230817 Gone Fishin'

Me abord the Kitty Hawk around 1966.

I was watching a movie last evening and in the movie an old man was out fishing. That brought this story to mind.

My grandpa worked for the post office. He went to work early and got off work at 2:30 in the afternoon. He would come home and we would go fishing together. This was before he and dad bought our clubhouse. We would go and fish in a backwater off the Mississippi. I was 10 years old at the time. We would fish for carp, not that we ate them, but they are so much fun to catch. Pulling in a one pound carp on the fishing line is like a 5 pound bass. Grandpa found that the old cereal “Wheaties” could be wet and formed into a paste that was good bait for carp and we caught a lot of them. Grandpa also had a secret ingredient to go with the “Wheaties.” Now grandpa was a law abiding man, but he had heard adding a touch of vanilla extract worked wonders and it did. The problem was it was illegal to use, but he figured if it was just for fun, it was okay.

Grandpa liked his beer, so we would stop at a tavern along the way and he had a beer while I had a Frosty Root beer. He would grab a six pack and more Frosty Root Beer for me. We would fish for a couple of hours before going home for supper.

The carp we caught were put on a stringer so we could keep count of our catch. This was just 10 years after the war with Japan and Japanese were not popular here. Most days we fished, there was a Japanese man who would drive up in his WW-2 Jeep and fish nearby where we were. When we had a good catch, grandpa would tell me to go over and give the carp to the man because grandpa said they liked them, while Americans did not. They were boney and had little usable flesh to eat and did not smell too good. I suppose the Japanese knew how to prepare them properly. The man would always say thank you and smile. It made me feel good to give them to him.

I was in the navy 20 years after the war with Japan. Near any navy base the Japanese were friendly enough, but on my trip to Tokyo, I found out the Japanese there were not friendly at all. They were still bitter after their defeat. Now they are an important American ally in the far east.