Fishing One Last time With Dad

Fishing with Dad one last time

     Dad was well advanced in his age around 82 I believe and had already showed signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s and no longer drove and depended on the family for quite a bit. I always said in some ways I had always lived for these days as he was more pleasant yet strange to be around. Dad was always a bit of a hot head at times and more so with me than the rest. Not really knowing what his true source of anger was except maybe it was my height and that I wasn’t really his true son but his step son.

     Mom had remarried and to Dad and he had sons and a daughter as well I had 2 brothers and a sister and then my step sister was born, which made a total of 8 kids in the family and although my oldest brother Mike entered the Navy to avoid living with us here on the farm, 7 of us and Mom and Dad would sit down to supper nightly. To say Dad ruled the roost with an iron fist is putting it mildly. But then with 7 kids, someone had to be the heavy.

    Fishing was something we always did and we had lots on the Muskingum River, and for a large family fishing can be cheap source of family fun, and each summer we would visit the lots and fish and have trout lines. One time dad caught a 46 lb. catfish on a trout line. Its head was huge almost 10 inches wide across and it was about 4 foot long. He loved to fish staying up all night long at times sitting by the river drinking beer and fishing.

    Even when he was in New Mexico where Mom and Dad had lived for almost ten years Dad lucked out and found some aquifer holes outside of Roswell New Mexico in the middle of the desert where they lived, and he would make trips out there with a friend and drag his oxygen tank and fish in the hot sun in New Mexico. He loved to fish.

    Life for him was tougher and his ability to fish was less after having returning to Ohio , and  with the Alzheimer’s there was no just letting  him go , but I decided to try and get him out one last time and I was able to.

    It wasn’t easy getting him prepared as we needed quite a bit of planning ahead of time to find a place suitable. A friend of mine Peg who owns a rock store offered the side of her river bank but it needed brushhogged to get the weeds down and I was able to drive almost to the edge of the water. Well close enough I could help him the rest of the way. He was still walking so that was a plus, but there were other things to take into consideration. One was I had to set up everything before getting dad out of the pickup. This meant setting up chairs and a cooler so he had a place to sit along the river bank once he was there.

   After doing this I helped down the bank and helped him sit down and offered him something to drink in the hot shade of a warm summer day. I grabbed the poles and started baiting them with worm and one by one threw them into the water and placed them on a forked stick, his was placed at his feet in front of him.

    My friend Peg had commenced to talking to dad and was deeply engaged in conversation with him as Dad would always relish talking to a stranger, and at times when I asked him if he needed anything or to add anything to the conversation he would dismiss me as if I wasn’t there. At that time he could care less about fishing and was more interested in talking to Peg. I heard it all from this man and could care less myself if he wanted to act that way. But in ways it is just the Alzheimer’s that was speaking and I was determined to let him have his way.

     He had a bite on his line and I told him about it, and he said ok and momentarily stopped his conversation about what I don’t remember, but soon he was right back to ignoring me as again I saw his pole bend over, with a good jolt on his line. I told him again. He did see this and grabbed the pole but had missed his chance and soon had reeled it in too far and I had to re-bait and cast it out again.

    We had been there only 30 minutes and we had a couple of good bites and then we had nothing for a while as fishing goes. Dad deep in conversation and only having said maybe 10 words to me the whole time since we arrived,  but was filling Pegs ears so full of his adventures , when suddenly we had another good bite and this time I had to grab his pole as it was headed to the river, then snagging it up and setting the hook. All the while, I could feel the fish tugging at the line all the time as Dad had his head turned talking to Peg oblivious to me, and I yelled to dad, “Here you have a fish on your line you better grab the pole.” As he did, the fish, a carp as we could see as it flashed its underside up out of the water smacking the surface and  expressing it’s ingratitude for having been hooked that day. Dad was now into fishing as he worked the rod playing with it as this fish was a fighter and soon he managed to get it close to shore.

dad saw me messing with camera and so i took his pic after asking him to smile

     The bank was close to the water and although it was close it was muddy and I had no desire to sink to my neck so I grabbed the line as we could clearly see the fish in the shallow water and I  pulled it closer as dad held on to the pole. He said to me now be careful and don’t lose it, and I stepped closer and tugged on the line more as I needed to hook my finger in his gill to pick him up and avoid snapping the line.  He was quite big at least 30 inches long and would have some weight. But before I could hook his gill, the fish flopped and although I had a hold on the line, the next thing I knew he flopped right back into the river having snapped the line. I stood there in disbelief holding dads line , and suddenly dads hatred for me came out in the same fashion I had saw it many times before as he said to me with cold staring eyes.

     “Now what the hell did you do that for?”

      I could see the meanness in his eyes and it was the same old dad I knew so well. It was then I questioned whether he had Alzheimer’s as he seemed to be that same guy who took after me with a vengeance time and time before. I looked at Peg and she was chuckling at him under her breath knowing I did all I could do. I just climbed back on to the bank and sat down and started fixing his line. I thought to myself, here I am I fix him a place to fish, gather all the stuff, bait his line and then catch the damn fish for him, and then when I lose it he bitches at me. So has been my life with this man. Never was I ever able to please him.

       In the meantime he went back to talking to Peg and although I had thoughts about leaving his sorry ass wandering along the river I managed to pack him up and bring him home, and the way things turned out it was the last time we ever went fishing together, and all in all I was glad to have taken him.

    His health further deteriorated and it was just never possible again. But I will always remember that day and I laugh about it as I reminisce about that day at his attitude, and the way he was. That day pretty well summed up my life with him all along. Nothing was quite so important as him at any time, and the way he felt. As long as he was happy the world could go to hell. When it all went to hell he was the first to complain, but that was Dad. More so to me, but still I loved him and miss him in some strange way.