A Father to Remember

A Father to Remember......No my Father is not gone. He is alive and well and I'm grateful for that. We all have memorable stories of how great and not so great our fathers were when we were growing up. Some of us have sad stories and some of us have happy stories or even funny stories. But if it weren't for our father's seeds we wouldn't be here on Earth to even mention those memories.

I had a typical childhood growing up, to say the least. Many happy memories, many not and many that I have completely forgotten.  Why you ask? Hell if I know. Brain farts? But the memories that I do have I cherish. Like the time, my Dad and I went fishing. I was maybe around the age of thirteen, not really excited about hanging out with my dad when I had better things to do, like hanging out with my girlfriends to talk about boys. But anyways Dad dragged me fishing. We were sitting along an old riverbank behind one of his buddie's house. This river was known for the carps and muskies.

After sitting along the bank for hours, bored out of my fricking mind and NO we didn't have cell phones back then or else I would have spent the hours texting my friends. We waited and waited for one bite, hell a nibble would have made our blood soar but NOTHING.  We were just getting ready to pack up and leave when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dad's pole flicker.

I yelled his name (quietly) cause them fish can hear us when we talk. Go figure, I didn't know fish had ears. He turned around and damn near fell flat on his face when he tripped over the tackle box. I watched him move like a streak of lightening grabbing that fishing pole and swinging it back, hoping to hook this bad boy on.

"Jamie, I think we got a big one here!" Dad yelled. Yes, he yelled and let the whole river of fish know that we were there. lol  I stood up, excited now. This was the only thing some what exciting that has happened in the last two hours besides me getting grossed out by the sight of worm poop. Yes, worm poop is gross. Have you ever seen it? 

For fifteen minutes Dad pulled and released and pulled and released the line trying to pull this monster in. I could see that he was getting tired but the excitement on his face showed that he wasn't about to give up, not by a long shot. The fish was doomed to die. I grabbed the net and set it beside his feet, so that it would be handy for when he brought the fish close enough to the edge of the bank. I stood back and watched.

Another ten minutes went by and we were finally able to see the fish.  And HOLY SHIT was it a monster. The damn thing had to be at least three feet long.

"Look at that musky! I'm gonna have that baby mounted!" Dad cheered. I could picture it now....Mom would be totally appalled at the idea of a fricking fish hanging on the living room wall next her picture of humming birds.

I watched Dad as he bends over to grab the net. Just as he reaches the net into the water to grab the monsterous fish, a loud snapping sound seemed to echo all around us.

"What was that?" I gasped. I looked over at Dad, who had the most horrify look on his face. He stood there staring at me with the net in one hand and a broken pole in the other.

So that was how the story came to be, about Dad missing the BIG ONE. That happened um....tw...(clearing throat)six years ago. We don't need to know the exact years and to this day he still talks about missing the BIG ONE. Oh and by the way he missed the BIG ONE deer hunting too but I didn't go there with him. The very thought of hunting for Bambi made me cry.