Fishing With My
Grandfather
I was planning on telling a
story about going fishing with my grandfather but there's a problem.
I never went fishing with my grandfather. My grandfather was a very
good athlete when he was young. He played minor league baseball and
basketball. He evidently was also a good dancer as he supposedly won
some dance contests. He also was good at drinking but gave that up
at 30. I loved baseball so he talked baseball with me, a lot. My
other grandfather also never took me fishing. He collected things,
told me stories of his youth, and later talked politics. Truth is no
one in my family did any fishing as far as I know, even though we all
lived on an Island. However I did go fishing with my Dad once. One
of my Dad's co-workers, named McDonald, was part of a group that used
to put together little work skits every once in a while. I'm not
sure where and what they did this for, but a few times I remember
seeing them. My Dad was a musician when he was young, played in some
Jazz bands and even sang a little. Anyway the skits I remember used
familiar songs with the words changed as related to work. The one I
most remember is the one they did changing the words to Do-Re-Me, but
that's not for right now. This McDonald guy had a big boat he
chartered out on weekends and one weekend he invited his work buddies
and their kids on a fishing trip. So my Dad borrowed fishing poles
from one of our neighbors, he must have had them demo how to use
them, and we went fishing out on McDonald's big boat. This was
fishing in the ocean . Now my take on fishing has always been that
it looks like it's just something to do while you are drinking some
beer. Well the beer part was not looking good given I was only 10
or 11 and in the company of a lot of adults. So it was going to be
just straight fishing. We got on the boat and took off, seemed to me
we went way out. So we get to where we are going to fish. How you
pick a spot I have no idea as on the ocean one spot looks pretty much
like the next. Well Old McDonald acted like he knew this was the
spot so we stopped and all put our fishing poles into the water. And
we sat holding on to the pole. Fishing seems to be one sport where
watching the sport is pretty close to actually doing the sport except
you have a pole in your hands and you're in a boat. Some time goes
by and I start asking my Dad how do I know when I've caught a fish
since I can't see the end of my line cause it's way under the water.
He's says you'll know cause you'll feel a pull on the line/pole.
After a bit more time I think maybe I'm feeling something and I tell
my Dad and he replies it will not be a maybe thing. So a little more
time goes by and so I ask again. Thinking how much could my Dad
really know about this. I never heard of him fishing and we had to
borrow the poles for this trip. Finally I say I'm gonna pull my line
up just to have a look. So I do and sure enough there is a fish on
the end of it. I caught a fish! One of the 1st on the
boat to do so. The type of fish I caught.... a Fluke! Not
kidding. It was so exciting I ask my Dad if I could quit the fishing
part and just play around on the boat. And that is the one and only
time I've been fishing. I want to thank my grandfather for taking me
to the ballgame instead of taking me fishing.
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