Chaotic visit
Hard stuff
Lots of illness and tragedy has touched my mom's circle of friends. Part of it comes with aging, but it seems like so much extra hard stuff right now. My first day in town we helped one woman create 12 table flower arrangements for a church women's meeting. She was about to leave town to be with her daughter who has found out she has a tumor. Another close friend and neighbor is slowly recovering from knee surgery. I just found out our dear friend, Dr. J., has leukemia and is not doing well. And sadly, Mom's longtime friend's grandson (about to graduate from Auburn) went missing after spring break. There was a wide network of people praying he would return home safely. All this was part of our conversation and thoughts. As soon as we finished and cleaned up the mess we made creating beauty, we packed food and clothes for the lake and headed out. We had to make a couple of stops on the way out of town. Thankfully the lakehouse is only a 45 minute drive.
A Good Samaritan
Before dark I wanted to spend time fishing and relaxing by the water. It is one of my favorite places to be. The first step is baiting up several cane poles and getting them into holders around the dock railing. So far, so good, though the wind was steadily picking up. I tried out some lures on the rod and reel. As usual nothing hit them. About 8 p.m. we discovered we had no water! After a leaky pipe was fixed recently (long other story) the water must have been turned off. I had fears of not being able to have my lake time after all. I was so glad the repairman returned our call and offered to come right over to get the water going again. This is the southern courtesy of a local man who also lives at the lake. I did not hear him arrive. I was down on the dock wrestling a catfish. I did not see him restore the water flow. I did not hear or see Mother and him running around trying to capture a tree frog inside the house before I yelled up toward the back porch for help. So our good 'ol boy Samaritan (I cannot call him just a septic tank guy-plumber-handyman) came down to the dock and had no qualms about grabbing an ugly, scary, sharp-finned creature and wiggle-jerking the hook out of it and tossing it back into the lake for me. My friend, Amy, thinks this might be the same catfish that floated up near my neighbor's dock, but I think it swam happily away. Catch and release and such.
A strange wind
The wind was fiercer than ever the next morning and didn't let up all day. Against all ancient and popular wisdom of fish not biting when it's so windy, the catfish would not stay off my line. Never before had I experienced wanting to fish, but not wanting to catch anything! My new system for dealing with this ridiculous situation was to pull the fish up with the net, take its picture and let it go.
Carrying it out was difficult because catfish are determined to swallow the hook. One made eerie crying, whining chatter as I was trying to "release" it. After a few more and a couple of bream, I spent the rest of the day on things that needed to be done in the yard (kind of a full-time job here.) By evening we were so tired we decided to go out to dinner rather than use any more energy to prepare a meal.
Just about then Mother got bad news on her cell phone. Her friend's grandson's body was found. 22 years old, smart, great guy, in a fraternity at college, on football and baseball teams in high school, not seemingly at risk or at all fringey, which made it more surprising that he would take his own life. So troubling. So tragic. It sounded like they really didn't know what he was upset about or what had happened. How sad for this family. I could barely think of how his mom could deal with this. There would be a funeral service on Monday. I felt so bad for them. I have a 22-yr old son, too. The news was haunting.
Meanwhile we had another work day ahead at the lake and then it was home to repack for the weekend in Atlanta.
Lots of illness and tragedy has touched my mom's circle of friends. Part of it comes with aging, but it seems like so much extra hard stuff right now. My first day in town we helped one woman create 12 table flower arrangements for a church women's meeting. She was about to leave town to be with her daughter who has found out she has a tumor. Another close friend and neighbor is slowly recovering from knee surgery. I just found out our dear friend, Dr. J., has leukemia and is not doing well. And sadly, Mom's longtime friend's grandson (about to graduate from Auburn) went missing after spring break. There was a wide network of people praying he would return home safely. All this was part of our conversation and thoughts. As soon as we finished and cleaned up the mess we made creating beauty, we packed food and clothes for the lake and headed out. We had to make a couple of stops on the way out of town. Thankfully the lakehouse is only a 45 minute drive.
A Good Samaritan
Before dark I wanted to spend time fishing and relaxing by the water. It is one of my favorite places to be. The first step is baiting up several cane poles and getting them into holders around the dock railing. So far, so good, though the wind was steadily picking up. I tried out some lures on the rod and reel. As usual nothing hit them. About 8 p.m. we discovered we had no water! After a leaky pipe was fixed recently (long other story) the water must have been turned off. I had fears of not being able to have my lake time after all. I was so glad the repairman returned our call and offered to come right over to get the water going again. This is the southern courtesy of a local man who also lives at the lake. I did not hear him arrive. I was down on the dock wrestling a catfish. I did not see him restore the water flow. I did not hear or see Mother and him running around trying to capture a tree frog inside the house before I yelled up toward the back porch for help. So our good 'ol boy Samaritan (I cannot call him just a septic tank guy-plumber-handyman) came down to the dock and had no qualms about grabbing an ugly, scary, sharp-finned creature and wiggle-jerking the hook out of it and tossing it back into the lake for me. My friend, Amy, thinks this might be the same catfish that floated up near my neighbor's dock, but I think it swam happily away. Catch and release and such.
A strange wind
The wind was fiercer than ever the next morning and didn't let up all day. Against all ancient and popular wisdom of fish not biting when it's so windy, the catfish would not stay off my line. Never before had I experienced wanting to fish, but not wanting to catch anything! My new system for dealing with this ridiculous situation was to pull the fish up with the net, take its picture and let it go.
Carrying it out was difficult because catfish are determined to swallow the hook. One made eerie crying, whining chatter as I was trying to "release" it. After a few more and a couple of bream, I spent the rest of the day on things that needed to be done in the yard (kind of a full-time job here.) By evening we were so tired we decided to go out to dinner rather than use any more energy to prepare a meal.
Just about then Mother got bad news on her cell phone. Her friend's grandson's body was found. 22 years old, smart, great guy, in a fraternity at college, on football and baseball teams in high school, not seemingly at risk or at all fringey, which made it more surprising that he would take his own life. So troubling. So tragic. It sounded like they really didn't know what he was upset about or what had happened. How sad for this family. I could barely think of how his mom could deal with this. There would be a funeral service on Monday. I felt so bad for them. I have a 22-yr old son, too. The news was haunting.
Meanwhile we had another work day ahead at the lake and then it was home to repack for the weekend in Atlanta.
posted by Jennifer at 1:17 PM
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