It’s June, Friend!
Boy, do I love June! I immediately revert to 10-year-old me as soon as the clock strikes midnight on June 1. It’s not like it’s a beautiful month in South Florida. Au contraire. We’re well on our way to “horribly hot” with no relief in sight. But when I was a kid, June was the best! Yes, July and August were pretty darn fabulous, too, but in June, it’s still early, and you have all of summer to look forward to. The anticipation of days on end of no school and playing outside was exhilarating! School just recently ended here where I live, and when I see packs of kids on bikes here and there, I want to join them in their glee! I don’t think, though, that they’d appreciate a 63-year-old woman running alongside them and asking them if I could hang out with them. Maybe they want to go get some ice cream? Yeah, that sounds like behavior that could get me arrested.
June, as a kid in Wisconsin, was heavenly. One of my favorite things to do was to go fishing with my dad. My dad was a schoolteacher who sometimes worked a different job during the summers, but not always. He was an avid fisherman and outdoorsman. Now that I think about it, I was neither an avid fisherwoman nor an avid outdoorswoman. But spending time with my dad? Pure bliss.
I had to be a complete pain in the dorsal fin to take fishing. I mean, I didn’t do anything to help. We had a canoe. There was a seat at the back and one at the front. My dad made this contraption (he was great at making contraptions) that he’d put in the middle of the canoe to grab the canoe and carry it on his shoulders on two shoulder pads. Now, this wasn’t a teeny tiny canoe; it was hefty, and he’d hoist that thing up like it was nothing. He carried it on his shoulders from the top of the car down to the lake.
I watched.
I suppose I helped with the smaller parcels: the tackle box, the cooler, and the life jackets. I didn’t touch the container of worms. Sorry, Dad. You’re going to have to come back and get those.
We frequently went to a lake called Finger Lake. I think it was named that because it had lots of “fingers” that led out from a central “hand.” I have no idea how we got there. My dad drove, so why would I ever pay attention to where I was going? I was with my dad, and he was the strongest, best man in the whole world.
As we slipped into the water, my dad in the back, and me up front, we’d head out to one of the “fingers” to see what we’d find. I paddled with a short paddle up front while my dad did most of the work with the longer paddle in the back.
Again, contributing little to the work on these outings, I’d take my fishing pole and toss the hook back to my dad. I told you I wouldn’t have anything to do with those worms! My dad would get the squirmy wiggler on the hook, and then I’d cast out into the weeds along the shore. No sooner would I do so than I’d feel a bite! Wooohooooo! I’d reel that little sucker in like I was Jeremy Wade from River Monsters! Then what did I do? I’d fling that thing right back at my dad and have him take the fish off the hook and toss it in the basket. (I told you I was a pain. I wanted all the glory of fishing but none of the yucky stuff.) I remember going through that process 10 times in rapid succession, catching the limit and having to stop. My poor dad didn’t have two minutes to cast his own line. He was too busy taking care of me.
On one of those excursions, we were out in the “bigger part” of the lake, and it was actually my dad’s turn to fish. I guess I decided he could have some fun, too. Something bit. And it seemed really big. That pole bent over, and I thought that line would break, but my dad kept reeling that monster in. At one point, I saw the fish near our canoe and thought I was witnessing Wisconsin’s first alligator. My dad grabbed a net and got that creature into our canoe.
It was huge!
This was no little bluegill, what I’d caught a million of; this thing, as I was about to find out—had teeth! I don’t think I knew that there were fish in this world with teeth. Oh sure, I’d probably heard about piranhas, but didn’t they live in South America? How did one get into Finger Lake in Wisconsin? (Turns out it was a northern pike.)
My dad struggled with that fish, trying to get the fishing lure or hook out of its mouth, but that slippery bugger was not giving up easily. Then, as the critter seemed to be tiring, my dad stuck his thumb into its mouth and—CHOMP! It bit down onto his hand, and the blood started flowing. My dad, who only swore on rare occasions when he had good reason to, let forth with a slew of colorful words. The fish was flopping again, blood was dripping from my dad’s hand, and all I could do was yell, “Throw it back! Just throw it back!!” I wondered if this was named “Finger Lake” because of all the fingers this fish may have bitten off other people already.
But my dad had no intentions of letting this one get away. It seemed like it took forever, but he managed to get that ginormous fish into the basket and, no doubt, even had some bandaids ready to patch up his thumb.
Thinking about those days fishing with my dad makes me smile. I keep thinking, Why would he keep taking me fishing? I was no help. He did all of the work. Wasn’t I just more trouble than I was worth? I mean, here he is catching a fantastic fish, and I’m telling him to throw it back! Wouldn’t he have had a better time without me?
The only conclusion I can reach is that he wanted to be with me. I was a whiny kid who didn’t want to touch a worm and made him do everything, but he still loved me and wanted to spend time with me.
I often feel that way about my Heavenly Father as well. Man, can I whine to Him. Can I ever make Him do all the work, and I just sit back and enjoy the blessings. And if something seems too hard, I’ll yell, “I’m just going to throw it back!” And yet—He loves me. Still—He wants to spend time with me.
I truly have been blessed. I had both a loving earthly father and have a loving Heavenly Father. If you haven’t been as lucky as I have been as far as your earthly father goes, I hope you know you have a Father in heaven who does love you.
And that’s no fish tale.
Written with love – – – -Patti XOXO
“My father didn’t tell me how to live.
He lived and let me watch him do it.”
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