Fish Tales!

TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010


Fish Tales!

Before anyone started recording lies but most especially since the beginning of recorded history, hunters and fisherman spun tales of great conquests. They told them about themselves. They told them about others. Normally there was at least some basis in fact. Minnows became sea monsters. Sea monsters got even bigger. Seals and Manatees became mermaids. Have you ever seen a Manatee? It must have taken an OD of grog or mead for some of these elaborate exaggerations to become so wide spread. Guttenberg became prime enabler for authors and editors who saw a way to make a buck.


“Fish, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.”

I read that Hemmingway book and “Cherry Orchid” the summer of my freshman year as part of my assigned reading list. It was because these two works had the fewest number of pages that they went to the top of the list. I have no idea why I read “Mutiny on the Bounty” because I could have just gone and seen the movie like all the other students who did their book reports that fall on that colossal tome. In reality they recapped the movie. It was obvious our English teacher saw the flick. He definitely did not read the book. I wanted to call him and the student ‘readers’ on it but it was the day of don’t stir the pot and ratting out a fellow student was the lowest of low.

Midshipman Roger Byam said: “To the voyage of the Bounty. Still waters of the great golden sea. Flying fish like streaks of silver, and mermaids that sing in the night. The Southern Cross and all the stars on the other side of the world.” If he wasn’t telling an outright lie he was certainly stretching the truth a bit.


There was that time I skipped church. Stretching the truth was not going to help a bit. I had to resort to the time honored lie. Rosie was not convinced or impressed.

I woke late and ran out of the house to make the earliest mass before the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Consecration had started so that it would be ‘official’. I thought everyone was still asleep. I was wrong.

After doing what I loved to do best I realized that mass would already be over and I better high tail it home or there would be hell to pay. I skidded into the driveway in the old Tan Turd, jumped out and ran into the bedroom and changed clothes. I shot past the family sitting in the living room dressed in their Sunday best and jumped back in that worn out Chevrolet Biscayne station wagon and raced back to the spillway.


I was too late. The monster was gone.

It would not have been as much of a tragedy except when I had left the scene of the crime to go home and change, that huge glistening snook was flopping on the bank, temporarily in the custody of a migrant family. At least that was the plan… temporarily.

Like Hemmingway stolen story of Santiago that, from the moment I hooked the snook I thought "I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him.” I did not worry about the slaying; I was too involved in the catching. There were no sharks in the canal below the spillway and I did not think that fish was “not as intelligent as we who kill them”. I was not the one with treble hooks in my mouth. I had lost many fish nowhere near the size of the missing monster. Now I had lost yet another.

I fished for a while longer but had to go home to clean up to go to work, another aspect of the Sabbath that I ignored because I was earning money for college tuition. I did not hook another fish despite flogging the water cast after fruitless cast.

Mom, dad and the girls were eating scrambled eggs when I came through the door. Rose’s first question: “Did you catch anything?” was answered with my first Lie: “No.” Her second question: “What was the Gospel?” brought the second lie… “I got there right after the Gospel.” Her third question was immediately followed by an astute observation: “Were they serving fish at mass?… you smelled a little fishy after church when you rushed in to change." I knew my goose was cooked even if the snook wouldn’t be broiled at our casa.

I gave it up; everything, including the migrant vegetable harvesting family disappearing with my prize. They were eating my snook like the giant shark devoured the evidence of Santiago’s guilt for killing the Marlin. It was God’s punishment.

I hoped a small amount of sympathy might moderate the punishment that was sure to follow. I did my best not to embellish. I used tides and the open spillway as mitigating factors in my sinful negligence. Mom had heard enough fish stories not to take the bait.

“They beat me, Manolin," he said. "They truly beat me."
"He didn't beat you. Not the fish."
"No. Truly. It was afterwards."


“A Thousand Hours of Hell For One Moment of Love!” Mixed metaphors: “I think the great DiMaggio would be proud of me today.”

Mom, not so much… I thought at the time that I would truly be The Old Man and the Sea by the time mom let me out of the house with a fishing rod.


When I climbed in the Tan Turd I saw the tackle box and the poles in the back and thanked God I had not taken them out of the car. I put them in the closet when I got to work.

I would become more spiritual and read the gospel the next time I went fishing. I did not want to have to lie to mom again.

Minor embellishment makes a good fishing tale better. You can read the book or watch the movie... just don't lie on the book report.
© 07.20.2010 steven d philbrick SR+ DakotaDawg