Let's Go, Grandma and Other Stories

On my day with Chuck, it was raining. When I drove up to his house, he asked, "Grandma, can we go fishing?"

"In the rain?"

"You could take an umbrella."

I shook my head. "Where do you want to fish?"

"Pymatuning."

"I thought we’d go there when Kyle is with us." (He’s our friends’ son, and we had promised to take him along.)

"Yeah, but I want to practice there first."

We had been to all the indoor attractions in our area. Might as well get wet.

"All right. You have a rod and a bucket?"

He just reached behind his garage door and brought out tackle box, rod and net, all ready to go. "We don’t need a bucket, I won’t take those carp home."

On the one-and-a-half hour drive Chuck was happily jabbering all the time, telling about all his adventures during the last week "That went fast," he said when we approached the lake. At the spillway the run-off is walled in on the sides by one foot thick concrete which slopes from the bridge down to the water level. On these walls are rails of sturdy, thick metal pipes. At their lower end is still the cable with a sign "Nursery waters, fishing unlawful," but beyond that you are allowed to catch them. We had been there last year. Now, on that bad-weather day, we were the only ones fishing; all others had more sense and stayed home.

"Grandma, stand on that wall and throw in the bread so the fish come where I can catch ‘em."

"I’ll try." It had barely stopped raining, the boulders protecting the causeway were slippery, the rail was slick from being wet and the concrete wall, partly covered with algae, provided no firm support either.

Chuck watched my slow progress and gave me an encouraging nod when I finally was in position. Two hamburger buns were in each pocket of my windbreaker, and I threw some chunks of them to the fish.

"Grandma, throw the bread more over here!" He stood to his ankles in the water.

"I’m trying, but the wind blows it the other way."

He reached for a piece and tossed it in, but his aim wasn’t much better than mine. Then there was a tug on his line and the bait was gone. "Oh, he got away." He put more of the bun on his hook. After a short while there was another tug and again an empty hook.

"Grandma, that doesn’t work. I’ll try to scoop ‘em up with the net."

I had some success guiding the fish to Chuck, and then -- Yeah! -- he had one in the net.

"Hold it, Chuck! This is a Kodak moment. The camera’s in your tackle box." So I cautiously climbed down the wall, crawled over the boulders and found the camera.

"Hurry up. He’s trying to get out."

I did manage a snap shot and put the camera in my pant pocket. "Oh, Chuck, we’re out of bread now."

"I’ll buy some more. I’m faster than you." He took a dollar, and soon was back. "Look what big loaves I’ve got."

Back on my slippery perch I had a heavy loaf in its plastic bag in one hand tossing bread with the other. By now I was soaked up to my waist from the constantly splashing waves.

"I’ve got one, I’ve got one! Take another picture!"

O.K., with which hand should I try to get the camera out of my pocket? It was a bit stuck in the wet pants, but I did get a picture and also one of the next carp which was so big, it stuck halfway out of the net.

"When this bread is gone, we’ll leave. I’m shivering."

Chuck didn’t object. "Grandma, you look fat."

I realized that the weight of my bunch of keys in one pocket and the camera in the other had pulled my slacks down to my hips. Fortunately they didn’t slide off all the way.

We had dry clothes in the car and put the heat on high.

"Grandma, we had a ball. Don’t you think so?"

I hesitated. What would I have done without Chuck? Seen a few patients, struggled with

insurance forms, written checks? "Sure, kiddo, it was fun." I gave him a high-five.