Fish Story…

I used to love doing things with my father. He was a big guy…six feet four…two hundred and twenty pounds…and “bald as a cue ball” as he used to say. He worked very hard all day during the week, so when I got to spend time with him on the weekends, it was important.

When I was eight years old, we moved to south Florida, and after some searching, my parents purchased a home on the water. Although the lot was a small one, as waterfront lots tend to be down here, the house had something wonderful…a dock. The dock was not a large one…only sixteen feet wide and just as long, but it was SO COOL for a little boy from New Jersey. One day, not long after we moved in, my father stopped at Reef Bait and Tackle on his way home from work. He purchased two “entry level” rod and reel sets, and some line, hooks, sinkers, and so on. Everything we’d need to fish from our new dock. And that very weekend, first thing Saturday morning, we started fishing. It was great fun. We caught a few little fish, which we very carefully threw back, and we even caught a couple of larger ones…Mangrove Snappers…which my mother fried up in butter and fresh ground pepper for breakfast. They were delicious. And I was as “hooked” as those snappers were. I found that I LOVED to fish.

I continued to fish with my father whenever I could. And as I got older, I started to fish alone. I had to…my father died young. And I discovered something else about fishing. It allows your mind to wander. It’s quiet most of the time when you fish alone, and very meditative if you allow it to be. And every time I fished alone, I thought about my father. That was nice. The more I fished the more my technique improved, and I started to try different kinds of fishing (plugs, fly fishing, ultra-light tackle, etc.). I liked them all. I learned to catch my own bait, tie my own leaders, sharpen my hooks with a clever little device made expressly for that purpose, and repair my rods and reels myself, with advice from an elderly gentleman who worked part-time at the tackle shop. He could fix anything, using the odd bits of hardware that he kept in hundreds of tiny, unlabeled drawers in a cabinet that covered the entire back wall. The place smelled of bait and chum and sweat and salt water, and sometimes I hung around there just for fun.

As I got older I fished as much as I could, but my time was now occupied by other endeavors. School, girls, cars and so many other things…all beckoning, vying for the few available waking hours. And when I went to work, my time was still very limited. but since I worked for the state, my weekends were, for the most part, my own. So I still managed to fish…not as often as I had in the past, but I still managed. And I developed a preference for one type of fishing.

The water behind my house is brackish, and so it favors two types of large game fish…the Tarpon and the Snook. With lots of advice from the grizzled, beer-soaked old timers that frequented the tackle shop, I learned how to fish for them, and I caught more than my share. I tried eating Snook, which most people seem to enjoy, and I didn’t like it. No one eats Tarpon. The Snook that I caught on a regular basis weighed up to thirty-five pounds, and the Tarpon, sometimes over one hundred. When I landed a big one, sometimes after a lengthy fight, I would climb down into the water, gently unhook the fish, measure it so as to calculate its weight, and release it. If it was particularly large, I would photograph it first. It was a lot of fun…at the time.

And then several years ago, I hooked the largest Tarpon of my life…well over one hundred pounds, and longer than my wife is tall. I fought it for nearly two hours, marveling at the powerful jumps that lifted it entirely clear of the water while it shook its massive head trying to be rid of my hook. No wonder the Tarpon is called the “Silver King.” Finally it was exhausted, as was I, and I brought it to the side of the dock. It was beautiful. I jumped into the water as I had so many times before, and unhooked the fish. It was too tired to swim away. I stayed in the water and “walked” it for longer than I had actually fought it, passing the water over its gills to try to revive it. I couldn’t, and it died in my arms. I felt awful. I had killed this beautiful creature for my entertainment, like the cruelest bullfight, only without the ceremonial trappings. I vowed then and there that this would not happen again. The only way to be sure was to stop fishing altogether, so that’s what I did.

I think of that one particular fish every time I look in the water from my little dock. No matter how beautiful the view, and no matter how much sea life I see, the sadness of that pointless killing to this day overwhelms me, although I know that it probably shouldn’t. I still eat fish fairly often, although I try to consume farmed species as much as possible. The Tilapia and the Salmon and the other farmed fish aren’t bad at all, particularly fried up in butter and fresh ground pepper.

Time is relentless. The Reef Bait and Tackle shop has been closed for many years, and the building that it used to occupy is now part of a drug rehabilitation facility. The elderly gentleman who could fix anything is long gone. I still miss my father, and I think of him every day. And I don’t go fishing anymore.

Black Narcissus…

Black Narcissus is the title of a movie that was released in 1947, the year in which I was born. The title of the movie comes from the name of a perfume favored by one of the lead characters. But the title has also recently developed some irony, beyond the irony that the narcissus flower is usually white. Here’s why…

There is a new buzzword among those who fancy themselves the literati of the nutcase religious right. That’s a small (albeit vocal) group, since misspelled protest signs and a lack of knowledge about or interest in the world at large seems to be a badge of honor for these unpatriotic “Real Americans.” The word is NARCISSIST. I’ve heard and seen it used many times recently, particularly to describe our nation’s president.

The word itself comes from the myth of Narcissus, a good looking young man who was punished by the gods for his immense ego and for his indifference to others. He fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water, and drowned when he tried to touch it. The Greek and Roman versions of the myth differ somewhat, but the notion of falling in love with one’s own image (and the resulting demise) has persisted in the language, and has evolved so that it has now insinuated itself into the realpolitik of our times. In a right-wing culture not only bereft of any vestige of intellectualism but for the most part downright hostile to it, I find the use of references to classical mythology to be at the very least, amusing. I’m also amazed that some of these fools can spell Narcissist. These are the same folks who think that the president is a Muslim, born in Kenya, who wants to take away their guns and kill their grandparents. I wish that I was kidding, but I’m not. These are our neighbors, our co-workers, and even some of our political “leaders.”

The word has shown up again in the past few days. It was used by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert to describe LeBron James and his decision to leave his longtime team (and his home state) and “take (his) talents to South Beach.” Now let’s think for a minute…what do Barack Obama and LeBron James have in common? No…not that they are both TALL. No…not that they are both really good at what they do. I think that the fact they are are both black may have something to do with it. “Narcissist” seems to be just one of several new ways to describe and ultimately demean successful black men, without having to fall back on the tried and true hate speech of the not-all-that-distant past. As an adjective, Narcissistic is the new “Uppity.” As a noun, Narcissist has become just another “N-word.”

This phenomenon troubles me for several reasons. First, until recently the term “Narcissist” had some real value. It was a useful term when used to describe an all-too-common phenomenon. We all know folks whose self-love leads to their downfall. Narcissism in the business world is one of the major causes often cited for some of our recent economic problems. Read “The Smartest Guys in the Room” and find out what happens when Narcissism becomes epidemic in the boardroom and in the executive suites of a corporation like Enron. In the behavioral sciences, we have the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I won’t go into details here, except to say that one of the most significant features of this disorder is the expectation by the patient to be treated as a superior being without (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV) “Commensurate Achievements.” Now…in what universe does that description apply to our president or to the best player in the NBA? It’s racism masquerading as patriotism and sounding like scholarship. And it’s nonsense, but it makes these anti-American “patriots” sound smart, at least to each other.

Once again, this metastatic ignorance destroys a useful, descriptive term. It’s happened before. The terms “idiot” and “moron” and “cretin” used to be applied to specific levels of intelligence as determined by standardized intelligence tests. But first children and then ignorant adults began to use these terms as pejoratives, and the terms themselves were demonized as a result. And so it is now with the word Narcissist in its various forms.

If you grow up poor, without a father, and go on to graduate from Harvard Law School and become President of the United States you DESERVE to admire yourself, no matter what color you are. Not that I’ve seen much of that self-love with President Obama. We used to tell our children that the ultimate accomplishment, the thing for which you could be most proud, was to become president, but I guess that only applies to white folks. If you’re black and proud of your legitimate accomplishments, that is a cause for scorn in “Peckerwood America.” And those who revel in their own ignorance and fawn over each other for their vitriolic prejudice..they are the real Narcissists. And if there is any justice in the world, then just like Narcissus, their love of their own reflection will plant the seeds of their own destruction.

Katherine…

My wife loves to crochet. She has been doing a lot of it lately, and it makes me think about some of the items she has made in the past. Here is a story about one of them.

Since my retirement at the age of fifty-two, I have done all of the grocery shopping for our household. Since I do almost all of the cooking, this makes sense. In the process of doing this, I have made friends with a number of the employees of my local supermarket, and I enjoy being greeted warmly and treated like a “regular” whenever I visit. A few years ago, on a routine visit to the store, I met someone who taught me more than I wanted to know.

I said hello to one of my friends at the market, a young cashier with a smile so bright that it looked as if her teeth were lit from within. She was pushing a cart down one of the aisles rather than working the register as usual. She was walking with a very tiny, very elderly woman, a woman who could not have been more than five feet tall, and could not have weighed more than ninety pounds, a pound for every year of age that she appeared to be. I realized that the cashier was patiently helping the elderly woman shop for groceries, and thought how nice it was that she was doing so in such a pleasant and caring fashion. And I went about my business. It was just a few days before Thanksgiving.

When it came time to check out, I got on line, coincidentally, directly behind this little old lady. In addition to the usual grocery items…bread…milk…potatoes…I noticed that she was purchasing a pretty little arrangement of fresh flowers in autumn shades of brown and golden yellow. I commented to her (I talk to strangers…it’s a bad habit, but it’s too late to break it now) that I thought the arrangement was beautiful. She told me that she was invited to Thanksgiving dinner, and she said that she would never show up “empty handed.” I heard her ask the cashier to please call for a taxi. Even though she spoke in a cultured manner, this woman did not look like she could afford a bus, let alone a taxi. I asked her where she lived, and it was only a few miles away, so I offered to drive her. I carried her packages along with my own, since she was not strong enough to manage even a portion of them, I helped her into my truck, and off we went. She told me that her name was Katherine.

I asked about her family (since she was shopping alone and with the help of one of the supermarket’s employees) and she told me that she had no children, and that her husband was long deceased. He had been a Civil Engineer. They had lived for many years near the supermarket where I met her, on a street called Grand Concourse, which is and has always been just as luxurious as it sounds. They were members of the local country club. Her husband had lost his job, and soon after, had taken ill. By the time he had passed away, they had gone through everything they had, including the house. So the county moved her into a tiny room in this public housing project, one of the most notorious, dangerous addresses in the city.

I parked on the street, and Katherine and I took the long walk through the gap that had been broken into the tall iron fence, across the brown lawn, and up to her place. When she unlocked her door, she was greeted by one of the largest cats I have ever seen, a huge gray tabby. His name, she told me, was Jack, and he was, as she put it…”My best friend…the light of my life.” I had not felt so sad since my mother died. I did not go inside. I asked her if it would be alright if my wife and I came to visit her now and then. She was very pleased with this prospect, and I said goodbye and went on my way.

I thought about Katherine quite a bit in the days after our initial meeting, particularly at Thanksgiving dinner, surrounded as I was by friends and family, with enough food to feed an army. Perhaps these thoughts resulted from the fact that this was my first Thanksgiving without my mother, who died at nearly ninety-six years of age. The psycho-dynamics of my new-found need to help this elderly stranger were pretty obvious. Or it may just have been the sadness of it all. I suggested to my wife that with Christmas coming, we should go visit Katherine. She had no phone, so we would have to just show up at her door.

A few days before Christmas we went out and got a large cardboard box. I cut the top off, and my wife decorated it with the most beautiful and colorful Christmas wrap that we could find. I returned to the supermarket and searched out the cashier that, as it turned out, regularly helped Katherine do her shopping. So the cashier and I went through the whole store, selecting items that Katherine usually purchased for herself, as well as some luxury items that the cashier knew Katherine liked, but could not afford on a regular basis. And we kept selecting until this large box was overflowing. There was a canned ham for Christmas Dinner, a bottle of sparkling apple cider for New Year’s Eve, and even cat food and a catnip-stuffed toy for Jack.

We drove to Katherine’s place, and I knocked on the door. She was very happy to see me, and pleased to meet my wife. The dark and shabby room was illuminated by a small, brightly lit Christmas tree, under which Jack was napping…at least until he smelled catnip and realized that he had a new toy. We put the box in Katherine’s tiny kitchenette, visited for a bit, and said our goodbyes…promising to return soon. My smile vanished as soon as the door closed behind us. My wife and I had taken care of my mother for nearly eighteen years. We had taken her everyplace we went, tucked her in at night, and made sure that she wasn’t lonely. There was no one to do this for Katherine. No one.

When I met my wife, she had never done any needlework, but she read about an organization that provides handmade blankets to sick and homeless children, and it set something off in her determined little soul. She painstakingly taught herself to crochet, and later to knit, for the purpose of making blankets to give away to this organization. Since she now had all the needed skills, my wife decided to crochet an afghan to help keep this lovely, frail woman warm, since she had told us about the problems with the heat in the housing project. My wife thought the afghan, since it was to be handmade, would remind Katherine that at least someone was thinking of her. So, crochet hook and yarn in hand, she went to work.

A few weeks of constant effort later it was done…beautiful, colorful, warm, and perfect. Big enough to cover, but not so big that it would be difficult for tiny little Katherine to use. Best of all, it would brighten up a dismal dwelling with its rainbow of pastels. We couldn’t wait to see the look on her face, so the next day we drove to Katherine’s home. We knocked, but there was no answer. We thought that she must be out shopping or visiting. On our way back, we stopped by the supermarket on the off chance that she might be there. We asked her cashier friend, and were shocked to find that just a couple of weeks earlier, Katherine had died suddenly.

My wife has been crocheting up a storm lately, and because of that I’ve been thinking about Katherine…imagining what she must have been like when she was younger, in her lovely home with her loving husband. Thinking about her listening to music. Thinking about her going dancing at the country club on a Saturday night. Thinking about her and her husband visiting friends and bringing gifts…so as “not to show up empty handed.” And I’ve been thinking about her dying. I was told that she died suddenly, but I don’t think so. I think that she started dying many years earlier. She started dying when her husband got sick, and died a bit more when she lost her home, and died a bit more when there was no heat in her dark, tiny room, and so on. There is something so very wrong in a world where lovely people like Katherine end their lives like that…alone. I learned from Katherine that when you are alone in the world, sudden death is not really sudden after all. We all die just a bit every time life deals us a weak hand of cards, but most especially when we are playing solitaire.

Katherine never did get to see that beautiful afghan. It was white with pink, light blue, aqua, lavender, and pale yellow stripes, in a “waffle weave” design. It’s a shame…she would have liked it, and we would have so enjoyed giving it to her. And I like to think that it would have helped just a little bit to keep her warm against the chill, not only of the winter, but of old age and poverty and loneliness. We wanted to adopt Jack the cat, so we asked around at the housing project, and were told that he had been taken in by one of Katherine’s neighbors. I hope he’s being well cared for, the way Katherine would have wanted it. After all, he was her best friend…the light of her life.