So we had a Pig Roast, it was great. In hindsight starting the fire at 3am and getting the meat put on about 5:30am makes for super tender pork come the afternoon, but you can only get so far on meat and beer alone. Trying to be “to cool for sleep” takes it’s toll the next day. Luckily we’re professionals and we had a great time. I was lucky enough to get in a nap, some people hit up the hammock for an hour or two, but come noon we were all going strong again. We’d pull a Boston Butt off about every hour and half and each one would get more tender than the last. The more you ate, the more you could drink. I made some purple sticky sangria and we drank out of Mason jars, it was a hit. Who’s Mason by the way? Nobody knew, but they knew he made jars.
We went fishing for sunrise Sunday morning, and by Sunday afternoon we were all buzzing and doing arts and crafts. You can’t just jump into arts and crafts, you’ve got to spring it on people at just the right time. Normally when they’ve already met all their expectations for the day and find themselves looking for something else to do. Then you get into it yourself, people notice, get curious that you appear to be having so much fun being in kindergarten again, and want to join in. Luckily I had enough figurines for everyone to paint one, and then we let Grandma pick the winner. It was hard to put her in a pinch having to pick a favorite, so the goldfish have 9 new friends to hang out with. Not in the bowl of course, around the bowl. See when you live in a fishbowl you don’t always know where the water ends and reality begins. (Don’t tell the fish)
Emmie came up from Auburn for the night just in time to eat some pork, get a Mason jar and paint a frog-bee plaster figurine orange and blue. Orange and blue, get it? Wouldn’t you know it no one caught a fish all day... Even got the boat out in the water and I don’t believe anyone caught a fish. Grandma went to bed I remember, and then about 30 minutes later or so I was sitting by the grill and I thought I heard Grandma on the porch talking. I was a little drunk by this point to be honest, so I didn’t turn around but I closed my eyes and tuned in real hard to hear what she was telling someone.
The gist of it seemed to be that the neighbors had called to let grandma know that some of the people from the party had gotten the EZGO stuck somewhere on their property and wanted her to let Brooks or me know so we could come help.
Shit, I thought.
Luckily Brooks was already over there so Emmie and I went and got in the car and drove around the field and over to where the neighbors property meets ours. There were headlights and flashlights over there so it was easy to spot. From a distance I thought the headlights were the EZGO’s lights and it was just sort of, you know, stuck. As we walked up to the scene though I realized that the headlights were actually the headlights of the neighbors Bobcat, which is like a one man ass-kicking tractor machine for construction and stuff. All I could see of the EZGO was the roof.
Apparently the guys were driving on the edge of property and went over into our neighbors because there isn’t a fence or anything. The neighbor came out to ask them if they were lost, and instead of slowing down to talk to them they freaked and tried to drive away. What they didn’t see coming was the creek that runs along the edge of our property and drove straight into it. The creek was almost perfectly as deep and the EZGO is high. It was a pretty ridiculous scene to come upon after drinking Sangria and pig all day. I just imagined what that must have felt like to be driving full speed in the dark and suddenly the ground drops out below you and BAM! you’re in a hole. The two kids that had been driving the thing were standing on the opposite bank looking sheepish, and the first thing the one guy yells out when he sees me is, “I kept your book dry!”
Earlier that night we had started talking deep and he promised me that he really loved books and wanted to change his life. “No but seriously, do you really want to change your life? Can you really deal with a book that has the power to change your life? Are you going to actually read this?” I asked him seriously through my red teeth.
“Yeah yeah man, for sure. I feel like I met you for a reason man, this all make sso much sense…” he tells me on and on.
Well walking up to the scene I had the thought that I might have been too liberal with my judge of character in giving him my last copy of Power vs. Force, but when the power moves you sometimes, you have to just let it move you. My next thought was that, then again, perhaps the guy who drives the EZGO into the creek is the guy who needs to read the book more than ever.
We thanked the neighbors again and again and tomorrow we’re going to make them a Boston Butt care-package and Brooks promised he’d bake them a Shelby County Prize Winning Lemon Ice Box Pie.
Well after we pulled the EZGO out of the creek bed with the Bobcat by literally uprooting the tree that was standing in the way of doing that, Emmie and I took a tour. We went and sat on the dock and two of the fishing poles were still lying there, but only one had a rubber worm still on it. Emmie started fishing sort of just to fish while we talked, not really paying attention, just sort of reeling as we told stories and remembered the fish Judson had caught in this lake all those years ago. Uncle Tom got so excited about it he had it stuffed and mounted and when I went up to the Wesley’s lake house this summer I saw it hanging proudly on the wall with a little engraved slot that said “Judson Wesley, Pop’s Farm, 0-0-89” I can’t remember the date exactly, but I remember it was ’89. So it’s late and the fields have just been cut that day and the water is real still and the half moon is big and bright and the stars are popping out of the sky the way they do some nights and then, sort of out of nowhere, Emmie feels a bite. It kind of takes her a moment to register there really is a bite on the line and when she does she starts reeling like crazy and I get real so excited I go silent with wide eyes and watch real close.
“No way- do you really have a fish on there? Oh my god you really do! This never happens!”
Sure enough the rod caught tension and she started pullign him in. He was a fighting fish though so he broke the surface a few times and when he did, flopping there in the moonlight, I can honestly say it was the biggest fish I’ve ever seen in the lake. Emmie did her startled best to pull him in but there was slack on the line, or drag, we weren’t sure, and I hesitated cause I didn’t know where to put him. We didn’t have a bucket or anything, I wasn’t expecting to be dealing with a fish at that point in the night either. He jumped out of the water two or three more times before he finally shook loose and all was calm again except our heartbeats.
“No way that just happened! That was huge! Nobody caught a fish all day and you just caught the biggest one ever by accident!” I was really excited to say the least, Emmie was too best I could tell.
Now I know the first thing everybody asks when we tell them is going to be, “did you get a picture?” and no of course we didn’t. They might even say it doesn’t really count since we didn’t land it, but if they did I’d say they’re missing the whole magic point about catching the fish anyways. He did us a favor shaking out the hook so we didn’t have to, I would have let him go anyways. It’s just the type of people we are. But what was magic about it was that it really was one of those things that happen that catch you off guard and almost feel so unbelievable they seem magic, and all you want to do is tell someone about the magic but at the same time you know it’s not going to be the same when you tell it, it can’t be. To be cliché it’s just another “big fish story.” You try and try but it never seems to come across what you’re trying to talk about, the part that gets you so excited. That part, I think, is that tiny moment we had right when it first happened. The magic moments always come as an unexpected surprise, and those feelings, those moments when you actually experience catching the biggest fish ever, bigger than Judson’s even, well that’s the part that gets you excited, that’s the part you try to tell the story about. Even though I’m trying to tell you now, I think the best way to appreciate those moments is to know you can’t tell anyone and still appreciate them for all they’re worth. True joy is always going to be ultimately subjective, and that’s ok. The moral of the story is don’t ever stop fishing, even if you aren’t really paying attention while you do it. You gotta leave that line out there just in case. Just in case it’s your time to catch the biggest fish in the lake. You never know when it’s going to be your time, in fact it seems to be the less you think about it or wanting it to be your time the more opportunities it has to just happen, out of nowhere. Always leave a line in the water, the big fish feed late at night.
