This is my post for #memoirmonday #18 What simple pleasures of life do you truly enjoy? #19 What early memories do you have of your sibling(s)? hosted by @ericvancewalton
#18 What simple pleasures of life do you truly enjoy?
Ever since I was a little girl, the one thing that I truly enjoyed doing was fishing, it did not matter if I caught anything as long as I was holding a pole with a bait in the water. I could overhear people saying, how can she sit there for hours on end and not catch a fish? It was my happy place.
When I married a commercial fisherman and became one myself, I never looked at it as a job, it was what I loved to do even though it was the hardest work I have ever done and the weather was not the nicest, I still felt peaceful while fishing.
After Florida passed a ban on net fishing I thought the one thing that I loved to do was over but I learned I could still make money by catching fish on a rod and reel.
And sometimes I had fun catching fish that I could not sell,
like tarpon.
I learned how to catch pompano by using 6 rods on my boat, this is what I am doing in the cover photo.
I learned how to throw a castnet and catch goats
One of the most fun ways of fishing was learning how to use a splatter pole, it is a 19 foot pole with only a line and hook, just like a giant cane pole but made of fiberglass.
This is not the catch, but one day I caught my limit of 75 head of trout on the splatter pole and I never moved my anchor.
I could ramble on and on about how I love fishing but I will stop here because I need to write about week 19, somehow I missed week 18 so I am combining them in one post.
#19 What early memories do you have of your sibling(s)?
This is me and my brother who is 2 years older than me, we are holding lobsters that my oldest brother caught. I wanted to do everything that this brother was doing and we got along until I was 9 or 10, this is when he started being mean to me. He would hold me under the water so long that when he finally let me up, I would be gasping for air. One day I was swimming and he was on shore and yelled, hey Cissy catch, and he threw a four prong gig at me. Me being me thought I could catch it but it landed in my leg. My leg was bent so two prongs went in my shin, one went between my shin and thigh and one in my thigh. I could not swim and the tide was ebbing, I was drifting toward the dock and a friend of my oldest brother jumped down into a boat and caught me, he pulled the gig out of my leg. My brother Jimbo, who threw the gig got into big trouble with Dad.
One day this sister and I found a mud hole and thought it would be fun to swim in but we did not want to get our clothes dirty so we took them off and jumped in it, we had a great time and were covered in mud, head to toe. We walked home naked and I got in the shower first, as I was getting out I heard Dad yelling at my sister, and then I heard her say, Cissy was in it, too. Come to find out why Dad was so mad was because our mud hole was an old septic system.
This is my youngest brother Hoss, he is standing on a sunfish that washed up on the shore by Dad's dock, they only come in the river to die.
We were not allowed to swim or play under the dock, but one day Hoss walked under it and an old piece of wire that was buried in the river bottom got caught in his foot and I could not get it out. The tide was coming up and he was in neck-deep water. I ran to get Dad, and Dad told me to get Tommy, our oldest brother, by the time Tommy found wire cutters and we got back to the dock, all that was sticking out of the water was Hoss's nose. Tommy dove down and cut the wire and Dad had to cut it out of Hoss's foot.
This is my youngest sister, Kathy, she fell off the dock before she knew how to swim. The dock was shaped like an L and she stepped off the corner, the tide was ebbing so she went under the dock and when she came out the other side, one of the fishermen reached down and grabbed her. I remember seeing her eyes looking up from under the water, they were huge.
This is the sister 2 years younger than me, Christine, I remember Dad teaching her to swim, and when he threw her in the water, she sank to the bottom and crawled.
My oldest sister Shirley, she was like a second mother to me, I remember when she got married and had a baby, she was talking to a friend about how the baby's head could come out of such a small hole and I thought she was talking about it coming out of her belly button. I thought about this for a long time.
Tommy and Butch, my two oldest brothers, one day they held me down in the yard and said they were going to eat me, Tommy told Butch he would hold me and for him to go get the salt and pepper and don't forget the knife and a couple of forks. I remember screaming and was so scared that they were really going to eat me, Butch came back and they poured salt and pepper on me and started pretending to cut me with a butter knife. I was so scared.
I know I must have good memories about them but these are the ones that I remember the most.
