Junk Food

Yup. Sorry to say. These are the two main reasons why I am a fisherman. Good ol’ pretzel rods and orange soda. No, really. I mean it. It is rumored that I owe my life to Jim Beam (good on ya, Dad!) but I am certain that I owe my passion for fishing to junk food. Yeah, yeah…I’ll explain. My childhood diet consisted of bran cereal and yogurt for breakfast, not Fruit Loops. My school lunches were sprout-laden sandwiches on homemade, whole wheat bread, not Pizza Fridays at the school cafeteria. And Mom made me bring the empty brown bag home every day to reuse. Dinner was wild game, home-grown potatoes and a fresh tossed salad from an organic garden. After school snacks? “Go pick some raspberries,” Mom would say. “And take these three dozen pint baskets out with you when you go.” Children were apparently the one thing cheaper than migrant farm workers. But, if it wasn’t being an organic produce mule for my mother…it was being shanghaied by Dad. Almost a mile out on Lake Erie in a 12 foot metal boat and a temperamental 9.9 Johnson outboard…20 foot swells…didn’t matter. If he could bribe my sister and I out on the boat it would triple the limit of walleye he could keep. Oh, it was plenty safe. We had an old, 1960’s era life jacket and at least two potentially floatable seat cushions pulled from some tractor seat. But we kids were easy marks. Unbeknownst to Mother, Dad would hide contraband junk food at the bottom of the cooler. And we craved it like Tyrone Biggums craves crack. Nothing like a couple little kids hopped up on caffeine to give some great action on an Erie Dearie worm harness.

So, I guess it is some sort of weird irony that fishing now completely defines my life. And I get sea sick thinking about junk food. What I crave more than anything now is my mother’s homemade bread, some fresh cucumbers from her garden…and to spend a day out on the water with Dad. Haven’t in years. And it sucks.

If you liked this story read: Bunch of Old Crap