I Should Have Taken my Father Fishing

I Should Have Taken my Father Fishing

 

He was always taking me fishing when I was young. In our town no one had any way of preserving food other than cooking and drying. Though we own a kerosene-fed refrigerator, its space was usually reserved for cooling drinks and such for our store. There was precious little we could use to freeze fish for the next day. So everyday –okay, almost– we’d fish to feed the family and guests. Mostly these are teachers from the barrios who’d congregate in our house for some days preparing their school year-end or –start reports.

 

I was the younger boy, and early on I’d shown a penchant for the marine piscatorial pursuits, so I was elected to go fishing. And of course I learned from my father, who learned from his, who learned from his. You might say I am one in a long line of hereditary sportfishermen —no one really had to fish for a living— but sadly the line would probably end with me. I failed to teach any of my four boys to take to fishing.

 

In all those growing up years, my father took me fishing: handlining mostly, but also gillnet and trolling. We’d haunt the nearer reefs, and sometimes the farther ones, when conditions are said to be good. Halcyon days of innocence and simple joys, or perhaps memories colored rose by years gone by.  We never single out dates when we remember, and years turn to months, but days become years. That is the way I remember them.

 

Then I went away for high school and college, returning only every summer, and sometimes not even. My father also gradually lost his eyesight, that when I returned to work for the family after marriage, he was completely blind. He would not want to fish, because when we tried the holes and points we fished have been overfished or silted over: fish no longer abide there. Yet he remembers them as they were, but I can see they were not anymore. I went fishing with friends.

 

When I finally stayed in the City and family, I can return only every five or so years, sometimes not even, and each time I did I wanted to take my father fishing. I bought a good trolling reel and showed him how it works, but I failed to spark his enthusiasm, or probably he just didn’t show it, and I was too superficial to see it.

 

Each time I planned to go home, I would convince myself to convince him to go fishing. But when I was there, I always failed. There was always a friend to see, a bottle to drink, some little thing to do, in the limited time I had. There were even days I didn’t see him, busy was I in my other ‘pursuits’. Then suddenly it was too late; I could never take him fishing no matter how much I want to. Except in memories of those years when I was young.

 

 Maybe one day I’d see him, and we could go fishing together like before. Maybe we’d enjoy each other’s company as in the old days. Then maybe I could take him fishing, like he did with me long ago, where the seas are always calm, and the fish always bite. There must be such time.

 

But before that I wish I could take my boys fishing, too.