Happy Birthday, Dad!

 

December 20^th is my Dad’s birthday.  Every year I try to write a little something different about him on this date.  I thought this year I would use something my younger brother Tom wrote in his “journal” that I found when he passed away in 2001.  I’m amazed at the detail Tom uses when reminiscing about Dad.  This story described Dad in a nutshell.  From cooking tacos (or tamales) to good-naturedly cussing to being there with an alternative answer to a problem, that was Dad.  Even though Tom and I didn't have Dad around relatively long growing up (Tom was 13, I was 16), it was apparently long enough to impress our young minds and help to shape our characters for the rest of our lives. 

December 20 is also the date Mom and Dad got married in 1941.  Please pray for both of them today, won’t you?  Thanks!

With all of that being said, here’s what Tom wrote: (the illustration above was also drawn by Tom)

"WHO NEEDS A FISHING POLE?"

One time we went camping as a family and to me it seemed like it took an eternity to get there.

We drove and drove and drove through winding roads until we reached an area that appeared to be little more than a turnout in the road.  It was called "Strawberry Creek."

We had to carry all our stuff along some trails for about a mile.  We made camp at a spot where a creek trembled about a hundred yards out of a mountain crevasse, twisted and turned around evergreen stands and fern, and ended in a small pond.  Then, the first creek was joined by a few others at the pond and became a decent stream or brook.

We set up camp along the creek (about 25 feet away) and we kids were turned loose to explore.  That night, Dad made tacos by campfire.  Of course we had a marshmallow roast after dinner.  Funny, I don't remember talking much that night.

Early the next morning, we got up to go fishing.  Off I marched behind my father and brother, with my hand-me-down pole from my brother along with a small paper sack containing hooks, sinkers, and a can of whole-kernel corn.

My pole was a type commonly known as a "bait-casting" reel outfit.  This was a fishing pole designed to catch fish using live baits such as minnows, frogs, and the like.  To the trained fisherman, this outfit can deliver the lure or bait to a spot within one foot of his target.  To a five-year-old, this was like an open bobbin of thread on a pencil with a rock tied to the end.  As I cast, the bobbin spun faster than the line went out, causing what is commonly known as a "bird's nest."

It was quite a catastrophe for a five-year-old kid.  As it was the first time I had ever been fishing, I had no idea what to do!

Enter the "Master"!

Dad soon noticed my dilemma and came over to see if he could show me how to successfully accomplish the task at hand and "snag" one.

Oddly, he seemed inept (to me) at managing the reel and was decidedly uncomfortable using the reel combo; how could this be?  He was my DAD; “Righter of wrongs”, “fixer of things”, improviser extraordinaire…yet he was boggled???  I was confused, and worried that I would never catch a fish!  All sorts of childlike scenarios were going through my mind.

I was brought back to reality by words I had never heard before; LOTS of 'em!  He pulled and tugged, tugged and pulled and finally, in a fit of exasperation did the worst of all possible things (to me)—he got out his pocketknife!

My dad was going to cut up my fishing pole!  I started screaming and whining as if he were using the knife on me, when all he simply did was cut the line just before the bird's nest on the reel.  He quickly pulled the old line and bird's nest off the pole and then did something else I didn't expect.  He set the pole aside, took me by the hand, and said he wanted to teach me an "old Indian trick"

As I followed him up the hillside away from camp, I wondered what in the world he was doing.  After all, Mom was waiting for us to bring back breakfast!  He stopped abruptly in a grove of saplings and cut two sturdy pole-like lengths from the stand.  "But Dad, " I explained, "we already have a fishing pole." 

"I don't know what in the ###//!!!???###  THAT thing was for, but catching fish isn't one of them!  C'mon, your mother's waiting on us."

Down the hill we went.  I didn't like the taste of dust from his boots as he slid down the shallow cliff to the creek bed.  There, he took two lengths of line from my fishing pole and made us each a "Huck Finn"-type pole.  "Now we'll catch some breakfast," he assured me.

I could smell the smoke from our fire as my dad baited our hooks and began to do some serious fishing.  For a while I just watched HIM--his very soul focused on what I later learned was the line tension and the easily recognizable tug of a rainbow or brook trout.

All of a sudden, he snapped back on the pole, as though some horrible scene had shocked him into action.  To my amazement there was a fish!  An honest-to-God humongous flip-floppin'  trout!  "Do it again, Dad!" I shouted, busting at the seams with excitement.

He looked down at me and, seeing my disbelief and wonderment, put the fish back securely on the hook and placed it back in the water.  "Hold this," he said, and put the fishing line in my hand so that I could feel the snapping of the line as the fish tugged at it.

We caught a whole stringer full of fish for breakfast that morning using Dad's "old Indian trick".  OK, so Dad caught them, but I was there!

Back at camp, I remember we didn't even use a frying pan to cook the fish.  Dad threw a couple of flat rocks directly into the campfire to get them hot, and we cooked the fish right on the rocks.  Delicious!