Once More, Once More to the Lake
by
Jeff Stimpson © 2006
We spend Father's Day at grandpa's lake house. In
the afternoon, I hope to take out grandpa's sleek kayak while Jill
takes the boys in the rowboat and we all play "Surfaced U-Boat
Stalks Lost Allied Merchantman on Father's Day, 1941," but instead
Jill takes Alex to some mall and Ned and I go fishing in grandpa's
canoe.
Grandpa had found two old fishing poles in the
shed when he bought this place last summer; I assume the spiders in
the shed were done with the poles, and they (the poles) have served
Ned and I well in practicing our casting. Casting, in case you
respect fish and aren't fond of being kind of bored while you and
your 5-year-old get sunburns, involves trying to snap your lure and
bobber out as far as possible and then reel it back in a way that
convinces a fish to maybe give up its life.
There are fish in this lake, somewhere. This
afternoon, Ned and I practice casting off the dock. I use a pale
plastic worm; Ned uses a faded pink plastic worm that for years to
come we will be able to spot up there in the branch over the dock.
But soon Ned's actually not too bad, getting most casts a respectful
distance over the shorefront algae, and once or twice getting the
fish to swim near our lures before they dart off, laughing.
"Ned," I say, "try to get your lure to act like a
hurt little fish. Tug it a little bit like this. Then wait a minute,
then tug it again like this..."
"God forbid you should actually catch anything,"
says grandpa back on the porch, where he offers more effective
lures. I decline: The point this Father's Day is not to catch, but
to acquaint Ned with real fishing.
The best teacher would be my brother, Uncle Lee,
who's up in Maine and who's been fishing since before he was Ned's
age. Uncle Lee (who as my big brother was of course not "Uncle Lee"
but "He Who Hits Me a Lot") lent fishing a mystique from the time I
was only six, when we were at our grandmother's one Sunday morning
and He informed me that He was going to get to go fishing while I
was "sitting on my brain in church." Every spring, I'd watch Lee
pick through his gray metal tacklebox containing spools of line,
lures of obscenely bright color, and hooks I knew I'd never get out
of my eye.
Lee took me fishing a few years after "church"; I
remember hanging my feet off some bridge while cars zipped by about
five feet away. I think I caught two sunfish, a type of ugly species
that even cats turn down. A few years later, Lee took me out for a
day on the canoe, during which I fumbled his needle-nose pliers
overboard and caught two fish and a future-sarcoma-grade sunburn. I
haven't fished much since.
I feel this Father's Day is practice for when Ned
joins Uncle Lee to truly fish. I knot new lures to our lines: a
bright green one for me, and a minnow-white one for Ned. "Ned, you
have to do everything I tell you," I say. "When you go out someday
with Uncle Lee, you'll have to do everything he says. Stand over
there while I get the canoe unpadlocked from the tree." Of course
Ned soon wanders near me on the dock, and his fishing career nearly
starts with an aluminum bow in his face. He's wearing the blue life
vest that Uncle Rob and Aunt Julie bought the boys a year ago. It
encased Ned last year; this afternoon it's no bigger on him than a
real Navy life vest might be on me.
The canoe slides into the water. "Okay, Ned, step
aboard."
Ned does. I consider switching again to the
more-stable rowboat (the "Merchantman"), but there's something about
the whisp of a canoe through the water that says Fishing on
Father's Day. I haven't handled a canoe solo in years. I pick a
paddle from several in the shed as if picking a pool cue, and I'm
not settled in the stern of our aluminum Pequod five minutes
before I realize I picked a paddle that's too short. In two more
minutes, I realize I'm actually sitting backwards in the bow. In
three, I remember why He always brought boat cushions to sit on.
"Okay, Ned. Cast!" His rod and the hook of his
lure whiz by a few inches from my nose. "Ned, watch the rod,
please!"
"Sorry. Could you cast on the other side, dad?"
We settle into cast, paddle, cast, paddle,
untangle our lines, cast, paddle, pull the unearthly long green
weeds off our hooks. It's hot, all sun and sultry, little breeze to
make the wavelets chuck under our bow (stern). I think about Ned and
sarcoma.
"Wanna head for that island?" says Ned. We do. I
nestle the canoe into a small mossy cove, trying hard not to impale
Ned on the dead branches hanging over the water precisely at the
level of his shoulder blades. He steps onto what I proclaim Edwin
Island.
"Edwin Island?" he says. "Dad, don't leave!"
"I'm just maneuvering into a better berth," I say.
In fact, I'm trying to find a stable spot so I can haul my aching
rump into the real bow.
Ned re-boards. We move out and trace a lazy 8
across the water, Ned casting, me and my paddle trying to hug the
shore and the shade. Ned smears on sunscreen until he looks like
he's putting on Kabuki makeup. He says the life vest is hot. He
casts and casts, and his eyes narrow and his mouth settles in a thin
line. "What do we have to drink?" he asks. I hand him a bottle of
lemony seltzer. He swigs it and casts, swigs it and casts. He rubs
at the white globs of sunscreen on his cheek. He swigs.
We catch nothing. "I wanna go in," he says at
last, but not in the defeat of a disappointed boy. It's a tired guy
who's ready for a drink with ice, and cartoons on the TV in the
basement. We head in, and after I return to the rods to the spiders
and re-chain the canoe to the tree, I find him in the basement of
the lake house, sipping Sprite. I sip beer and we watch "Tom and
Jerry" until Jill comes home.
She asks Ned what he's doing. Sitting on the bed,
he nods to her, watching cartoons. He hefts his Sprite.
"He looked old there on the bed," Jill will say
later. "'Sittin' on the bed. Watchin' cartoons.' He looked like he
was holding a gin and tonic." Fishermen drink beer, but I don't
correct her.
Copyright 2006 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
