Dad and his brothers were fine story-tellers.   Uncle Glenn told me how the bunch of them caught Catfish  in the river near their house.   Uncle Gerald, the youngest of the brothers, loved that fish, named it Blue, and taught it tricks.  Uncle Gerald even trained that fish to walk on dry land and roll over and beg like a dog.  Grandma wanted to cook that Catfish up for dinner, but Uncle Gerald cried so hard, she didn’t have the heart to do it.  He kept Blue around in a bucket of river water for a few day, and then one morning the pail was empty:  the fish got so good at walking on dry land, it up and walked back to the river.  Anytime Uncle Glenn told that story, Uncle Gerald would nod in agreement, and one of the six brothers would say, “Yup, that Blue was the smartest fish I ever saw.”  Six sets of blue eyes sparkled like stars and six lips pulled up in the corner in almost the exact, same way.  Aunt Barbara just looked down at her folded hands and shook her head, then the corner of her lip started to twitch up too.  My uncles were darned good story-tellers, and they never let on which parts were true and which were tall tales.

I caught myself a pet fish when I was a little girl.  As near as I can tell, this story is all true.  Still, I was a very little girl, almost before memories had language.  I caught that fish on the one and only time I remember ice-fishing outside a cabin at a lake I barely recall.

Mom bundled me up in woolen snow pants, coat, hat and mittens.  She pushed and prodded to help me with my red rubber boots; I stamped down hard to push the last couple inches of my heel my boot.  In a few short years, I’d be helping Little Kids the same way Mom helped me then, but of course Continue reading →