A Child's Wrinkled Face

A Child’s Wrinkled Face
And so it was a couple years ago I asked members of a private community on
Facebook to respond to questions I proposed. I was the founder of that community
and we discussed memories from our youth. We all had one thing in common – our
hometown.

My book, If The Hills Could Talk included some of the memories from the group in
my collection of short stories. But my works aren’t about only my hometown, they
will spark the childhood memories of Baby Boomers everywhere. I left space for
for two special people to write stories – my sister and my brother. The
one that follows was written by my brother.

This story will tug on your heart as a fish maybe has tugged on your hook at some
time and some place in your life. All of my books can be found on Amazon and at my
Website, www.davidnelsonauthor.com







The LureByRichard R. Nelson
There were a few men and boys in our neighborhood who did not fish, but so few that they were considered an oddity, sort of like the two unmarried women who lived down the street in the same house and did everything together. Neither the non­fisherman, nor the unmarried women were so atypical as to generate inquiry or gossip among us boys who loved fishing and played softball on the Audubon School playground. They were just considered somewhat odd. Now, sixty years later, it seems quite apparent that the moms and dads in the neighborhood probably had plenty to say among themselves about the unmarried women, but we boys never heard of it, just as we never heard one word castigating the men and boys who did not fish. Fishing was considered a part of life in our neighborhood. There were even some women who fished, lots of them, including my mom. With a house full of kids, and an ongoing battle with postpartum depression, she did not often get the chance to sit on a stool and drop a big red and white bobber into the water hoping to swing a big Bream to shore with a ten foot bamboo pole. On those rare occasions when Dad announced we were headed to Massey's Slough or O'Leary's, Mom was the first to put on her shoes and head toward the car. Some women even fished with their husbands and kids from a boat. We didn't have a boat, but we had two and three-piece bamboo poles, which when assembled, were formidable Bluegill, Sunfish, and Crappie killers. All of my friends fished. A few of them had fancy boats, or rather, their dads had fancy boats, bought with the wages earned as a result of the UAW contract with Deere and company. And, they fished with their dads in the River, not in the sloughs and ponds adjacent to and sometimes connected with the River. Those boys told stories of catching Walleyes, Northern, and Largemouth Bass, prize gifts from the river. Among my friends, I was a second-class fisherman, forbidden by my mother from going near the river by myself. Her paranoia about me falling into the River and drowning was not without foundation. Every summer, or so it seemed, the River took a life, almost like a pagan God that demanded a sacrifice as payment for all the joy and fulfillment the River gave to the thousands who skimmed her surface, swam beneath, and floated upon her waters and walked upon her frozen crust in winter. My mother was simply afraid of the power of the Mississippi to take away her diminutive, somewhat awkward, and diffident son, one whom she had abandoned and who was forced back into her care only a few years earlier. Unlike my younger brother for whom there seemed to be no rule he would not break or boundary he would not cross, I abided by the rules. I did not escape the sting of Dad's belt entirely while growing up, but I had a low threshold for pain and a powerful memory of previous encounters with that rawhide. Following the rules kept me far away from that strip of leather. Long after all of my friends were fishing in the River, I remained a second-class fisherman until the age of eleven when technology freed me from the constraints of placid ponds and boring bamboo poles. At eleven, I joined the Boy Scouts, which offered me countless outdoor activities, including campouts and fishing along the shores of the Mississippi River. By eleven, I was also mowing yards, shoveling snow, and making downtown shopping trips for elderly neighbors. I took the city bus to the Roshek building stop downtown, picked up goods at several stores, and rode the bus back home. I saved my earnings, bought a used bicycle from a neighbor kid, and purchased a real fishing rod with an open face reel. By the summer of 1959 I could ride to the dam on the Iowa side of the river and fish below the Iowa-­Wisconsin Bridge for Walleyes and Bass and Channel Cats in the River. I was now a fisherman, a first class fisherman, and our family, with some frequency, enjoyed fish dinners, the entrée provided by me. When fishing, mostly alone, along the banks of the River, a calmness washed over me and removed me from the chaos and financial urgency that engulfed our family constantly. Fishing was my escape from the constant family tension, and when I could not fish, books borrowed from St. Peters Lutheran Church, Audubon Elementary School, or Carnegie­Stout libraries took me to worlds far removed from my environment. At age seven, I rented a Viola from the Dubuque Community School Music Department. With four years of practice and playing in an orchestra and performing recitals, my confidence grew. I read through entire sections of libraries. I fished the River by myself. By age eleven I had hit the Trifecta - ­ fishing, books, and music. Some people thrive on complacency. And then, there are others who always want more, enticed by the lure of the next accomplishment. I began to hear rumors that fishing on the Wisconsin side of the dam was much better than on the Iowa side. There are probably more lies told at bait and tackle shops on a Saturday morning than on all prom nights in America. While waiting to purchase minnows or spinners, those tales of giant fish caught off the Wisconsin barge or along the dam wall on the other side of the River intoxicated me. I was hooked. Not being old enough to drive, I could only imagine what it must be like to fish that angling paradise. And then, junior high happened, the worst time of my life with one exception. I became friends with a few guys from outside the neighborhood who fished and owned bicycles and whole new fishing opportunities presented themselves. They fished the paradise with regularity. The summer after seventh grade I finally fished next to the dam on the Wisconsin side of the River. Until I met those new fishing friends, I had no idea it was possible to ride a bike across the Dubuque­Wisconsin Bridge. The cost was ten cents each way, and that summer I rode my bike to Wisconsin, fished on that side of the River, and pedaled back to Iowa. I learned much of value on that first interstate fishing trip, none of it having to do with fishing. One junior high boy is capable of mischief. Three or four boys together can sacrifice good sense and rectitude in a heartbeat. On a hot, muggy June day we four boys met at the Point Bait Shop. We balanced rods and tackle on our bicycles. The biggest boy was able to balance a minnow bucket full of water and tiny fish on his handlebars. He had done so many times before on trips across the bridge. We pedaled to Rhomberg and strained to reach the tollbooth at the top of an incline. We each paid a dime to the man working the booth. The other three, familiar with the bridge surface, rode hard, standing up pumping the pedals and quickly outpaced me. The incline of pavement continued from the booth to the first girder on the bridge floor. I followed the lead, and as the others rode a good distance ahead of me, I came to the first girder, which was crosshatched with steel, leaving square holes evenly distributed across the floor of the bridge, allowing rain, snow and fish files to fall to the water below, a distance that seemed to be 100 feet, and I could see the treacherous River surface clearly. I was terrified. With each rotation of the front tire across the steel squares and nubs where the crosshatch met, the handle bars jerked back and forth, threatening to throw me and my fishing rod into the River below. I should have listened to my mother.The bridge was extremely narrow with mere inches between cars as they passed, east and westbound. The speed limit was very slow, so narrow was the bridge and rugged the steel nubs of the grates. For all I knew, the bridge had a weight embargo. It felt as if the bridge were moving back and forth as I crossed it. Every breeze felt like a gale. When I reached pavement on the Wisconsin side, I almost threw up. We fished for hours until both minnows and drinking water ran out. The tales were true. We caught big, slab­sided Crappies, huge crappies and a few Bass. Occasionally, I got lost in the thrill of catching huge Crappies caught in the roiling water of an open dam gate. Mostly, I fixated upon the trip back across the bridge, sometimes growing dizzy with fear. The fear of death, however, is nothing compared to the fear of defying twelve-year-old peer pressure. As we gathered our gear and prepared to pedal back home, one of the boys announced that we were not going to stop to pay the ten-cent fee on the way back. I didn't get it but was quickly informed that as we reached the declining pavement on the Iowa side, we were going to speed up and ride like the wind past the toll booth. Now, I was almost petrified. This was wrong, plain and simple. I had never stolen anything, excepting pilfering apples from the neighbor's trees, and I knew this was stealing. And, moreover, I had a quarter in my pocket. The fear of the steel girders, of the dizzying height, of falling into the River and drowning was replaced by the fear of going to jail when we got caught. Speed by the toll booth we did, me the last in the line as usual. As I approached the booth, adrenaline pumped my feet on the pedals at breakneck speed. The clerk was standing outside the booth shouting at my friends, now almost a city block ahead of me. He turned toward me just as I sped past him, and in a flash, I could see surprise registered on his face. As a law abiding Boy Scout, in that moment I also thought I registered disappointment in his face. I caught up to the others at the Rhomberg Dairy Queen. We laughed, congratulated ourselves on not getting caught, and ate ice cream cones purchased with the coin stolen from the Bridge Authority. We divided the fish and I pedaled home, my stomach sour and my shoulders hunched with shame. Since that first Wisconsin trip, I have fished the same spot hundreds of times and many of America's great rivers, lakes, and impoundments, and a few in Canada as well. I have been fishing for more than sixty years. I always purchase a license. I always obey the catch and possession rules, now mostly releasing alive the fish I catch. And, if there is a special fee, a toll, an assessment of any kind associated with fishing, I pay it joyously. Fishing has always brought me calmness, peace and serenity. It always has, except for one fishing trip when I was twelve years old.