Father’s Day fishing has become somewhat of a tradition. This year Jen and I got up before the girls and went out early. It was cool enough to wear the rubber boots and the sun was strong enough to give me a little bit of a burn. The smallmouth bass are off their nests and they are hungry and hangry. I think between the two of us we caught about 30 that morning and just when they started to slow down, the bluegill and punkinseed started grabbing the same larger jigs so I didn’t bother to switch out, I just kept catching until we had enough for a nice Minnesota breakfast of bluegill fillets, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage.
It was a nice day to enjoy the backyard and the U.S. Open golf tournament and a nap. Smash burgers for dinner on the grill and a wellgroomed backyard courtesy of hard work Friday night and Saturday morning that held new flowers and no bugs. Garden in. A weekend in. I felt accomplished and calm. I felt happy. Stress dripped off of me like water after a summer swim in a cool lake. Like how all of your limbs feel lighter while the rest of you feels tired after that swim. Tired in a good way, a peaceful way.
I have written before, I believe, about a Father’s Day that Dad and I went fishing on and we caught three nice walleyes and pulled our canoe up on shore to have lunch and stretch our legs. We left our stringer in the water and not even a half hour later, we went back to the canoe and there was a huge snapping turtle just finishing up his lunch… there wasn’t anything left of those walleyes except their mouths hanging from the otherwise empty stringer. Thank you very much for lunch! I’d rather have that memory than a limit caught with Dad or a big fish story with him. It sticks in my mind and it is funny. It was easy come and easy go and neither one of us was mad about it. Also to my knowledge neither one of us ever caught a walleye on that lake again. Of course, we knew better to leave them like that, I guess, but who cares. I’ll remember that particular Father’s Day forever.
Juliet wrote me a cool poem that I haven’t had time to completely unpack, but it is about us and writing poems in the park and typewriters and it has something or somethings much deeper between her lines. Something that years from now she’ll look back on and understand her insight into her own future and how closely it has ties to the typewriter keys her fingers found on Father’s Day, 2025.
Our dog, who is five now, and survived a battle with blasto last winter, suddenly loves to swim. He was afraid of water for a good three years and now he wants to jump in or walk in and swim around without encouragement or assistance. He loves to go on long hikes with Jen and that’s the perfect way to end those, with a swim. He has no idea what a snapping turtle is, he’s worried about trailers and motorcycles and noisy trucks. I’m happy to hold him on my lap in the backyard as he listens to all the street construction with rapt attention.
It is odd for me to find myself the father of all adult children and older pets now. I am beginning to own it a bit more, I guess, to understand that this is who and what I’m intended to be. My hobbies, my skills, my art, my job, my little world of antiques, words and artist creations, those things are me, but they’re a bit like the clothes I slip into each day and sometimes change into throughout. They don’t really compare to fatherhood.
Perhaps I can illustrate with this. On the way back from Zup’s last night after getting the ingredients to make a deconstructed curry chicken pot pie with flaky buttermilk Pillsbury biscuits, I saw a dad in his small front yard playing catch with his little leaguer. A smaller child was a couple of yards back of the kid who was down in a catcher stance. Their yard was mowed, their gloves were new, it was a turning point on one of the best decades of their lives.
I’d do it all over again just the same way in a heartbeat. There’s lots of years, experiences, relationships and work days that I wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t say that about, but the “having a catch” days, the little kid dad days, oh yeah, flip the switch, let’s go baby, I’m all in.
Time flies, but when you get the chance to be a father, it flies faster. Take my advice, enjoy the ride, enjoy the journey and if a snapper gets your stringer once in a while, well then, go fishing some more. If your dad is still alive, take him along.
