fishin amadellos
S.C.Jones
Had a chance to sit with Ira the other day:
Hello good friend,
Those amerillo's ever get hot in that shell? We been watching them for
nigh on an hour now from this here porch and I don't see how they do it.
I remember when I came back from Nam after being shot down. I went home
to my parents home in Minnesota for about two months rest. Had a cast
on my right arm and it felt like a shell at times.
Now this was in the summer and in the summer we fish here in Minnesota.
I wasn't hurtin from my wounds so much that I couldn't cast a worm. I
remember the hot days of summer even now as my grandma and pa and I
would sit in the wooden row boat catching sunnies. They were easy to
catch and I couldn't think of a better treatment for the wounds of war,
even today.
We had a wonderful time that summer; a summer that was given to me by
fate. While my buddies were dodging bullets, I was baiting another
hook. I've never seen my grandmother happier, then that summer. My
grandpa would talk for hours and life was on hold. Summer sun, fish
frying on the range, long walks on a dusty road; things gold and silver
couldn't buy today. How I would give all I had if they could even give
an hour.
Fish! I never ate more. We caught fish every year and still do. That
summer they were bigger and the sun shone colors bright off their backs.
That year was as no other.
With fish and fishing we all shared in the duties of cleaning fish. My
grandfather also, even though he was missing a hand from an early
thrashing machine accident many years previous. Me in my cast, my
grandfather missing a hand, and my grandmother, casually, laughingly,
telling us not to cut our good hand or we would leave her with a heap of
work. Seems I remember my grandpa and I would feint a wound or two, to
each delight.
I didn't mind cleaning fish and would have done them all myself for the
joy of that summer. It wasn't the cleaning that bothered me at
all...bring them on; Harvest of the waters.
My cast didn't restrict me too much. I could keep up with my grandma.
It was a little sloppy and hot, but gee, they tasted good too. I could
have gone all summer in peaceful bliss...were it not for an itch deep
down in that cast. It wasn't long before the lower edges of my cast
were soaked and softened. There was plenty of support and so I wasn't
too alarmed when my grandparents first noticed.
Later that first night from cleaning, it hardened up again and all that
remained was a slight oder of dead fish. The itch started that night.
In the days that followed that itch made itself known more and more. It
could almost go unnoticed sometimes - in the early days of that fishing
adventure. It could almost go away; almost.
Oh, the fish we caught. The fish fries and the cleaning. "Grandpa, do
you have to keep Everything you catch?" "That thing isn't even a year
old yet!" ..."No, I don't need to take some with me...I don't even know
where I will be stationed yet." "Yes, I like eating fish." "OK,
grandpa. He's a keeper." What a summer.
What an itch! Now, some itching comes with a cast I have found, but you
try cleaning fish daily for two weeks, slopping brine and scales all
over and dealing with the flys, swatting here and there. I had begun to
grow scales on my arm, encased in that cast. It also began to offend
some of us at the eating table. It is one thing to clean fish for
eating. It is quite another to sit down to eat them and have the stench
of cleaning still present. My cast was a part of me then. I beleive my
grandparents never stopped telling the story of how uncomfortable it
made me. (them too?) The wounds of war I would survive. That cast had
to come off now, but my dear grandparents would have none of it.
I shifted from the joys and delights of that summmer, to the dispair and
agony of slowly losing my mind to the itch. I had long passed the stage
of going down to the local bar and getting a drink; maybe meeting a nice
girl and (ashamed) showing her my hero's cast. I think the torture of
battle was with me those next few weeks. It rode with me all the way
back to Kansas where the last of my war was removed by a kind, although
dismayed, doctor.
That summer comes to mind often now. Funny, but I don't remember the
itch. I do remember my grandparents and their love and attention to me,
and I remember my grandpa keeping that wee little bass. I remember no
better summer in my life. No better...
You'd think those amadellos would itch under that shell, Ira. I don't
understand it. They like fish?
Best to you good friend.
fishin amadellos
Revised: March 8, 1997
Comments welcome.
All contents copyright (C) 1997, S.C.Jones
All rights reserved.
URL: http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/1915
