Skip to main content

Fishing With My Grandfather

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 asked 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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Love, a Many-Splendored Thing

 Love, a Many-Splendored Thing Kris - 1986 D riving back to my apartment in San Francisco from the softball game all I could think about was the dinner with Kris. Kris is one month and one week shy of being 12 years younger than me. At the time she was just 25 where as I was 37. Not only that, I'd been around the block a few times. I mean I'd already been married twice not to mention that I also had a few other live-in girlfriends. Although quite mature in most ways, Kris was still young, a church goer, and clearly had high values. Still there was no doubt that a strong connection happened between us. The question in my mind was, given those differences, would she seriously be considering me as more than just a friend? O nce home I was still a little keyed-up so I put on the TV. At this time I generally did not watch much TV and I hardly ever put it on in the evening. But I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep for awhile so I turned it on and found a mo...

Summing Up

  Summing Up I started writing this blog about 9 years ago. I'm not sure how much more I am going to write so I am writing this as sort of a summing up piece. However, I am thinking of possibly writing additional posts about my musical journey since music has been so important to me. We'll see, but for right now I'm thinking this will at least be the end of this portion of the “Warrin with an I” memoir. . I will turn 77 shortly. Other than chronic back issues that I've had from time to time since my late 30's, I'm lucky to be in pretty good health. A sciatica condition kept me down this past summer and as a consequence I am a little out of shape but I have started back doing gyro and swimming so I'm working on that. Even with my back issues I managed to show up for the “No Kings” protests, one of them in New York City and one of them I mostly sat on a wall due to my aforementioned sciatica issue... M y last blog post was on my work career - ...

My Musical Journey – Rock-n-Roll, Sort Of....

  My Musical Journey – Rock-n-Roll, Sort Of.... Me and my sister sitting at my Grandmother's piano at her house in ~ 55/56 I n 1960 I was 11 when I entered the 6 th grade. That year for Christmas I got a phonograph. Now I could play my music whenever I wanted and didn't have to hear my father complain about it. Less than 2 months after Christmas I turned 12. I continued to play the trombone in the 6 th grade in the school band but the trombone is not an instrument associated with Rock-n-Roll and also not one generally played by itself. As such, I was not planning to continue playing after 6 th .grade. I was asked to join the junior high school band when I started 7 th grade but I turned them down. S ometime while I was in 6 th grade a piano arrived. It came from my grandparents (mom). It was the piano my mother learned to play on. We now had a piano sitting right in our living room. That drew my interest and I started to fool around on it doing things like...