A Cribbage Club Fish Story

Something from the tackle box:

       You wonder why the Lord pays no attention when you go without eating and act humble.  But on those same days that you give up eating, you think only of yourselves and abuse your workers.  You even get angry and ready to fight.  No wonder God won’t listen to your prayers!  (Isaiah 58:3-4 CEV)

       Not every fishing story I get comes from my own recollection, (whether that recollection of mine is based on my own experience, my imagination, or a combination of both, is beside the point here).  Sometimes a good story comes to me totally second-hand.  I’ve told a few stories that I’ve gotten from other folks over the years, and while I haven’t claimed them to be my own stories, about me, I have usually told them in a way that might lead one to presume that I could have at least been a witness to the tale being told, if not an actual participant.  It’s an old literary device.  Homer certainly did not sail with his heroes to Troy and back, yet who can dive into the Iliad or Odyssey without feeling that the poet is recounting from more than mere “hearsay” knowledge of the adventure. 

       In any event, I’m going to break with that old writing tactic today and relate a story that I heard, not as if I’m placing you at the scene of the story, but as if I’m letting you hear the story along with me, as I’m hearing it for the first time.  I’m not sure if this is going to work, but here goes!

       This is a story that I heard a few weeks ago at my Monday afternoon cribbage gathering, which meets in the basement fellowship hall of the church I work at, which is why it’s called the Church Basement Cribbage Club.  The members of this group are not an overly competitive bunch of card players.  Some of them are pretty good, myself included, but mostly we just play for the opportunity to socialize.  We don’t even keep track of who beats who, or how many games someone wins on a day that we play.  It really is all about just having a good time playing cribbage together.  A Monday without wining a single card game is a minor annoyance.  A Monday without a good laugh is a total disaster.  So you can know that the conversation is every bit as important as the cards at the CBCC, and probably even more so, if the truth be told. 

The church basement cribbage club

       We will generally have about eight to a dozen people show up to play every Monday.  Most of the people who show up to play are either members of the church we meet at or another local congregation, but a few of them are not, and that’s fine.  While we do not allow any swearing, cursing, or otherwise gratuitously vulgar language to be used at our gatherings, nor any derogatory expressions towards any race, creed, ethnicity, or group identity other than our own, be they couched as attempts at humor or not, - still, - not every story told at Cribbage Club can be classified as overtly genteel.  This is one such story. 

       Now, you should know that our conversations aren’t just ‘one on one’ chatter with the person sitting across the board from you.  The train of quips , jokes, and good natured jabs, can run side to side, up and down the long table filled with cribbage boards and card players, and quite often does. 

       To set this up, I was sitting at the far left hand end of the long table, with the row of games and players running off to my right, across from me sat my opponent, Roger, a nice man, about my age, who, due to an accident early in life deals with some health issues that require him to employ an assistant to drive and help with other tasks that facilitate his active lifestyle.  Next to me, on my right, sat Heather, Roger’s assistant on Monday afternoons, and a pretty good cribbage player, too.  Heather is probably the youngest player at our club, still having children of her own living at home, whereas most of the rest of us are into grandchildren, if not great-grands.  It is Heather who is going to be telling the story you will be listening in on.  Across the table from Heather sat Marcia, at the age of eighty something, a lifelong member of my congregation.  Don’t let Marcia’s age fool you though, she’s pretty sharp, and likes to tell or hear a good story as much as anybody.  On Heather’s right sat my church organist, Linda, playing a game against her husband Jim, a couple who would rather laugh at a good story than do just about anything else in life. 

       So, the six of us are clumped together at one end of the row of card games, chatting away as usual, and the conversation was about the warm winter we’d just come through, and the ice going out of the local lakes so early, when Jim says to me, “You like to ice-fish, don’t you pastor?  Were you able to get any ice-fishing in at all this winter?”

       “Well, I do a little ice-fishing, now and then,” I replied.  “Some folks were out on Jordan Lake for a couple of weeks back in January, but I didn’t get out one single time this year.  Mostly because I’m a chicken and don’t go out on the ice unless it’s a good eight inches thick, which I don’t think it ever came close to this year.  And I don’t think it’s going to freeze over again before spring is really here, so, no.  No ice fishing for me this year at all.” 

       Heather then adds, “Well, my uncle Joe was just out ice-fishing on the Flint River just a few weeks ago.  Didn’t get anything though.”

       Marcia looked puzzled and said, “That’s not all that far north of here, I’m surprised they had enough ice to go out on.”

       “Oh, they had enough ice,” Said Heather.

       “I never go ice fishing on a river,” I added.  “Even in a cold winter, those currents running underneath the ice can wear it pretty thin.  And if you do go through, that same current will take you downstream with no hole to come up through.”

       “Lots of folks ice-fish on the Flint River. – But my uncle Joe won’t be fishing it again – not for a while. – Or, at least not until he gets some new line on his ice-fishing rod.”

       At this comment, I’m feeling a little puzzled too.  Why would new line be a big issue?  I look across at Roger, then over at Marcia, and down at Jim, who are all looking at Heather for some additional enlightenment. 

       Heather just continued looking at her cards, deciding which two to toss to Marcia’s crib.  So I asked, “Was his line getting old and brittle?  Did a fish break it off too easily?  Or did a big one run it all out on him?” 

       “No, - nothing like that,” she replied.  Then, looking up from her cards and noticing our attention, she continued, “OK, - so my uncle Joe goes out ice fishing.  He parks his truck at the boat landing, walks out on the ice, and he’s the only one out there fishing that morning.  So, he walks out to his spot, drills a hole, and starts fishing.  Well, in a little while, another truck pull up and parks.  This other guy walks out, drills another hole, not six feet away from my uncle’s hole, and he sits down and starts fishing right there too!”  

       Now, you don’t even have to be an experienced fisherman to guess that this is not good fishing etiquette.  Fishermen, of both ice and open-water varieties, may congregate in an area where the fish are known to be hanging out, and it’s allowable to walk or paddle up to another angler just to pass a few pleasantries before you drop your own line, but you should always move off, a good thirty yards or more, before drilling a hole or making a cast, unless you’re invited to stay closer.  It’s just good manners. 

       “Well, - that was pretty rude!”  I said.

       “Yeah, it sure was!  What did your uncle Joe say to the guy?”  added Jim. 

       Heather thought for a minute before continuing.  “Well, - he didn’t say anything.”

       “He didn’t say anything!”

       “Nope. – He just got up, - walked over to the guy, - unzipped his coveralls, - and peed in the guy’s fishing hole.” 

       At this point, I look over at Roger.  He’s staring at Heather with his jaw dropped.  I look at Marcia, and she’s staring at Heather with her jaw dropped too.  I look over at Jim and Linda, and they’re looking at each other, each biting their bottom lip trying not to start giggling. 

       “Oh my lands!” Marcia finally broke the trance.  “What did that guy say to your uncle Joe when he did that?!” 

       “He didn’t say anything either. – He just stood up – and socked my uncle Joe right in the face.” 

       I looked at the others in turn again.  Same expressions, only the dropped jaws are a little lower, and Jim and Linda are biting their lips even harder.

       “You mean they got into a fist-fight, - right there on the ice!” I chimed in.

       “Oh, there was no fight!  That guy knocked my uncle Joe out cold with that one punch, and then he just let him lay there on the ice.”

       “You mean to tell me that he just took off – and left your uncle stretched out on the ice, unconscious, in the freezing cold?”

       “Oh, he didn’t take off anywhere, – he just sat back down – and started fishing again. – When my uncle finally came to, he looked around, and there the guy sat, fishing away like nothing had happened.” 

       I looked at all the faces around me again.  Now there were four people trying not to bust out laughing. 

       “So, what happened next?  What did your uncle do, once he came to?”

       “Well, he decided he’d had enough for one day, - I guess.  So he got up, picked up all his tackle, and headed back for his truck.”

       “And neither of them ever said one word to the other?”

       “Nope. – Not a word.”

       Well, now I’m totally befuddled, so I ask, “So, - what’s that got to do with your uncle Joe needing new fishing line before he goes out fishing again?” 

       Heather looks at me with this exasperated look on her face.  She rolls her eyes and continues, “Well, when my uncle grabbed his tackle box and rod, tossed them in his bucket and walked off the ice, he didn’t realize that the bail was open on his reel.  So his hook, bait and bobber stayed in the hole, and his line played out as he walked back to the boat landing.  Once he got there, he just tossed all of it in the bed of his pickup and took off, with the line running off his rig as he drove away.  He didn’t notice until it hit the knot at the end and slammed all his gear into the tailgate and flipped his rod out into the ditch about a quarter of a mile down the road.  At that point he didn’t want to try and reel it all back in, so he just stopped, broke the line off, tossed his empty rod back in the truck and took off again.  Just left his line there stretched out to the river.  Can you imagine?!  That’s why he can’t go ice-fishing again until he gets new line on his rod.”

       I look around now, and not only are lips being bitten, but eyes are squeezed shut on faces that are turning red.

       Heather plays her next card, “Fifteen for two. - - Honestly, - - my uncle Joe can be such a jerk sometimes.”

       And that’s when the laughter volcano erupted. 

Something to take home in your creel:

       My mother always told me, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” to which I’ve added, “and three wrongs can make for a fight!”  It’s probably just as well that Heather’s uncle Joe walked off the ice without pushing things any further that day, even if it did cost him hook, line and sinker to do it.  I don’t think that other guy was in the mood to be taught good manners that morning.  And, even if he was, I don’t think uncle Joe was overly qualified to be the one to teach them to him. 

       I’m guessing that a few honestly spoke words of wisdom would have probably sufficed to settle the whole problem without any rancor at all.  Both men could have fished all day, at a polite distance, and even exchanged pleasantries walking off the ice together, each carrying a bucket full of fish.  But that didn’t happen. 

       Wisdom is in short supply these days, as it always has been, I guess.  I’m pretty sure that we could all do with more of it.  I’m hopeful that at least uncle Joe might have gained a little.  Who knows?  In any event, if he had found wisdom earlier in life – I probably wouldn’t have gotten to hear this story – and that would have been a shame.