Fishin' with Grampa

"A child needs a grandparent, anybody's grandparent, to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world."  ~Charles and Ann Morse

I remember when my grandparents retired and moved to Florida. I was in the eighth grade. I also remember how Mama missed them when they moved.

We kids missed them too, but it wasn't quite the same as it was for Mama.  Now that I'm an adult and living so far from my own daughters and grandchildren, I can understand.

We were at grandma and grampa's all the time, when they lived in Ohio at Will's Creek, right next to the river. Sometimes, we'd sleep over, while Mama and Daddy went Christmas shopping, or just needed to get away for the weekend.

There were always so many things to do there, and Grampa and Grandma were so good at teaching us things that we hadn't done before.

Both of them worked in Coshocton. Every spring, the river overflowed its banks when the snow melted and ran down from the hills above. To solve the problem of getting home while the water was over the road, Grampa tied a rowboat to a tree on the far side. Then they rowed to the other side and walked the rest of the way up to the cottage.

That was always such an adventure.  I used to pretend I was an indian and the rowboat was a handmade birch canoe.  That same rowboat took us fishing on the river in the summertime.

Grampa would only take one or two of us at a time, because there was a right way and a wrong way to do everything with Grampa Shannon --  he taught us the right way to fish, too.

We learned first that we had to be real quiet, "so's you won't scare the fish away"; how to thread the worm onto the hook; how to safely hold the sunfish or bluegill to take it off the hook; and how to thread the large clasp through their gills and out the mouth, so we could keep the fish all tied together in the water just below the side of the boat. We also had to learn how to clean, scale and filet the fish when we got back to the cottage so Grandma could "cook 'em up".

Grandma always packed a picnic lunch to take with us, along with a plastic pitcher of lemonade, or iced tea. I remember staring at the icky worm-goo on my fingers and the fishy smell of my hands and wondering how in the world I was supposed to eat my sandwich. Well, there was a right way to clean up so you could eat, too.

Grampa said, "CJ, don't be such a crybaby." (Grampa was the only one to ever call me "CJ" back then). Anyway, Grampa showed me how to wash up for lunch when you're fishing in a rowboat out on the river.

"CJ, stick your hands over the side in the water there. Now rub 'em together ... see? They're clean. Now, eat your lunch."

... how I miss him now.

The Fall of Life

Life is what we make it ... 

A Short Story
by CJ Heck 

Anna was signing a birthday card for her oldest daughter at the kitchen table and enjoying a late morning cup of coffee. 

The card was lovely with a beautiful verse. She had spent a lot of time in the card store yesterday, crying over the sad ones, laughing at the silly ones, until she finally found the right one, the card that captured her sentiments exactly. 

This was truly the perfect card, all about motherly love, and the pride she felt in the woman and mother Chelsea had become. Then something suddenly occurred to her -- Chelsea was turning thirty-eight.

Then a thought caught Anna by surprise, like a sucker-punch -- not that Chelsea would be thirty-eight. No. It was more than that. Anna was exactly twenty years older than her daughter, which meant that Anna would be fifty-eight this year. 

I'm now in the fall of my life, Anna thought … how the hell did I get here so quickly? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was young and crouched at life's starting gate, waiting for the race to begin, with all of my plans and my hopes and dreams stretched out before me? 

Wasn't it just yesterday that we were awaiting the arrival of our first-born, Chelsea? Anna's thoughts turned melancholy and they reached back, just for a while.

As a child, she remembered looking up at her grandparents and feeling such awe. These were her daddy's parents. Back then, she had thought they must be as old as the trees. Their hair was snow white and they always came with bottles of pills, which they lined up in a long row on the kitchen counter top.  

Being so old, she had thought, they were probably very wise, too, so she always listened closely to what Grampa shared. He told her stories about what it was like when he was a little boy and there were more horses on the streets than there were cars. He said they didn't have TV's back then. 

They read books and played games at the kitchen table when it rained, and when it was sunny, they played fun outside games, or climbed trees, or went swimming in the pond. She remembered the wonderful way grampa explained things so she could almost see everything he was describing, just through his words.

Yes, Anna thought, they were old, but I adored them and I saw them through eyes full of love. I loved hearing all the stories about when they were young. I remember going for ice cream cones at the dairy store with them, and hearing grandma hum while she baked pies -- and grampa puffing on his curved pipe that smelled so pungent and good. 

Then another sobering thought hit Anna. I am now older than these wonderful grandparents were when they passed away.  Oh, how I miss them, and suddenly she realized something. She wanted to be just like them.

Time moves so quickly. No, not in our youth. Then, time only gently pushes us forward towards the finish line and we hardly notice time at all. Then, slowly at first, then faster, life grows full and gets busy and things change. Where time used to stop us in our tracks, we suddenly learn just how fast it really goes -- like the thirty-eighth birthday of a child.  

Here in the fall of my life, time has simply caught me off guard. I have a few regrets, Anna thought. There are things I wish I hadn’t done, things I should have done, and things I wish I had done differently. But there are the many wonderful things that I’m happy to have done and glad that I had the chance to do.

Anna took another sip of her coffee, which had turned ice cold in her cup. I don’t know how long my fall will last, and I certainly have no promises that I will ever see winter, but I do know I've enjoyed a full life ... and damn it, it’s not over yet! 

I’m going to treat every day from now on with renewed appreciation. There are things I still want to accomplish, dreams that can still come true and children and grandchildren to hug and tell my stories to, and I'm fortunate to have a wonderful husband in my life to share it all with.

Anna remembered something her mother used to say, "Life is a gift, baby girl. How we live it is our gift to ourselves." Now that saying makes perfect sense, she thought, with a silent thank you to her mother. 

She decided to pour another cup of coffee, call her daughter, and then start opening more of her gift ... 





(from the book, "Bits and Pieces")

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