Bob Thomas Writes

In 1952 my Dad decided it was time to take me fishing. I was 9, going on 10, and had never had the opportunity to ‘wet a hook’ with the Old Man. I was pretty sure he was a sportsman of some kind because I had often heard he and his friends talking about the times they used to go ‘sportin’ around’ before they were married.

So, bright and early one Saturday morning my Dad drug me out of bed by my foot, bouncing my head on the floor in the process, and declared that this was a perfect day for fishing! We got dressed, had a breakfast of toast burned to the consistency of a Ritz cracker with grape jelly and a spoonful of butter on it, and began our expedition.

First, we crawled around in my Grandfather’s work shop for about an hour looking for fishin’ stuff. Eventually we found two cane poles, a smashed cardboard box with three or four red and white bobbers and a dozen rusty hooks in it, and a rusty coffee can for ‘bait’. Then we grabbed a shovel and headed for the garden to dig up some big fat red wigglers to lure the fish to our hooks.

My Dad ‘turned over’ the dirt while I eagerly pawed through the clods looking for worms. This went on for thirty minutes. . . he dug, I pawed. No worms. I had seen a gazillion worms in the soil in this garden for several years. . . as a matter of fact my next door neighbor’s little brother had followed the plow around last spring and picked up, ‘and eaten’ at least a hundred of them! But, alas, today they were all out of town on worm vacations or something!

“No problem”, my Dad said. “We’ll just stop at the hardware store and get some on the way”. We stopped at the hardware store and my Dad asked ‘Mr. Nye, the Hardware Guy’ (that’s what we kids all called him) for a bunch of worms. Mr. Nye said, “I don’t sell worms”! My Dad said, “Why not”? Mr. Nye said, “Because no one’s ever asked for them before! And besides, there’s no place to fish for 20 miles”! My Dad just turned and walked out with me in tow.

We drove out to the Catawba River and found a bait shop. . . that had worms. . . and bought a little “Chinese Restaurant Take-out-Box” full of them. I opened the box and inspected the worms. Yep! They were worms alright! Some of those suckers were a foot long! They scared the poot out of me! I thought they had given us a box of baby snakes! After I had determined that they were not snakes, I scooped up the ones I could find under the car seat and put them back in the box. .. along with the horse manure they came in!

At the river my Dad found a nice spot on the waters edge. . Only about 25 feet over the water on the side of a 89 degree inclined red clay bank. When we sat down, actually just leaned back, we had to dig our heels in to keep from sliding in the water!

We unwound the line on our cane poles and quickly found out that the line was about 10 feet short of the water! So, we slid down the bank on our rear ends until we could dip the hook in the water far enough for the bobbers to float. We whacked a worn into bite sized pieces with my Dad’s pocket knife and skewered it on our hooks, and we began fishing! Since I had never fished before my Dad offered me the benefit of his fishing wisdom.
“Bobby! Don’t thrown clods in the water! You’ll scare the fish”! Bobby, don’t drag your bobber back and forth like that! It ain’t a speed boat”! “Bobby! Sit up and watch your bobber”! “Bobby! Quit throwing worms in the water”! “Bobby! Bobby, where are you boy”?

My Dad, of course, had it down pat. He lay back on the bank, tilted his hat over his eyes and pretended to snore. . . so the fish would think he wasn’t watching his bobber! After about an hour, and no nibbles, he asked “You thirsty”? “Yes sir”. “Let’s go get a drink”. O.K.

We crawled back up the bank, threw the worms in the water, tied the poles to the side of the car, and drove back to the hardware store. As I drank my orange Nehi with peanuts in it, my Dad and “Mr. Nye the Hardware Guy” sat in the back with their feet propped up on the coal stove, drank ‘something’ out of a Mason Jar, and told each other lies. I rambled around the store looking at all the neat stuff on the shelves. . . with a periodic, “Bobby! Don’t drive nails in the shelves”!. . . or “Bobby! Turn that grinder off”!. . .”If you cut your hand off, you’ll wish you were dead boy”! shouted at me.

Did we catch any fish? No. Did either one of us actually know how to fish? No. Did I have a great time?
You Bet, there’s nothing better than a day fishing with your Dad!