The Fishing Boy
a Saturday Story
I caught a brief glimpse of him as I drove along the busy avenue toward the church where we were scheduled for a fellowship meal. He was off to my left, a few hundred yards down a side road, happily riding a cruiser bicycle; a long fishing pole held in his right hand had its tip pointed heavenward with a slight bend like a crooked index finger, forced by the tension of the line and the lure hooked in an eye near the reel. If I read it right, he seemed contented.
I simultaneously felt happy and sad for him. I was happy that he was experiencing something I too knew the pleasure of in the days of my youth. For a few years, my summer days, and even after school hours, when possible, were filled with fishing. My brothers, friends, and I called it “pond hopping.” We lived a few miles from town and the land around us in every direction was spotted with ponds; many of them stocked with quality bass, catfish, perch, and even crappie in some of them. Back then, most of the landowners had no qualms about letting some boys cast a line in their pond. Some asked us to catch and release, which we were happy to do. We weren’t trying to feed the family. It was about the sport. And yes, there were times we rode our bikes, fishing poles in hand, to one of those fishing holes.
Those were good days. I can’t think of one bad thing to say about them. So, when I saw that boy, I saw a reflection of myself at a different time. A good time. I didn’t know places and boys like that existed anymore. I was happy for him because I know how much pleasure I had in doing then what he is doing now.
There was also a little sadness vying for a space in my heart. I think it was because I knew that boy didn’t know how fleeting days like that are for him. My old fishing holes are mostly gone. They’ve been taken over by subdivisions. The ponds were either covered over or deemed off-limits to non-residents. I look at those places and feel maybe just a little of what it would be like to be a Native American and be told to show a pass and stay away from the buffalo before entering Yellowstone.
That was my land. No, I never owned it. I never had a deed or paid its taxes. But I walked through its grassy pastures, sat on its pond banks, and caught its fish. We had a thing back then. I loved it and cared about it and hope the feeling was mutual. Then someone went and built a paved walking trail around its waters and manicured its pastures and posted a sign telling me to keep out.
What was there will never be there again and I fear that in a few years, that boy’s fishing holes will succumb to a similar fate. So, I felt some sadness.
Every generation probably feels this way about something. Drive around the childhood stomping grounds of any old guy like me and he will likely point out all the new things and all the things that are gone. Whether it is due to development or deterioration, nothing stays much the same. “The old neighborhood hasn’t changed,” isn’t something that can be oft said.
I’m trying to accept this reality in a healthy way. Progress isn’t always good, but it isn’t always bad. What was isn’t always something to be sneered at. Sometimes, when possible, it is something worth recovering. I think that’s true. But I can’t and shouldn’t live in the past or the future. Today is what I’ve got. It is tomorrow’s yesterday and yesterday’s tomorrow. And I don’t want to spend all of my time reflecting on yesterday or thinking about tomorrow. When I do, I risk missing out on what is right in front of me today. I miss the joy and pleasure of where I am and what I am doing now.
When I think back on life, there are hundreds of days I don’t remember at all. I don’t know what I did, who I was with, what I ate, or any other detail. In part, that is because there’s only so much my mind can hold. But it is also because there was nothing memorable done on those days. The days I remember, like those days standing along the banks of those fishing ponds, are remembered because I was living, doing something I enjoyed, and doing it with guys I liked, my brothers and my neighbors. That’s a good recipe for making today a day worth remembering.
