Why must I do this to myself?

Waking at 7am sharp, we are going fishing. Making coffee and setting up my gear, tennis shoes on and I am wearing a jacket, its 49 degrees (9.4 C) outside, no t-shirt weather this time. Waiting for my father to open the garage, this is my Q it is time to go, but he hasn’t opened it yet hmm hope he didn’t sleep in I will be pissed. It is ten after eight and low and behold he is calling, yelling where the hell are you?
Uh waiting for the door to open, he was in the garage with the door closed. So first thing he starts with is my pony tail and something about fishing, I ignored him. We then have to pick up his friend, Bill, he is going too.


*Now let me explain Bill, a skinny Santa Clause, hunched over and just as old, he is around 78 and hard of hearing. My father is 75 and with partial hearing. With that out of the way….

Now the ride there takes about an hour, we have to take the older single lane highways to get there, and if my Dad is driving it will take 3 hours and handicap people are flicking him off. So listening to these two old guys in the van, now they are 2 feet from each other and yelling to each other cause they can’t hear, I jumped the first time my dad repeat himself it was so load, thought I hit something. So they are having a shouting match and each say huh? Damn what a crazy why to talk.


My dad is a side seat driver, he will tell you how fast to go and when to apply the brakes, and if he thinks you are wrong he will shout it out, where I am lucky I am wearing a seat belt or I would be walking home tonight or wake up in the hospital from landing on the street on my head.

So nothing eventful other than them two talking, stopping at a gas station, I need to get a soda because they brought lunches with soda of their own. So I made sure they used the bathroom before we got back on the road, no one has DEPENDS and I for one am not changing old man drawls.


Finally arriving to the farm, yes it’s a private lake and it is quiet here except for the buzzing of a bug or two. Grabbing my poles and tackle box which looks like a cosmetics case (laughs) off I disappear.
The third cast I get a fish, then another after that, ok this is fishing. Bill is trying his hand and he is catching fish too.

After about 30 minutes my father shows up, he is on the other side of the lake, he starts catching fish but the kicker here is he is done after 6 fish, he wants to go home…

No way am I leaving, this is what I have been wanting and no grumpy old man will take that from me besides I have the keys.

Standing on the bank I cast off and there is mud under my feet, slippery mud, as I back up my feet start sliding forward and I am running in place trying to stay out of the water, the faster I run the worse it gets, I am running backwards now so I drop my butt in the weeds, whew. Shaking and upset because Walter Matthau tried to get me to leave early, and I almost slid in the water.

Getting my footing I get away from the mud and sit down on the grass by the bank, the sun is out now, strip off my jacket and fish some more. Sitting there in tranquil peace and quiet is like heaven, the only sound I hear is the bass spawning and an occasional bug flying by.

My dad is fishing again bitching because Bill and I don’t wish to leave yet, its noon. Sitting there fishing I look down because something caught my eye, its moving up my pant leg, damn it’s a spider and its big enough to ride, where and the heck did it come from I am rolling on the ground trying to get it off of me. I turn into a three year old screaming get it off, get it off. Have you ever walked into a spiders web in the backyard, well I have, and I would start flapping my arms back and forth to make sure no spider is attached.

After crushing that nasty thing, I check the rest of me, this could have made me soil myself. I will stand now thank you very much, no more surprises. Well I look and we have 31 fish, time to go as I am getting aggravated that he wants to go home, so we pack the van, stop to pick up my dad’s jacket and fishing pole, get fresh water for the fish and my father disappeared. What now, hurry us up to leave and he gets the notion to wander off.

Bill then asks me where my dad is, I look in my pockets, heck I don’t know so I go to the farmer’s house and he is on a bench talking to the farmer and his wife.

OMG, he was in a hurry to go home, well we were there for another hour and a half, I took a nap in the van. Finally we get on the road and he starts driving in the side seat again, watch the fish in the buckets, watch what?

I am driving.


*There was this one trip last year, we caught a huge bucket of fish and it was filled with water with a towel over it to prevent from splashing in his van. Well I was driving the van when some guy in front of us (3 car lengths ahead) my father yells out ‘Watch It’ and my first reaction was slam on the brakes, well that bucket of fish spilled into the van. Opening the doors it looks like Niagara Falls, water was everywhere. Pulling over to see the mess and pick up the fish, I was shaking from the “Watch it” luckily I didn’t soil myself. The van was flooded, and oh my god it smelled like fish before we reached home. I thought my dabbing up the water helped; it took fans round the clock, a wet vacuum and a new rug to get rid of that water and smell.

Here I am talking to a man that cannot remember what he had for dinner yet he is reminding me of the incident of the fish spilling in the van.
Well we got home in one piece I am frazzled with his side seat driving, need to drop Bill off then Bill takes the most fish better for him no fish cleaning for me. I’ll catch them but not clean them.

Why do I do this to myself?

Remember when

This is for the man who brought me into this world whether he wanted a daughter or not, he is after all my father. This month he will be celebrating his 75th birthday with my brothers, sister, cousins, aunts and uncles. What a wonderful way to cherish 75 years, but he will not be celebrating it with his twin brother who passed on 5 years ago or his mother who passed 2 years ago. A man who was brought up on tobacco farm with a dirt floor in a cabin with 7 children. No he is in our hearts even though sometimes he can be an ass for not accepting me for me but I think it is finally sinking in that I am his oldest daughter and not the son he perceived.

Growing up was difficult in many ways that it taught me to stand up for myself never rely on anyone because you just don't know who will hurt you next and I can thank my father for that lesson. He taught me so much over the course of 40 years that has me here today typing out a remembered birthday wish to him. I remember fishing with my brothers and father eating spam from a can, exploring the waters in which we fished. Camping and roughing it, dealing with the bugs and snakes. Swimming in water so pure you could drink it as you swam in it, yes those were the good ole days. Before cell phones and electronic games, when a child used their imagination to build and play to all hours until my father would whistle and god forbid you didn't hear the that sound there would be hell to pay.
There were times my father would make us go outside with boxing gloves to settle an argument amongst us and since I was the sis in the family I would get beat up the most. I wasn't a fighter like my father wanted me to be, but he paid for it dearly when my brothers would get unruly and beat him up and anyone that got in their way. So the lesson learned there was never teach someone something that will bite you in the ass in the long run.

So on the 17th of June my father will be 75 years old, three quarters of a century that is quite a milestone. I will be lucky to make that age god usually takes the good people first and then the bad last, he took my mother when she reached 49 and she was the sweetest person in the world not because she was my mother just because of who she was. My father who was brought up in the older days was mean and he drank, he used to beat up my mom when I was a child. He hated her so much 30 years later he brings up the past and how he hated her for the things she did to him but never the beating he gave her.
Funny how I remember all those things and yet I can not remember what I had for dinner the night before.
Happy Birthday Dad, seventy five years is an awful long time to live and still many more years ahead because god doesn't want you and the devil is afraid you will take over.



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