Interlude: Gone Fishin’

Featured Photo: “Father and Son with Fish” Sibley, Louisiana—1989

I’m going to take a break from blogging—well, not really from blogging. I’m going to pause from publishing my posts for a few weeks. I plan to keep looking through my photos and writing stories to share, but I feel like I need some time to “catch-up.” Not that I’m really behind in anything; I have no real deadlines for posting and I have no boss for blogging, other than myself—I can be rather the taskmaster. Still, as I’ve said many times before, I’m having fun with this creative pursuit!

And I have to confess, I haven’t really gone fishing. I haven’t fished in quite a while, although I used to, occasionally. When I first thought about using Gone Fishin’ as the title for this post, I felt it would be kind of amusing—a simple way to give myself an “excuse” to take my little blogging holiday. As I considered which picture I might use as my Featured Photo, I quickly thought of the one with me and my dad—perhaps because I had come across it recently, while preparing some of my earlier posts. But I didn’t expect to write much in this post; indeed, I didn’t expect my “excuse” to turn into a post at all, especially not one filled with my musings from days gone by. But here we are. When I cast my mind back to the past, I realized I actually have a few fish-tales to report from conquests when I was younger. At some future point, I’ll look for a few relevant pictures and come back to share those stories.

So why my posting hiatus? Before I launched my blog on July 2, 2023, I was working hard to write enough posts to have several weeks’ worth ready to publish. But my early posts kept growing in content and became intertwined, leading to a longer narrative than I had anticipated. I wanted the overall story to seem cohesive and “planned,” even though it really wasn’t. So, I wrapped up one post, ensuring the posts that followed fit together with it. I set my goal to start on July 2 because that was the anniversary of my retirement—there was that significance associated with the launch.

But by July 2, I had only finished one post in its entirety, with two other posts pretty well drafted, along with several other posts consisting of little more than an idea or a “working title.” Since that first post, I have continued my weekly writing at about the same pace: one post completed and a couple more in the works. But I always felt I was under the gun, rushing to finish the next post; some weeks I was writing every day, and some days I was writing 6 or 8 hours. It was fun, but it started to feel a bit like a job—too regimented—and my blog was taking precedence over just about everything else. I had allowed the pendulum of my priorities to swing too far in the blogging direction; I felt a need to re-center my activities.

So now, having wrapped-up my introductory series of posts—13 in all, which is 10 more than I originally planned—about how I got started on my blogging journey, we’re going to take an intermission—an interlude—in my weekly posting. When I wrote my “About This Blog” page, I stated, “It is my intention to publish a new post every week,” in honor of my father, and in admiration of my brother, each of whom either preached (dad) or posted (my brother) consistently on Sunday morning for many years. I ended my page with this provocative sentence about my weekly posting goal, “We’ll have to wait and see if I manage to follow-through on my plans…” We now know I did not.

I honestly was not sure if I could keep up the pace and stay on schedule, or how many posts I might be able to write and publish on an ongoing basis. We now know the answer: 13…a baker’s dozen. After my 13 introductory posts—and one more, if you count this one—I am pausing, taking a break, heading into the pit-stop for some new tires. It only took 13 weeks for me to fall short of my target. Still, it was 13 posts in 13 weeks—a quarter of a year, a full season. That’s a lot. But not as many or as long as I first imagined.

Having this definitive answer—13—to my hypothetical question, “How many weekly posts could I actually write?” reminded me of the old TV commercial, first introduced to the world in 1968, when I was 10 years old; I must have seen it while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Originally, the commercial ran for a full minute; can you imagine?!? In the commercial, a black-and-white cartoon boy poses a question—first to Mr. Cow, then to the clever Mr. Fox, then to Mr. Turtle, who’s been around a long time: “How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” The animals each admit they don’t know, because they’ve always bitten through the Tootsie Pop before they finish licking. Mr. Turtle says the boy should ask Mr. Owl, “for he is the wisest of us all.”

The commercial transitions to the questioning boy standing just below the owl, who is outfitted with nerdy glasses and a graduation cap, complete with tassel, sitting on the branch of a tree. The boy asks, once again, “Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” Mr. Owl replies, “A good question. Let’s find out.” The owl takes the candy from the boy, holds the paper stick in his wings, removes the wrapper, and commences his licking, pausing between each lick to say, “one… two (with a flourish)… three.” He then bites through the colorful candy coating to reach the center and—after the crunch—pronounces his conclusion, “Three.” Unimpressed, the boy turns and walks away, saying, “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s a smart owl.” If you’ve seen the commercial, you know what I mean. If you’ve not seen it, you should search for it on the internet. It is a classic!

The narrator ends the commercial by restating the question, then ominously intones, “The world may never know.” But unexpectedly, I came across the following information as I was searching for a suitable picture from the ad to place in my post. The source is popicon.life, the link can be found here (where you can also watch the commercial), and no, I did not fact check it.

The actual number of licks it takes to reach the Tootsie Roll center is… Researchers at New York University and Florida State University conducted a study in 2015 to find out how many times one would need to lick a Tootsie Pop to reach the center. Their findings revealed that 997 licks are needed to get there. Pretty far from Mr. Owl’s original “three” hypothesis, huh?

And I find it fascinating that 997 (the academic research answer) + 3 (Mr. Owl’s answer) = 1000 … a picture and a thousand licks? (Sorry, dad joke.) As usual, I digress; let me return to the purpose of this post, which is about my not posting for a while. Hopefully, this will be a short vacation. After struggling to keep up with my well-intentioned—but self-imposed—schedule to publish a new post every week, I’m pausing to organize some of the ideas I have jotted down and then write several posts ahead, so I don’t continually feel the pressure of a weekly deadline. But for now, let’s relax together. I have a fish story for you—kind of.

The Featured Photo, “Father and Son with Fish,” was taken more than 30 years ago, but it is still probably one of the latest pictures of me, with my father, after a fishing trip. Fishing was never a priority for me—not as a kid, not while I worked—nor has it become a priority in my retirement. I used to enjoy fishing—kind of—but not enough to purchase anything more than the rudimentary equipment; I have a rod and reel, along with some basic lures, plastic worms, bobbers, and extra fishing line.

But my dad…my dad loved to fish! He had several rods, including a fly-fishing rod, a couple of tackle boxes filled with tons of flies, artificial worms, and lures…

…the lures resembled a variety of minnows and flashy silver spoons with deadly metal hooks dangling beneath.

Dad had different types of fishing line so he could go after different types and sizes of fish—he loved using low-pound test line for mid-sized bream and large-mouth bass…

…challenging him to finesse the fish he caught onto the bank or into the boat before the fish could break the line. And he had more than one stringer to keep the fish that he caught—the captives being kept alive, while immersed under water—at least until he got them home.

Dad had friends in the church with private ponds, or cottages on lakes, who would let him borrow a boat and explore their waters, encouraging him to help reduce their fish population. Once, in retirement, dad even bought a boat of his own so he could get closer to where the fish might be hiding. My dad went fishing at least once a week throughout his career as a minister—for as long as I can remember—usually on Monday, which was the start of his “weekend,” since he worked every Sunday. And sometimes, my dad took me fishing with him, if I was able to wake up early enough to get to the fish when they were first biting in the morning.

In the Featured Photo, I’m standing with my dad, holding a stringer between us, after a fishing expedition together. The stringer has about nine fish—mostly bass, with a bream mixed in, hanging from the metal clasps; dad also referred to bream as bluegills or sunnies.

I suspect dad caught most of the fish; he was a very good fisherman. We were in the kitchen of their home—the manse—in Sibley, Louisiana, which was the last church dad preached in before he retired and moved with mom to Hot Springs, Arkansas. I don’t know for sure that the photo is from 1989—it could have been 1990. But I think the year is right, based on when mom and dad left Sibley, and because I’m wearing a t-shirt I bought while at Purdue University (before I left, following my miserable year there, as mentioned in an earlier post). It would likely have been in the spring or summer. That means I would have been 30 years old; my dad would have been 62—a few years younger than I am now. (That is really bizarre to think about…)

Apparently, I came to visit mom and dad sometime between when I was living in West Lafayette, Indiana (where Purdue is located) and when I moved to Georgia (which is where I went to teach chemistry at Gordon College in Barnesville, after I left Purdue). I don’t recall what prompted me to visit, or even less, why I went on the fishing trip, but I still have the somewhat-rare photo to document the successful outing. I think it was also a somewhat unusual late afternoon expedition, rather than in the morning; it certainly appears we came home after dark, judging from the blackness seen through the screen door.

I can guess—and I feel I’m on pretty solid ground here—that shortly after the photo, my dad stood at the kitchen sink and cleaned, then fileted the fish, wrapping the severed heads and entrails in newspaper, to be rolled up and tossed in the trash. My mom would have taken his usable output, dredged the filets in cornmeal, and fried them in a thin layer of oil in a skillet on the stove. I can still remember how the frying fish smelled as the cooking progressed. And then, sitting with mom and dad at the kitchen table, I would have tucked into the tender, delicious fruits of their aquatic labors, supplemented with some of mom’s favorites: buttered new potatoes and boiled green beans with bacon. I have no idea what we might have talked about—perhaps questions around my decision to leave Purdue before completing my Ph.D. degree. But my mouth is watering as I write this…

So, that’s me and fishing…for now; hopefully there’ll be more stories later. And returning to this post—and as for my blogging—I didn’t keep up with my dad’s or my brother’s preaching and writing schedule; I rather suspected I wouldn’t. In fact, I feel somewhat relieved to have missed the mark so soon after starting. While writing my earlier posts, I realized I am more of a “spurt” or a “streak” blogger: periods of intense focus on writing, followed by periods of equal inactivity, when I can focus on other “priorities.” I think I have always been like that.

If you subscribe to my blog site, you’ll receive an e-mail notification when I publish my next post. Or you can just return to my site every Sunday at 6:00 AM Eastern US Time, and feel either disappointed or excited, depending on what you find. In any event, when I start up again, I will hopefully have a lot of posts ready to go, writing ahead of my self-imposed publishing schedule, so I won’t feel the pressure when I return to blogging, following this interruption.

And hopefully, I’ll be back in a few weeks, with new installments of a-picture-and-a-thousand-words. Until then, I hope you enjoy the vacation…I know I will! See you after the break!