About Daddy (3)

Daddy loved to ‘torture’ us kids by taking us camping and fishing regularly. I say torture because many times we didn’t want to go, especially after we were teens and especially go fishing. It could be so boring. It was ‘good for us’ to do those things, he’d say. It kept us off the streets (that’s for sure!) and daddy knew all about the streets.
I liked camping more than fishing because we were usually a party of anywhere from eight to ten who went. I was ‘protected’ then. I was sort of a mama’s boy and when mom didn’t go fishing, I disliked it intensely. Daddy could say hurtful things and even more, it seems now, if mom wasn’t around.
Daddy would fish all day or at least for hours on end. He loved being on a lake or river and soaked in its tranquility. We’d paddle the boat just the way he liked it to be paddled. If not, watch out! He would fume and fuss whenever the fly got caught in the weeds or lily pads, sending any interested but sensitive fish to Timbuktu! I’d laugh inside but never outwardly. (I wasn’t so suicidal yet.)
Still, we’d almost always manage to go home with ten, twelve or fifteen perch or bream or bass—more than enough for a good supper.
We kids had to help daddy scale and clean (gut) the fish (ugh!) and mom would have a hot fry pan ready. Many times we’d have fried fish, hush puppies with onions, always a vegetable or two and French fries or grits for those weekend suppers. (Grits are much like polenta in Italy.)
Whenever we went away camping for a few days, daddy would get all excited about it. I have to say, his excitement WAS almost always contagious, of course. Mom and I were daddy’s alter egos, so to speak; therefore, we probably needed his boosts. Mom fussed about lots of things on those trips—that daddy had brought us to the jungle, that we were gonna get stuck in the mud—loaded car and trailer (and we did more than once), that daddy made too much noise, etc. But the trips did represent a break from routine and that, in itself, was cause for some joy. I think not one of us offspring will ever forget those trips and the many things we learned being in a tent out under the stars and so close to nature.