Gone Fishing

“Gone fishing, instead of just a-wishing;” everyone has experienced a song that stuck in their mind and thus blocked all incoming messages. With “Gone Fishing” flashing though my mind without warning, I remembered my days growing up on my grandfather’s farm. I grew up with the tune “Gone fishing;” it was the theme song of a local outdoorsman television show. My grandfather watched the show with a certain passion, believing that he could become a World Champion Bass Fisherman, if he ever found the proverbial “number 10 youcatchemforsure blue spinning feather lure” as advertised by the show’s host. Naturally, no sporting goods store this side of the Mason Dixon ever heard of a “number 10 youcatchemforsure blue spinning feather lure.” Indeed, about the only bait recommended by the local farm store and hunting/fishing emporium, was a bucket of minnows or worms. On a spring day after a hearty rain, a fisherman or woman could always get a coffee can full of giant night crawlers. Hence, gone fishing was not a wish for my grandfather, but a near vocation.

When my grandfather was not tromping across some neighbor’s field to find the perfect and secret bass pond, he could be found on the front row of a little out-of-the way country church. Such as it was, the small one room building served as the sanctuary, meeting hall, Sunday school building, community center, and office for most of my relatives and a few shirt-tail neighbors. My grandfather was the preacher, my aunt was the piano player – on an old upright piano that had been salvaged from a local brothel after a suspicious fire.

Although failing eyesight, my grandfather would sit at a table adjoining the front row of the little church, and pore over a pulpit Bible. After straining to read he often pulled a magnifying glass out of his pocket and examined scripture with the care of a brain surgeon. I, on the other hand, found the church to be a place where I could press my starched white shirt into the back of a heavily shellacked-wooden-pew, then I would quickly lean forward, creating a loud tearing sound in the old church. My grandfather would look over the top of his thick glasses and smile at me. My uncles failed to see the amusement.

When not fishing or working at the church, we would be at home in our two-story rambling farmhouse; there, my grandfather would sit and continue to read his Bible. He would speak to people who visited, or move to deep prayer. There was only one channel on the television (only one we could receive), and as a youth, I believed that it only broadcasted news and fishing shows, and Lawrence Welk on Saturday night, otherwise the green screen was never illuminated; so, the only sounds of the living room, most of the time, would be the melodious deep voice of my grandfather praising the Lord.

Occasionally, a lost soul would step onto our old wooden porch, and I would hear my grandmother’s voice calling “Willie, there’s someone here.”

My grandfather would rise from his desk and prayerful thoughts, and with a Bible and a cane in-hand, he would walk out and sit on one of the rocking chairs that lined the veranda. Occasionally, I looked out the window at my grandfather and the stranger, and noted that every once-in-awhile, my grandfather would reach over and hold the hands of the other person on the porch.

When my grandfather would return to the house, and the stranger had left; he would sit back at his study desk. Sometimes, I would ask about the stranger, and the reply would always be the same; “We were talking about the fisherman,” he would say.

In later years I began to realize who the fisherman was, and I am pretty sure, that a “number 10 youcatchemforsure blue spinning feather lure” had little to do with the fishing.

“Gone fishing, instead of just a-wishing.”