Go Fish

Growing up, my sister Barb loved to fish; this and firecrackers somehow defined her summers.  As the child did, so too the adult, to the point of taking our parents up to Wisconsin to fish (and buy illegal fireworks on the way home).  She also wanted to include her niece, but the idea of holding a pole instead of a bat never appealed to Clare.  

That’s because both her parents passed along a strong dislike of the activity.  (It’s not a sport until you’re making like Ahab with Moby Dick.)  For Michele, fishing was the torture of sitting in a rowboat while her little brother—now an attorney successful enough to be blackmailed with the following—delighted in watching the float on his line bob up and down in the water, hour after hour.  For me, fishing meant slimy scales and worms.  I also wasn’t too keen on being bait for flies.

I did have one perfect fishing trip, with my mother on a Sunday just before the start of eighth grade.  We took the Kedzie Avenue bus down to the lagoon in Marquette Park; I felt very important resting a special, telescoping pole resting against my shoulder.  I seem to remember my mother still dressed in her church clothes, heels included.  My dad was working his shift at the firehouse that day.  Going fishing beat sitting around as the only adult in the house, I guess.

For a change, the White Sox were chasing the Twins instead of the Yankees that September.  I remember bits of a ballgame on somebody’s radio, and my mother smiling.  I must have caught a fish.