Gone Fishin’

Yeah, I'm gonna go fishing, that's what I'll do
Think about nothing, not even you
Catch a real big one, a big speckled trout
Snapping in the water, I'll pull him on out
Sweet talking liar, spin me a yarn
Tell me a story, big as a barn
Don't stop listening, I won't hear you out
I'm gonna go fishing and catch me a trout
              —Dr. John

Our house in Savannah was filled with hundreds of family photos, some framed, some in albums, and many tacked onto a bulletin board in the kitchen. One of my favorites shows my father holding up a fish he had just caught that must have weighed close to 20 pounds. The smile on my father’s face is brighter than in almost any other picture of him you could find in the house. I’m not really sure where that picture is now, but it is clear in my mind. For my dad, that was a fish that he didn’t have to spin a yarn about to describe. But then my father seldom told bragging stories about his fishing exploits or about anything else he did. I do think he would occasionally brag about my brother or me but never directly in our earshot. That wasn’t his way.

The one other fishing picture I recall involves my dad and our son Brett near Savannah Beach when Brett was five. They didn’t catch anything that day, but I’m sure they both had lots of fun together.



Brett and Abe, the fishing buddies

I am thinking about my father the fisherman because of something that happened a few weeks ago when Audrey and I visited our daughter Amanda in Atlanta (where she’s soon completing an MBA program at Emory). While Amanda was in class, Audrey and I decided to go to the World of Coca-Cola museum. We arrived early and followed the directions of an older man waving a red flag to park our car in the lot he was manning. We were the first in the lot, and he was happy to have someone to talk to at the beginning of his work day.

As he skillfully did some magic with the wiring of the parking ticket machine, which had inconveniently gone on the blink, he told us about his past, present, and future. The past was spent in Detroit, where he had been an electrician for more than 40 years. The present was living in Atlanta, where he had moved to be near his son and to see his family grow with the addition soon of a new daughter-in-law. (In a burst that I would describe as a “too-much-information moment” he proudly exclaimed that the young couple had been dating for a number of years but would be married as virgins.) The future would involve retiring, getting together with new friends he had made in Atlanta, and devoting a lot of time to his newest pastime—fishing.

“I didn’t have the time or the right weather to fish in Detroit,” he said. “Now I’m gonna slow down and sit back and enjoy being retired.”

Of course, I then shared how my father had spent nearly every free moment he could spare going fishing, both before and after he retired. Many Sunday mornings, he would be out of the door before sunrise. He used to say that you had to get your line in the water before the fish were fully awake. Fishing was his true love. And. while occasionally he would take my brother or me with him, he didn’t really like to share. Those fishing ventures were his personal time away from his everyday life.

Sometimes I regret that I have few memories of my father and me fishing together. But the ones I do recall are pretty unusual. Like the time I caught a cat. No, that’s not a typo; I didn’t mean catfish. We were standing on a dock, and my father was showing me how to cast my line. I reached the pole back over my head and prepared to move my arm forward when I heard an ear-piercing screech. The hook had embedded in the tail of a cat standing about 10 feet behind us. I don’t know who was more surprised, the cat or I, but I do know who was more indignant. The cat gave a snarl as we approached to remove the hook. Once free, it raced as far away from us as possible.

Or the time I hooked a hammerhead shark. Luckily, it was just a baby shark, but it gave me a grown-up fright. I had thought I was pulling in a small whale by the amount of weight I felt on my line. When I proudly brought my catch to the surface, we noticed its distinctively shaped head. I give myself some credit for not screaming “Shark!!!” and scaring all of the other fish away from my father’s favorite marshy inlet--though they were already staying away from the shark and his buddies. My father was calm, as he always was when he was fishing, and cut the line to let the shark escape.

This baby hammerhead seems unafraid of hooks like mine.

Given those two incidents, it probably isn’t surprising that my father seldom invited me to come along. As a result, I don’t have many of those great father-child bonding-while-holding-fishing-poles moments to recall. Nothing like the wonderful Trace Adkins song shown in this video. (Sure it’s sentimental, but I’m a sucker for father-daughter fishing songs.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IheODRwalEw

I don’t blame only my father for our limited fishing experiences. I was usually too busy to come along when I became a teenager and probably didn’t feel that the trips were very cool anyway. So shame on me too!

I hope the Detroit man transplanted in Atlanta finds as much joy in fishing as my father did. And I hope he gets to share that joy with his son, daughter-in-law, and future grandchildren. And I hope they each catch a fish almost as big as the one my father is holding in that picture in my mind.

Past and Future in the Present

ALPERS: Come with us, Schlissel, and have a look at my grave.

SCHLISSEL: Why not? What else have I got to do?

During one of the first years I taught high school English, I had my students read “The Tenth Man” by Paddy Chayefsky, a television drama from the black-and-white era. What I remember most about the play is the opening scene in which a group of aging Jewish men try to hold a traditional morning service but lack the necessary tenth man for a minyan (religious quorum). And they’re in a hurry because several of them want to visit their cemetery plots that day. Hence, the exchange from the play quoted above.

The exchange seemed funny to me forty years ago and so perfectly Jewish in tone, and it still makes me laugh today. Of course, the irony is that I visited our own future gravesites last week (while Audrey stayed in the car). So what’s so amusing!

Luckily, I am getting ahead of myself here. I should probably set the scene a little. We didn’t actually go to the cemetery to see our plots last week, but since we were there anyway, I figured, why not? Or as Chayefsky wrote, “What else did we have to do?”

That probably doesn’t make things any clearer, does it? Let me try again.

Both of Audrey’s parents died around Passover time, so she observed the anniversaries of their deaths in the past two weeks. They died 43 years apart, but their graves are covered today by a common headstone. We went to visit those gravesites before Passover and laid a rock on the headstone to show that we had been there and were remembering them. Our visit had an extra purpose, which was to confound Audrey's mother even though it has been five years since she died. Audrey’s mom had long predicted that no one would ever visit her in the cemetery after she was gone, but here we were. Surprise! OK, that seems better. But what about our graves? Is this where the plot(s) thickens?

Audrey's parents' graves are marked by 
this slightly askew stone.

A few years after Audrey’s mom died, an elderly cousin also passed away and was buried “just around the corner” from Audrey’s parents. A few months later, the cousin’s son-in-law called to say that his cousin on the other side of the family (are you confused yet?) had moved to Florida and was trying to sell the cemetery plots he had purchased in New Jersey but wouldn’t be needing now. Were we interested?

Amazingly, we were. And I’m not exactly sure why. There is something about making several visits to a cemetery over a brief period of time. You start to think of your own mortality. And you also begin to think about bizarre tasks you should probably get out of the way while you’re thinking about them—such as purchasing cemetery plots. The opportunity was there, and we took it. Now we’re the proud(?) owners of two plots in a quiet area under a lovely tree. It looks very peaceful. And we’ll be spending eternity just a few yards from my in-laws and a few hundred yards from many other members of Audrey’s extended family. Plus, the Tick-Tock Diner is nearby so our kids can put stones on several graves at the same time and even enjoy a little lunch after they come to visit us many years from now. That is, if they’ll ever come. Should I suggest that they print out this blogpost—just as a reminder?

Should we draw a map to show our kids
where to find us for eternity?

Setting the Record Straight

All families have their inside stories. They become so familiar that family members don’t have to tell the whole story for everyone to start to nod or smile or laugh or shudder. Some of my family’s stories involve me. And they are not always complimentary.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me set the stage.

For Jews, no event says “family” as well as the Passover Seder. Families, such as my extended family in Savannah, Georgia, join together each year in small or large gatherings to celebrate the start of Passover and begin a week of matzo therapy. Families often have certain rituals that they follow during a seder—certain activities, certain melodies, certain foods, certain seating arrangements. Newcomers are blended into these family gatherings (especially significant others and in-laws), but they are expected to adapt to the traditions already established. Some of these traditions go deep and are carried on to next generations. The seder that Audrey and I hosted two nights ago is filled with mostly Savannah traditions, though Audrey still insists that her family’s melody for the song “Ki Lo No-eh” is the only right one to use, so we usually sing the song twice.

One of my first family Seders. I'm the second from the left,
with the extra-large yarmulke. I'm focusing on the food, not the camera.

One of those newcomers to my family was my cousin Debbie, who attended her first Savannah Seder after she began dating my cousin Joel when she was 19. That first Seder featured a dramatic event that has impacted on my place in the family’s Passover history. But it must not have traumatized Debbie since she later married Joel, moved to Savannah, and often hosts our family’s seders at their home.

Debbie is an important part of my story today, which is intended to set the record straight. According to Debbie, I have been improperly maligned all of these years. Just how have I been maligned? Exhibit 1: Just last week, my cousin Richard sent me an email wishing me a Chag Sameach (happy holiday) and hoping that I would not spill any gravy this year. That’s my reputation: I’m the person who spilled the gravy at a seder almost 50 years ago. I may never live down the event in the minds of most of my relatives, but Debbie remembers things differently, and I plan on calling her to the stand if we ever stage a family trial to clear my name on the charge of carpet defilement.

Here’s how I remember the event. The family seder that year was held at the home of my Aunt Dot (my mother’s older sister) and her husband Fred. (It is important to note that our hosts had recently installed new, bright white carpet in their living room-dining room area. You can probably see where this is going.) My part of the extended family (my mother, father, brother, and me) were seated in one corner of one of the connected tables and not directly in the center of the action. There were probably 20-25 people in attendance all together. We were far enough to the side that when the platter of brisket, covered in delicious, messy gravy, was passed to us, we had to reach out pretty far to grab the platter.

Here’s where memories fade a little. Either I reached out for the platter and handed it to my father, or he reached out for the platter and handed it to me. In either case, we didn’t handle it very well. The platter moved quickly from hand to floor, spilling gravy onto the white carpet. My Uncle Fred, a man noted for being meticulous, went into action even before the gravy reached the carpet, shouting to his son-in-law, “Bill, get the chemicals!!!” This meal was not about to progress any further until the carpet was treated with stain removers.

No one was laughing at the time, but for years afterwards my cousins would chuckle as they recalled the event, and no one ever handed me a platter at future seders without issuing a warning to me and a heads-up to the person passing me the platter. Hence, my cousin’s Richard’s email comment.

Brisket still on a platter and not yet heading toward the carpet

Here’s where the story gets interesting, at least in my mind. . . .

I decided to retell this story as my Passover blogpost this year, and mentioned my intent to my sister-in-law Sandy. She was at a different seder in town that year but knew about the event, as it turns out, because Debbie was staying at her house during her first visit to Savannah. “When Debbie got back to my house, she said, 'You won’t believe what happened,'” Sandy said.

So I called Debbie to check her memory of the evening, and she said, “Sure. That’s the night that Uncle Abe (my father) dropped the platter of brisket.” Uncle Abe and not me!!! Perhaps I was innocent after all. Perhaps I have been improperly maligned lo these many years. As Debbie recalled her version, I could at last chuckle about the event that had given rise, incorrectly it seems, to my reputation as the family gravy spiller. Why, I wondered, had my father never stepped forward to proclaim my innocence? I suspect that he never realized that comments were being made about me on the sly. Or perhaps he never even remembered what happened that night. Sadly, I can’t ask him.

Now I face a dilemma. I could try to set the record straight in order to avoid future “don’t spill any gravy” comments, but that would just point the finger at my father. And to be perfectly honest, I think both of us should share the blame for bumbling the brisket that night. And is it really possible to reverse a long-running family tale anyway?

If the Obamas invited me to their Seder,
would they worry that I might spill something?

Perhaps one Passover in the near future, our New Jersey branch of the family will travel to Savannah and join in the larger family seder. And perhaps I will proclaim my innocence then. But I’ll bet someone will still suggest that a sheet of plastic be placed beneath my chair to protect the carpet. And we’ll all laugh together. It's a family tradition.