BE OUR GUEST

Dr. Peter Hilty is a resident of Cape Girardeau and professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University. He is a past contributor to this column.

If there is truth in the Bumper Sticker Wisdom which notes that God does not count against us the hours we spend fishing, I have collected no free time in the last ten years. But it has not always been that way. Our Morgan County farm was high prairie, very dry in the summer, and there were few farm ponds, although now there are many.

Sometimes that mysterious siren would sound at dinner time and my brother and I announce that we were going fishing. The first step was to collect our gear very modest gear, but we would reassure each other that fancy equipment never assured good catches. We had learned this from life and from a Norman Rockwell calendar, and perhaps we still believed in a kind of poetic justice and felt that fate would smile on our honest though simple fishing equipment.

One cannot fish in desperately dry weather, for then no worms can be found. The clever boy would look ahead and place wide boards in the weeds behind the chicken house, and then, when the fit was upon him, prayerfully pick up these boards, hoping for juicy worms waiting in the moist dirt. The worms never enjoyed being pulled from their tunnels, but few things in life bring the fishworm pleasure. Every profession has its store of essential, esoteric knowledge, and the young fisherman must be a student of the life and habits of the earthworm. They fit nicely into an old tomato can with moist dirt. I believe there is something about that in Ezekiel about mud and dust, not tomato cans.

We were always in high spirits, filled with fantastic hopes which did not rise from experience. Today would be better. An unusually prime can of tempting worms, the best of gear from which we had cut off the old dried worms, and hook, line, and sinker. After all of this, the actual fishing was a kind of anticlimax, like a fifteen minute wedding after fifteen years of planning. No one missed us. Even Betsy had declined our invitation, preferring not to break the schedule of her afternoon nap under the porch.

Three hundred years ago Izaak Walton, never a good speller, won fame for his COMPLEAT ANGLER. He is one of many who are generous with advice for the fisherman. Make your own list: 1. Don't talk. Fish do not like to be disturbed when eating. 2. Sit with the wind in your face, even if that means sitting in the lake. 3. Make certain that a fish appears on your calendar; a whole fish. Who wishes to catch only a half fish? 4. Fish love to eat with the sound of Thunder in the background. 5. Patience, Patience. 6. Never believe the expert.

To think like a fish. That is tough, for who cares for the taste of earthworms? My brother always spit on the bait. I do not recall if Walton recommended that, and it may seem gross to the delicate, but a certain part of grossness is needed in life. And my brother always turned from me during the act.

Ambience was not yet in my vocabulary, but that is the word I need. To sit there, almost asleep, watch a devil's darning needle or a snake doctor sitting on the bobbin for a moment, to wish so fervently that the bobbin would suddenly plunge into the mysterious depths of Earl Hunter's creek. Or think, shall I pull up now? Too early, Too late. The song of the red-wing blackbird was always about us; when I hear it now, the entire experience returns.

Then the time would come when one of us, stubbing a bare toe in the gravel, would say in a voice somber as that heard in the Halls of Parliament, "Boys, there are fish here; big fish. But we are just not catching them today."

Betsy would have finished her afternoon nap when we arrived home. And mom would have the skillet hot, not for our fish but for cured ham, and macaroni and tomatoes would be bubbling in the kettle. It was fun, really, all the planning and the hoping. Catching fish? Well, who knows? Another day, perhaps.