The fish fry
Posted on October 4, 2015 by bob in OffTheBeatenPath
“Mama! Get the grease ready!” my grandfather said to my grandmother, whose answer I could barely hear over the static-filled cell phone connection. The purpose of the call was two-fold: one, we had caught enough fish for supper and two; we were safely off the water. Both of them have been gone for many years, but the words still echo in my mind.
On our way home from fishing he always stopped to call at the same spot. Cell phones were a novelty in those days, with service as spotty as the lateral line on a largemouth. This was long before the first “Shut up and drive” sticker appeared on a bumper, and before text messaging was available. The fact that we could make a phone call from a vehicle was amazing to me. But there was another reason my grandfather pulled over before dialing home with the mobile phone he carried on our fishing trips.
When plugged into the cigarette lighter, that heavy, black-bagged rascal would power down all the electronics in his Jeep. The first time he had me place a call while he drove, the power steering, headlights and dash display all died.
“Shut it off!” he hollered. As soon as I did, the brownout ended.
We fished ponds, the river, the lake, the ocean. Anywhere there was water, the old man could catch fish. As a child I wondered if he were part-fish, since he always knew where they were, and what they wanted to eat. Most often, it was an injured minnow plug.
“Hey, boy,” he’d say to get my attention, “gimme the Rapala.”
I complied with orders easily, never a difficult child, and was told I made an excellent first mate. When we first started fishing he’d run the monofilament through the rod guides and select and tie on lures for me. As his eyes grew older, these tasks became mine – for both of us – though lure selection remained an individual choice. Some days it was the white one, others the golden-colored one, but he always wanted the Rapala.
We fished together most Sundays, lazily casting away the afternoon. We didn’t talk much, for no other reason than we were there to fish. We practiced some catch-and-release, but mostly catch-and-keep, since the former was a strange notion to a child of the Depression who emigrated from a distant island in Greece. At day’s end we’d haul in the boat, load up rods and tackle boxes and those delicious fish last of all, wanting to keep them as fresh as possible for the drive home.
The moment he placed the call to my grandmother, like clockwork, my stomach would start rumbling. I daydreamed of crispy flakes of white flesh, hot and drenched in lemon juice, alongside a heap of vinegar coleslaw hand-shredded from cabbage from his garden. Some folks think that in life, anticipation is half the enjoyment. Clearly, these folks never dined with us after a good day on the water.
My grandfather no longer has a physical presence in my boat, which was his boat, but each time I land a fish I turn to show him regardless. Every time I head home with a cooler full of fish I think of those foretelling words, “Mama! Get the grease ready!” It was always spoken excitedly, in the same pitch and cadence.
Though he only accompanies me now in memory, I smile when I ponder how, in this era of texting, he’d communicate that age-old message to my grandmother.
“Mama – gt grs rdy.”
You’ll have to excuse me. My stomach just rumbled.
Niko Corley spends his free time in the woods or in the water, earning his charter boat license in 2012. Email: cootfootoutfitters@gmail.com.
