Full Circle

Firmly ensconced in middle age, I have come full circle in my life.

During the years of my single digit maturation I found myself in the middle of Lake Erie more times than I can remember.  These excursions onto that Great Lake had nothing to do with pleasure.  There was neither skiing nor swimming.  There was only fishing.

Many will argue that fishing is one of the wonderful Jainistic pleasures of life where the normal person can commune with nature and become one with his surroundings.  It would seem that fishing and a Zen-like state are one in the same.  Not so on my father's fishing boat.  Fishing with my dad had one objective (and the only objective that mattered) - catch your limit.

Catching this limit generally meant that you were on a lake that had the temperament of a toddler.  Lake Erie can become an untamed monster at any time with storms and high winds that coax the waves to heights of eight feet and more.  You can go from sitting on a sheet of glass to praying for your life in under 10 minutes.  Those who have ever spent any real time on Lake Erie will know that this is not an exaggeration.

Given that Erie remained amicable, though, there was still the time that it took to catch your limit.  Spending 8 hours on that little boat was the general rule.  It was nothing to spend 10 hours out there on the treacherous waters that are Lake Erie.  When you take into account the travel time that was involved with the journey as a whole, you were looking at a 14 hour day set aside for nothing but fishing.

When you are 8 years old, that is a lifetime; when you are 8 years old, you go fishing with your father.  Unlike my two older brothers, I came to hate fishing.

It is an unfortunate thing that I was very much of a disappointment to my father.  Dad had a natural knack for all things sports.  He played baseball and was a cut above the other players.  He participated in shooting sports and could hit the moving targets 100 times out of 100 regularly and with no apparent difficulty in the so doing.  He hunted and he fished.  At least 3 times weekly on our dinner table came the fruits of his labor in the field or on the lake.

Many think it odd, but I didn't even know that pizza existed until I was in my teens and went out with a group of my friends.  Food came from the land or the grocery store, not from a pizzeria.  Meat and potatoes, and even beans, were the only edibles to be found in my world as a child.

My calling in life was much more cerebral.  I liked to read; I liked to dream; I liked magic.  My brothers were both strong and capable.  I was scrawny and awkward.  I had no athletic acumen.  After bearing two boys, my mother wanted a daughter.  There are those who would contend that, that is precisely what she got.

But we all grow up.  Life moves on and the young become old.  I have become soft in my middle age and my parents have lived a long time.  Now in his mid-80s my father still fishes.  He still trailers his boat out to Lake Erie and he still fishes in local tournaments.  He even gives the professionals a run for their money in these competitions.  Placing in the top three isn't uncommon and winning against fishermen who make their living doing nothing but fishing isn't rare.

As I said, my father comes by this naturally.  Dad has always been a superman by general standards and even his peers are amazed that his age hasn't slowed him down.  He takes great pride in the fact that the fishing club to which he belongs boasts him as their oldest member.  At 85 years of age he has more than 10 years on the next oldest member of his group.  He is, beyond doubt, an amazing man.

My father cannot come to terms with his own mortality.  His knees are made of metal, rather like the Bionic Man of old.  If he falls out of his boat, he sinks like a rock.  Unable to find anyone who is as addicted to fishing as he is, he simply goes out on Lake Erie alone.  In his 70s this was acceptable.  The skill to launch a boat with no help from anyone is amazing in and of itself, but couple that with the fact that we are talking about a man who has lived more than 8 decades and you start to get the idea - a superman.  Unfortunately, he is a superman who has found his kryptonite in senescence.  The fact that he refuses to acknowledge this kryptonite is neither here nor there.

I now go fishing with my dad.  Forty years after surviving the torture of sitting on a boat from sun up to sun down, and figuring that I had put my time in, I am the designated fishing partner for my father.  He can no longer do this on his own even though he rails against the simple truth that age has finally placed an impassable wall up against him.  In my teens my battle cry was, "Death Before Disco."  Today my battle cry is, "Death Before Dry Dock."

Thus has my life come full circle.