For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann. I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?
Here are January's prompts: apron, bar, basketball, bed, bicycle, birthday, boat, broom, button, cake, car.
BOAT
Grandaddy Dykes had a boat, but most of
my memories are of it covered and parked between the house Granddaddy
built with his own hands and the sandy vegetable garden he somehow
coaxed to bring forth the juiciest Better Boy tomatoes you've ever
put in your mouth.
Living in Port St. Joe, Florida meant not just
Gulf fishing, but also canal fishing. That's what I remember best:
not trips out in the boat, but shore fishing. (Surely there were some
trips out in the boat! But at this moment I cannot recall.) We girls
couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 when he taught us to bait our own
hooks with worms. I have always been a tenderhearted animal lover,
but I don't remember feeling pangs for the worms, or for the fish. It
was what we were there for: to catch fish for Granddaddy to clean and
fry up in the deep fryer he kept in the yard.
My father would
probably say this is the “Florida cracker” in me – a strength
and practicality inherited from my pioneering ancestors. When you're
fishing for your supper, it's easier to overlook any discomfort the
worm may experience and simply thank the worm for its service. Which
we did! We even kissed those worms sometimes, inviting their earthy
dirt scent to mingle with the wild salty air – for me, the aroma of
childhood and summer and love and home.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your thoughts?