Posted No Fishing
- By James Ford
- Published 11/18/2009
- Community
- Unrated
Fish. I will bet every boy in the world has fished at least once in his life. And I would even go as far to say that every boy has fished in some out-of-bounds-fishing hole and thrown caution to the wind while doing it. I did it.
I remember fishing in the dump pits on the levee behind my high school. The fish were a little strange looking but since I didn’t eat them what did it matter. My good friend Eric told me a story about walking through a culvert to get to a creek to catch fish.
But I would be willing to bet that this creek wasn’t much more than a drainage ditch. Fishing is a pretty wholesome thing to do regardless of whether you are doing it in a drainage ditch, a creek, or the ocean. There is just a rush that goes through your body and soul when a fish tugs on your line.
It is always a whopper. The day my daughter was married I saw eight to ten boys having the time of their lives pulling fish from a drainage ditch in Houston’s inner city. Their fishing hole was just outside of the church, down below the apartment complex where they lived, and just a stone’s throw from the fried chicken stand on the corner.
Since I still had my camera in hand from taking photos at the wedding, I decided to walk over to the bridge where these guys were and videotape the event.
As a lover of fishing, I was in awe of what they were experiencing. Their activity was a riot of laughter and excitement over their catch.
They were bound to each other by their experiences. The little guys manned the buckets where the fish were placed while the teens systematically placed bologna on the hooks and then flipped them into the dark water below. Within a few minutes they would pull a fish eight to ten inches long out of the water.
The debris that lined the banks of the ditch did not seem to deter them. The grocery baskets, the partial bicycles, and the old tire did not deter them from the task at hand of catching fish. They were blissfully unaware of the well dressed members of the wedding party, who stared with distaste at these inner city boys.
They were having the time of their lives. Now my heart of hearts says that this was a good thing. These boys will one day grow older and undoubtedly some will remain friends.
They will remember back to the time they fished from that bridge off of Martin Luther King and actually caught fish, unidentifiable fish to be sure, but fish nonetheless. They will remember that their brothers were there and how excited they all were to fill the buckets to the brim. And some may even remember an old man that walked down to that drainage ditch and inquired about their fishing.
They will exchange stories about how those eight to ten inch fish were as big as whales. And certainly the more perceptive ones will realize that their bologna bait was landing next to a broken shopping cart and not a stand of cattails on a creek bank. And one of these boys might even remember that the drainage ditch was just that and not a creek that meandered around a bend just beyond a thicket of pine trees.
And it probably won’t even matter. Someone will remember that as the bait disappeared in the dark waters that instead of setting the hook on an old bicycle, a tire, a plastic bag or a paper cup they caught a fish. While I was excited for those obviously elated boys I could feel a bigger menace lurking somewhere near that bridge.
And even as I relate this story to you I feel the cold distant breath of snobbery blowing down my collar. I couldn’t help but scan the scenery and think how different this fishing experience was from my first experience. I remembered how I couldn’t wait for my dad to take me to our secret, hidden creek deep in the woods.
I remembered how my heart raced when we finally picked our way though the briars and thistle and spotted that gleaming creek that slowly meandered around a bend just beyond a thicket of pine trees. But there were no pines at that bridge. There was no thistle and briar and the only gleam was that of the bright shiny metal of the grocery basket.
There were no dads to share the excitement with those boys. Not to say that boys always need or want their dads around. But the question still comes to mind: where were the dads or better yet did these boys have dads to share this experience.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this scene would eventually end up on the six o’ clock news. We would watch as the boys would be herded into patrol cars and taken off to jail because they were illegally fishing without a license. The city fathers would put up a sign on this gleaming metal bridge that reads “No Fishing.”
They will instruct a game warden to nestle down in patrol vehicle, amid coffee cups and donut bags, hidden in the inner city briars and thistle and watch through binoculars to catch the next set of boys fishing illegally from the bridge. And what of the wedding crowd, all brightly and ceremoniously dressed obviously amused at the events on the bridge. There they were huddled together in front of the church looking down their noses at those young guys.
“Don’t they know that ditch is polluted?” someone said. “Where are there parents?” said another. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John suggested that church-going people should be fishers of men.
What about those boys? A good church outreach program could help get the ditch cleaned up. It could provide all the boys with tackle and maybe a Saturday afternoon film about fishing.
I should have done my part too. As my wife and I left the church I rolled down the window and hollered out to two young boys, who were lugging a large bucket, filled with fish, from one end of their fishing hole to another, “Do you eat those fish?” “Yes sir,” came back the answer. “Do you want one?”
I didn’t have the heart to lecture them on the dangers of eating fish from polluted waters. I just drove on. But I should have taken one.
Life’s simple pleasures, like fishing off a major blvd., can have a lasting effect on the brotherhood of young Black males.
Photo by James Ford.
I remember fishing in the dump pits on the levee behind my high school. The fish were a little strange looking but since I didn’t eat them what did it matter. My good friend Eric told me a story about walking through a culvert to get to a creek to catch fish.
But I would be willing to bet that this creek wasn’t much more than a drainage ditch. Fishing is a pretty wholesome thing to do regardless of whether you are doing it in a drainage ditch, a creek, or the ocean. There is just a rush that goes through your body and soul when a fish tugs on your line.
It is always a whopper. The day my daughter was married I saw eight to ten boys having the time of their lives pulling fish from a drainage ditch in Houston’s inner city. Their fishing hole was just outside of the church, down below the apartment complex where they lived, and just a stone’s throw from the fried chicken stand on the corner.
Since I still had my camera in hand from taking photos at the wedding, I decided to walk over to the bridge where these guys were and videotape the event.
As a lover of fishing, I was in awe of what they were experiencing. Their activity was a riot of laughter and excitement over their catch.
They were bound to each other by their experiences. The little guys manned the buckets where the fish were placed while the teens systematically placed bologna on the hooks and then flipped them into the dark water below. Within a few minutes they would pull a fish eight to ten inches long out of the water.
The debris that lined the banks of the ditch did not seem to deter them. The grocery baskets, the partial bicycles, and the old tire did not deter them from the task at hand of catching fish. They were blissfully unaware of the well dressed members of the wedding party, who stared with distaste at these inner city boys.
They were having the time of their lives. Now my heart of hearts says that this was a good thing. These boys will one day grow older and undoubtedly some will remain friends.
They will remember back to the time they fished from that bridge off of Martin Luther King and actually caught fish, unidentifiable fish to be sure, but fish nonetheless. They will remember that their brothers were there and how excited they all were to fill the buckets to the brim. And some may even remember an old man that walked down to that drainage ditch and inquired about their fishing.
They will exchange stories about how those eight to ten inch fish were as big as whales. And certainly the more perceptive ones will realize that their bologna bait was landing next to a broken shopping cart and not a stand of cattails on a creek bank. And one of these boys might even remember that the drainage ditch was just that and not a creek that meandered around a bend just beyond a thicket of pine trees.
And it probably won’t even matter. Someone will remember that as the bait disappeared in the dark waters that instead of setting the hook on an old bicycle, a tire, a plastic bag or a paper cup they caught a fish. While I was excited for those obviously elated boys I could feel a bigger menace lurking somewhere near that bridge.
And even as I relate this story to you I feel the cold distant breath of snobbery blowing down my collar. I couldn’t help but scan the scenery and think how different this fishing experience was from my first experience. I remembered how I couldn’t wait for my dad to take me to our secret, hidden creek deep in the woods.
I remembered how my heart raced when we finally picked our way though the briars and thistle and spotted that gleaming creek that slowly meandered around a bend just beyond a thicket of pine trees. But there were no pines at that bridge. There was no thistle and briar and the only gleam was that of the bright shiny metal of the grocery basket.
There were no dads to share the excitement with those boys. Not to say that boys always need or want their dads around. But the question still comes to mind: where were the dads or better yet did these boys have dads to share this experience.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this scene would eventually end up on the six o’ clock news. We would watch as the boys would be herded into patrol cars and taken off to jail because they were illegally fishing without a license. The city fathers would put up a sign on this gleaming metal bridge that reads “No Fishing.”
They will instruct a game warden to nestle down in patrol vehicle, amid coffee cups and donut bags, hidden in the inner city briars and thistle and watch through binoculars to catch the next set of boys fishing illegally from the bridge. And what of the wedding crowd, all brightly and ceremoniously dressed obviously amused at the events on the bridge. There they were huddled together in front of the church looking down their noses at those young guys.
“Don’t they know that ditch is polluted?” someone said. “Where are there parents?” said another. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John suggested that church-going people should be fishers of men.
What about those boys? A good church outreach program could help get the ditch cleaned up. It could provide all the boys with tackle and maybe a Saturday afternoon film about fishing.
I should have done my part too. As my wife and I left the church I rolled down the window and hollered out to two young boys, who were lugging a large bucket, filled with fish, from one end of their fishing hole to another, “Do you eat those fish?” “Yes sir,” came back the answer. “Do you want one?”
I didn’t have the heart to lecture them on the dangers of eating fish from polluted waters. I just drove on. But I should have taken one.
Life’s simple pleasures, like fishing off a major blvd., can have a lasting effect on the brotherhood of young Black males.
Photo by James Ford.