For My Little Sister!

Valentine Day was always a day I held close to my heart...guess it was becaue I loved chocolate and through my adolesence  mother and daddy always seemed to see that I had a big heart shaped box of chocolates!

As the years passed however, Valentine took on more special meanings...with the birth of children those precious "handmade valentines" were what made the day special and then came the ones from the grandchildren.  So through the years "love thoughts" on paper became my favorite valentine treat!

It was Valentine Day of 1996 however that the most special Valentine of all was placed in my hands!  The day had begun early, as this  was the day Jerry had his prostate surgery.  Jerry and I arrived at Hendrick Hospital in Abilene long before the sun came up that morning.  Jerry was admitted, prepped for surgery and sedated before sunrise.  It was to be a long day and I felt scared and alone!

As the sun was peeking above the horizon the hospital room door opened and there to our surprise stood Patti and Mack.   What an honor and blessing!   I really needed support that day and recieved a "double dose" having my precious Patti and Mack and also medical enforcement too!  Knowing that Mack did not frequent hospitals outside of his professional obligation and keeping in mind the physical effort it took for him to get from the car to our room, Jerry and I knew what a special moment this was!

The day progressed slowly.  As reports from the doctor and nurses came from surgery, Mack would translate and assure me that all was going as expected.  He even mentioned a few things I might ask the next  time we received a report.   This certainly made me feel knowledgable and gave the medical professionals a reason to believe  I was really on top of this situation!  Mack was so strong, informative and supportive in his "behind the scenes" way!   As I write this tears flow remembering the importance of his presence that day.

Surgery was over, Jerry was out of recovery and for the moment, all was well.  In their quiet, respectful,  wonderful way, Patti and Mack were ready to make their exit.  As they departed the room, Patti leading the way, Mack placed an envelope in my hand, placed his arm around me with a hug and said "this is for my little sister".  As quickly as they appeared that morning, they were gone in the late afternoon.

I went back into the room, curled up in the recliner and opened that envelope!  Inside, to my surprise was a beautiful Valentine card just for "his little sister" and signed with love, Mack.   Today that card resides in my keepsake box for I know  cards from Mack were far and few between and I treasure knowing that I have one of the few!

Fishing at Club Lake

Mack loved to fish. He didn't mind fishing for the big ones, but he really loved fishing for the scrappy little ones. The bream at Club Lake were favorites. Those very small fish could really tug and pull on the line. They are fighters.

Club Lake is a small private lake just outside of Sherman. There is a row of rustic one slip wooden boat houses on the west bank. Daddy had a slip with a john boat equipped with a small motor. He didn't visit often. It felt like a cobwebbed wooden cave. We would carry in all our stuff, whisk away the cobwebs, and put the fishing gear in the boat. When the boat was lowered into the water, it was below the level of the decking. To get into the boat, Daddy would lay down on the decking and kind of roll into the boat. He was amazing agile given his inflexible left lower body and no traditional forms of exercise.

As a young kid, going to Club Lake was a huge treat for me. It meant being with my father one on one, sharing his zeal for all things fish, and being out on the water. I can still feel the thrill of walking across the rickety wooden bridge to the boat house; watching Daddy navigate getting from the car and eventually into the boat; the musty smell of the boathouse; the sound of water lapping on the wooden beams; the putt-putt-putt of the little engine coming to life; pulling out from the musty darkness into the fresh light of the lake; wondering about the strangeness of the secretive duck blinds. I was full of anticipation of hours with my dad at his happiest- on the water; watching birds; using his inner knowing, years of experience and curiosity to ferret out the best fishing spots; preparing the fishing rods by tying knots in the thin fishing line to attach weights or lures with his beautiful hands and finely coordinated motions; teaching me how to tie his special multiple twisted knot to securely attach a lure. Losing a fish because of a poorly tied knot didn't happen with a Mack knot. I loved to watch him prepare the lines. He was so attentive to detail, light in his manner, and happy at heart. A man in his element. A daughter with her dad. All was right in the world while on Club Lake.

One day on Club Lake, we caught a basket full of bass. I remember them being BIG, but as I said, size didn't matter with Mack. It was as much about fishing as catching. My job that day was to take care of the basket with the fish we had caught. It was tied to the side of the boat and left in the water to keep the fish alive. The basket was collapsible mesh, with a spring mounted solid metal lid that would snap shut to prevent fish escapes. One of us caught another fish. Daddy, no doubt, helped remove the hook and slid the fish into the basket. I then threw the basket into the water over the side. I watched in horror as the knot came undone, the line unfurled and the basket and line disappeared in the lake with our stupendous catch of the day. I was horrified. My memory of daddy's reaction was of calmness and determination to get those fish back. He threw out the anchor to hold us above the basket and then he pondered the situation for a bit. He hatched a plan of action and explained, as he attached new lures to the our fishing lines, that we would troll the bottom of the lake for the basket using lures with several large treble hooks. These are like a small plastic toy fish with 2 or 3 dangling hooks; each hook having 3 barbed hooks. He attached heavy metal weights to the lines to help them sink and stay on the bottom. We proceeded to cast our lines past where we believed the basket to be, let our lure hit bottom, then dragged the line across the bottom hoping to snag the basket. It felt like we did this for quite a while. My guilty feelings were replaced by exhilaration in joining his brilliant and fun search and salvage operation. The guilt was all my own. He never appeared upset; only amused by the predicament and doggedly determined in his fish quest. In retrospect, I think this opportunity offered him a brand new method of "fishing".

One of us, I don't remember who, did snag the basket and the fish were recovered! We were so excited and I know he was satisfied that his scheme worked!

Club Lake Part 2: Bream Fishing on the Dam

According to Mack, its time to fish for bream when the buds on the a pecan trees are the length of your thumb nail.

Often, we would fish for bream from the bank at Club Lake. We would drive past the boat houses and park below the steep embankment of the dam. The rods, tackle box, and worms would be carried up the hill by the kids, then Daddy would will his way up that embankment, throwing his left leg out with each step, lurching one step closer to the top. We would set up on the grass or on a wooden pier close by. He set us up with bamboo poles; no reel; just a line tied on the end of the pole, a bobber attached to the line and adjusted the right depth, a hook tied on with the super-duper Mack knot, a worm squeamishly threaded on usually with his help, and we were ready to go.

The water was a few feet deep at the pier, quite a bit deeper closer to the dam. Knowing/hoping that there were multiple bream nests, on the bottom, Daddy would use his bream-sense to know where to throw his line. We would follow his lead. On good days, we would catch bream hand-over-fist. Red ears. Blue gills. The deeper in color and heftier in depth and girth, the better. Size DID matter with bream!

He measured by holding a fish on his palm and eyeing how far down his wrist it extended. With the nose at his fingertips, a good bream's tail would lay a few inches onto the inner arm beyond the wrist.

He would clean the bream at Club Lake; just gutting them and removing their head. He and mother would cook a bream feast those evenings. Bream, breaded in cornmeal, fried outside. Served with hush puppies. We would eat the meat along the upper back. Those little fish were too small to fillet, so we just munched along the "bream tenderloin". Very tasty. Great gustatory memories.

In the later years of my father's life, my brother, Drew, caught a good sized bream. Knowing how much Daddy admired the feisty little fish, and that he could no longer manage getting into the boat or onto the dam at Club Lake, Drew had that bream mounted. Daddy put it right beside the chair in which he spent most of his days. Turns out that it was a blue gill, but the taxidermist painted it as a red ear. He didn't care. He got to spend his days accompanied by what I believe was his favorite fish: the spunky little bream.

I swim most days in the clear, natural, unchlorinated waters of Barton Springs pool. There are vast numbers of bream in those waters. I watch those pint sized fish protect their nests, chase away bass, and aggressively pursue me if I get too close. As I swim with the bream of Barton Springs, I feel my father's presence. I don't know what happens after death, but I do hope that he is swimming along with me as I point out all the activity below the surface: Carp, catfish, eel, craw daddies, cormorants fishing, ducks bobbing, water flowing from the aquifer creating a current which makes the tall weeds undulate, and the ever present feisty little bream.

"Pass Bill another coke."

I  wonder sometimes if anyone else, other than myself and Bill that is, know the above saying.  It was mainly just the three of us together during those early hours of the morning and Mack and I's bellies had been satiated with a 4am breakfast from Denny's by that point.  The nostalgia of the bright yellow lights of the diner, when I see them from time to time, still warm me.

There were always two ice chests.  One for the fish, the other for the canned drinks.  In one we deposited, in the other we withdrew.  We would be out on the water for hours, certainly from before the sun rose and well after it had risen.  There was plenty of time to fill up the one and empty the other.  I feel like we probably caught more fish than we popped open cans, hence depositing more than we withdrew.  In any case though there was usually no lack of either.

I sat between Bill and Mack.  Mack had his seat in the rear and Bill always manned the boat.  All of our seats were swivel seats - the easier to face the direction of the fish when they surfaced up on one side or the other.  Bill had a radar on his boat that usually alerted him to the presence of the fish at one spot or another and he would direct us to cast our reels off that side.  I doubted how much in need he actually was of that radar.  I imagined Bill had been fishing Lake Texoma for who knows how long before he actually got his hands on a radar and I imagined he could have fished it just as well without it.  In any case though, I'm sure it came in handy.

The second ice chest had the drinks and from time to time we would enjoy a sparkling beverage.  Mack made sure to have plenty of Sprite on hand for yours truly and he seemed to even his time out between Cokes and the other sparkling variety.  I don't, on the other hand, really ever remember Bill ever drinking anything other than what wasn't intended for me, yet, we spoke in code.  I was the middle man.  For the drinks to reach Bill they had to pass through me.  Whenever Mack would hand me a can and say, "Pass Bill another coke, would ya Mason" it was inevitably other than a coke.

Perhaps we spoke like that to avoid facing some reality or another, or perhaps it was like that just for the purpose of two best-friends to focus on something more important.  Namely, the first ice chest and what it contained.

-Mason