reel the poor fish in. "Oh Parl, you lost him," Grandpa still says today.
"You've got to learn to be patient, boy. Take it easy, let the fish come to you. Don't be so dammed grabby."
I confess: I was never much of a fisherman. I've always been grabby, and I've lost a lot of fish over the years, which is no small embarrassment in a family of highly accomplished fishermen.
Strange thing about life: it's easier to grasp highly abstract truths, than to understand the simplest everyday truths by which we ought to live. Life's real meaning, has much, much more to do with thanking people who love us while we can, and loving them in return than anything else, even fishing. Again, and again, and again, and again, we forget this very simple truth. Why?
One time I hooked a catfish sooo big it took three people (honest to God) to haul it in. It was the biggest catfish by far that I have ever seen.
I have to confess here that I can't take a whole lot of credit for hooking that enormous catfish. I'm pretty sure someone else baited my hook, and surely someone else must have cast my line into Lake Isabella. All I did was hold on, which I did for a respectable time. But even here I need to confess something: I seem to remember going off for a while to play baseball with my friends, leaving my fishing pole unattended.
Actually, I think maybe I might have left it unattended most of the afternoon, at least several hours. Truth to tell, I don't think I paid any attention to my fishing pole until we were almost ready to leave. But I guess maybe that's just the way kids are: At fifty-nine, my attention span isn't all that it might be, at seven it was pretty much nonexistent. Besides, it was my birthday, and there were presents to open and other less than selfless distractions to attend to.
"Don't you think you ought to check your line, Parl" Grandpa asked.
I'm sure I must have blushed with shame, remembering my long abandoned fishing pole. And everybody was there, my entire family was listening and watching.
"I forgot," I confessed.
"That's okay, just reel your line in, it's time to go home."
But I couldn't. The line was unaccountably taut, and I simply couldn't get the reel to turn. It wouldn't budge. I guessed my line was caught or tangled. It usually was. As always, I had to ask for help.
I think maybe Charley Stingley and Larry Brown came to my assistance, but I can't remember now. Anyway, we finally made progress, and began to be able to reel the fishing line in (but very, very slowly).
It began to dawn on me that if the line wasn't caught or tangled (which it couldn't be if we were reeling it in), and if there was still considerable resistance on the line (which there surely was), there must be something really big on the end of that line. What might that be? I concluded that it was probably a very big fish.
Of course, It was.
You are going to have to take my word for it, that catfish was huge. It was sooo big! Of course, so was my pride and excitement, I was ecstatic. God, I finally caught a real fish.
Needless to say, I got photographed with my trophy catfish, and was an instant celebrity to all my family and friends. It was the best birthday, ever.
I would like to say we let the poor fish go, but I'm sure we didn't (though I'm happy to report that I don't remember eating him or her).
Forgive me great fish.
This happened more that fifty-two years ago, but it seems just like yesterday. It was that much of a thrill, that important to me. I can still feel that great dead weight on the line, and that's exactly what I have come to question, the dead weight on the line.
I left my fishing pole unattended, for hours and hours, never went near it. I was elsewhere, playing baseball, fighting with my friends, stuffing my face with food, being an obnoxious "birthday boy" generally.
I wonder: why didn't that big fish simply take my pole under water, hook, line, and sinker?
It surely could have so very easily, it was a very big fish.
I wonder: why didn't it struggle when I hauled it out of the water?
Now that I think of it, the fish was pretty lifeless.
It kind of makes you wonder.
What a fish story! It has taken me fifty-two years to begin to figure this one out. Have I? Who really caught the enormous catfish? Me? Maybe I really did. Grandpa? Grandma? My dad? My aunt or uncle? I have my doubts. But I'll never know for sure.
I suppose I got cranky on the way home (I usually did), probably sick to my stomach to boot (too much red pop). What a spoiled brat I was! I can't believe they put up with me the way they did. For that matter, I can't believe people put up with me the way they do today.
Lake Isabella wasn't a long drive. Pretty soon we were home, and, even after all the excitement, I'm pretty sure I quickly fell asleep, sheltered, warm, held, loved, and feeling absolutely safe.
This I never doubted.