Still Fishing

Still Fishing

The fishing couple were seventy-six and seventy-four and had spent endless, happy hours on the water in their fourteen-foot, handmade, three-eighths inch, plywood boat. They were from the Old School: Paul and Ella used ten-foot cane poles with no reels. They hand-pulled the line when they got a strike. Of course they were most successful using this method with panfish, for they loved Bluegills, Sunfish, Crappie, Perch, and eleven-inch Rock Bass. All edible, all tasty, all with a plethora of small bones. But the two didn't mind them. In fact, when cooked hot with a lot of oil, the white flesh peeled off as easy as a week-old bandage off wet skin. Bones weren't an obstacle but a reward.

Paul and Ella had fished the ponds, mudholes, and small rivers of southeastern Iowa for over fifty years. Before TV, the computer, when radio was still a staticcy squeak-box, the two found that sitting in a boat still fishing was their best form of entertainment. They spoke when they wanted, but as the years progressed they found they had little to say. Everything had become obvious. The sky was either blue, overcast, or full of clouds, and no amount of opinion would change that. Just as no discussion was necessary when they observed that the water today was either blue, brownish, or murky. And they either had or did not have fish on the stringer just as the fish were either biting or they weren't. None of this required talk. And so they seldom spoke.

Ever since they were in their twenties and eager to get on the water they had slapped pieces of bread together with brown, mouth-sticking, smooth peanut butter. It didn't matter if it was Skippy or Kraft as long as white Wonder Bread surrounded it. The old couple had experimented with crunchy peanut butter, with cashew butter, with any number of new-fangled spreads as the health-food craze heightened, but when all was said and done, the long-time classic was the smooth, creamy, oil-leaking variety. To them, fishing was not fishing without it.

One might think an old couple would wash the sandwiches down with a thermos of hot coffee or tea. Maybe chicken or beef bullion dissolved in

hot water, possibly steaming cocoa. But once the habit had established itself way back in those first years, a bottle of water had remained the easiest and most popular. Every other drink took too many steps: cooking, pouring from a milk bottle, adding sugar. Other-than-water had brought disastrous results like the time warm milk curdled in the thermos or a tea bag stuck sprinkling over a bare knee. No, water, pure and simple, had proved best with the ever-present peanut butter sandwiches.

The division of labor had long since demarked itself: Paul rowed -- they never used a motor -- he dropped and the retrieved the anchor, one he had made by pouring cement into a large peach can. Paul also put the fish on the metal clip-stringer. Ella made the predictable meal, baited the hooks, which was an on-going task if the fish were biting well or had become so sophisticated they nibbled off the worms without getting caught. No one complained of his/her job, no one felt slighted.

The same was true with the seating. In over a half-century Paul hadalwayssat in the middle seat to row and the stern to fish, while Ella owned the fore seat and only a tornado, typhoon, or Tsunami could change that. Since they always fished alone, all the above were givens and never varied. And good it was, too, because ever since they lost their only son in the Second World War they didn't want to have to think. Just eat and drink the same fishing meal, sit in the same seat, perform their respective chores. It was exactly the way they wanted to live, precisely the way they expected life to continue, and, God willing, unequivocally the pattern they knew should continue if they wanted to continue being happy.

The Hamptons' motto had presented itself long ago too: There's no sense in changing if everything is going well. If things did not go well, which is predictable when fishing, one simply adjusted. One might even became flexible and bold. But to Paul and Ella that only meant you fished on the west shore instead of the south, you wore a raincoat instead of bare arms, you fished in the shade of an over-hanging willow or sun-baked in deeper water. But regardless of these temporary shifts, what did not change was their menu, where they sat, and their respective fishing duties.

In Nineteen Thirty-Eight Paul and his son got tired of the vessel they'd used for years. They called it the Banana Peel. Paul and his brother Herman had made the canoe using cedar ribs. These they covered with canvas and several coats of paint. It didn't take long for the paint to wear off the keel so they flattened a wide copper wire they'd found at the dump. They nailed it along the center line of the canoe's underside and added

caulking. But the water came through the nail holes anyway. The vessel was also very tippy.

When Herman got married, his in-laws gave him a brand new row boat. Now Herman was high and dry while Paul was low and wet. Tired of all the bailing and painting, Paul finally bought some plywood, long sheets of canvas, screws, and two gallons of paint. The Hamptons used the boat for the next forty-eight years, easily hoisting it onto their utility trailer when they wanted to fish a different lake. They called their boat The Hampton Tug. Now Neil could dive off the transom, hang over the bow, and learn how to row like a champion. After the war The Tug was used exclusively by Paul and Ella on their still-fishing expeditions, which was every weekend it was over fifty degrees.

Once, in the Fifties, Paul performed what he called hitting two birds with one stone: he took a transistor radio aboard. Ella was so surprised she said nothing, but she thought it a travesty of their long-established rule of silence. Paul listened to the Sunday afternoon football game. Now, the couple believed fully in Providence and the Natural Order of things. So when Paul lost a sizable Large Mouth Bass because Number Fourteen was streaking for the goal line, the fisherman said never again would he break the rule and get distracted. After all, fishing and being with the woman he loved was far more important than a football game.

It is said that all stories need tension: some form of pressure or conflict in order to give it vitality. That the reader, presented with a piece of writing lacking tension, is like staring at a blank canvas. It is also said that there is an exception to every rule. And the two old-timers sitting in their home-made row boat every Sunday with ten-foot cane poles eating peanut butter sandwiches and sipping air-warm water is that exception. Because there is every other quality of the good story in the passive dynamics of Paul and Ella Hampton through all those decades. Though perfectly predictable --nostory should bethat-- the endless hours they spent in silence paradoxically gave them the greatest dynamics. Because even when the fish weren't biting, they experienced one of the most powerful scenarios possible: silent love.

I just bet they look down from Heaven at their old haunts, while still fishing up there.