kids i've met at fishin' holes an' lessons in life

[naturelovr]

was thinkin at the pond recently what a great thing it is that hillbilly takes young friends fishin...hopin to spark a flame of passion for fishin.....do y'all know what a great thing that is?.....to voluntarily do that?...so many bad things for kids to get into today...ah...but fishin...good wholesome entertainment an somethin to eat too... (give a man a fish, feed him for a day...teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime...)......i decided that hillbilly might just be onto somethin in selectin the youngsters he takes fishin....i end up with em an i don't getta pick em...they pick me...or maybe it's karma or fate or the fishin gods who decide there are some lessons i need to learn, so they send kids my way to be my teachers...

when i was fishin so much a couple a years ago at a conservation pond, there was a kid about 10 there ALL the time...kid's name was robert and robert loved to fish........at first he drove me crazy, askin if i happened to have a hook or a sinker or that kinda stuff outta my tackle box...stuff he could borrow...he was a quiet kid......he was always very polite.......he always wanted it to be clear that he only wanted to borrow the stuff.....proud little guy....if i hadn't always said "you don't need to give em back", i'm sure he would have returned those things to my tackle box as soon as he was though fishin..........or if i had a container of night crawlers, he would ask to borrow a couple of em...not real sure how he planned to return those...cept i am sure he'da gone out an dug up a few to make sure i was paid back proper the next day or somethin if i'da said i wanted em repaid...

i am very ashamed to say i really, really resented him botherin me all the time....i had just learned how to finally catch fish after nearly 30 years of tryin (28 years to be exact) and just wanted to catch fish without bein bothered by some raggedy kid who was down there at the pond all by himself....

even though i was kinda cold an unfriendly to him in the beginnin, hopin he'd get the hint that i wasn't lookin to be his pond mama or somethin, that didn't deter him from askin to borrow stuff......an every day robert had a real friendly smile for me when he'd stop to borrow stuff and visit for a couple a minutes....in his quiet way he'd give me a fishin report on what was bitin an where in the pond they were doin their bitin or he'd tell me who of the regulars had caught what or he'd show me what all he had caught so far that day.........

i got to watchin robert.....that kid was really amazing....every one of you'da loved that kid as much as i finally came to love him that summer, but i'm sure you wouldn'ta taken so long to get there as i did....he'd go around the docks lookin for stuff....old hooks and sinkers that folks had dropped and he'd wade out to retrieve bobbers and lures that folks had hung up on a big ol tree branch in the water....he'd get so excited over his found treasures an be so proud when he brought em for me to see that i couldn't help but grudgingly join him in his excitement...(i even started checkin the dock when i got there to see if anyone had left behind any treasures for robert)....

he had a crappy old zebco 202....not that 202s are crappy, but his was an old hand-me-down that was well past retirement age an he was forever havin to mess with it to keep it workin....no kinda equipment for a serious fisherman like robert for sure....but he could catch fish with that thing...particularly bass.....sometimes when he was havin to work on that ol reel, he'd rig up a piece of fishin' line that he'd picked up out of the brush or trash along with a hook and sinker that he'd either found or borrowed and tie it up to the dock....... tryin not to waste any fishin time by not havin a hook in the water.....he was the most determined fishermen i have ever met....an he'd proudly take his catch home, carryin em off on his stringer that was generally a piece of bailin twine or somethin like that that he'd found somewhere...

figured out he was fishin to help feed the family....when i found out for sure he was fishin to supplement his family's food supply, it just melted my sorry ol heart toward him...suddenly catchin fish without bein bothered didn't seem nearly as important as makin sure robert got to borrow whatever he needed to catch fish...an suddenly i was real proud that robert had adopted me as his "pond mama"....

met his mom and his mom's live in of the week once.......sad life in that house, but robert was okay in spite of it, because of fishin.....an i knew for sure he would never go hungry, cuz he could fish......so after i found out about the home situation, robert was no longer a bother but a joy an blessin......

robert got a small tackle box filled with the stuff he was always askin' me for, along with a spool of fishin line and a good stringer, for his birthday...you'da thought he'd been given a million bucks......he also ended up with a gently used zebco 33 rod an reel before the summer was over too...... ......

took a year off from fishin last year and when i went back this year none of the regular ol timers knows whatever became of robert....i'd be willin to bet that robert is doin just fine wherever he is........

the lessons he taught me about bein able to make do with whatcha got and bein happy in spite of everythin workin against ya....very, very humbling and invaluable.....an yeah, i still find myself lookin around the dock for stuff folks have dropped.....

since this haven has fishermen scattered out all over an i don't know where he is now, if ya happen to meet robert at your fishin hole, an no doubt he is at some fishin hole somewhere....please give him a hug from me an tell him i miss him...

**********

p.s. this year, i have been given j.j. as my young unwanted fishin friend at that same conservation pond....he selected me as his "pond mom".....j.j. is 18 but he has some developmental shortcomings, so part of the time it's like he's about 12..... j.j. drives me crazy...j.j. gets really loud sometimes and he wants to be way too helpful...(been fishin a long ol time alone mostly...got everythin i need settin in just the same spot in relation to where i am fishin as i had it last time so i don't even really hafta think about or look for stuff like the net or pliers...i can just reach an get whatever i need...got a time savin system goin on...not a time saver if stuff's always bein dragged around an set where they don't belong....)...j.j......ugh.......

but then i think of the things j.j. could be doin an i think about how hillbilly voluntarily takes on kids as fishin projects to mentor an sets such a fine example for us all, i try really hard to be patient with the kid i've been given......j.j. stories could fill pages.....there has been so much in so short a time to try my patience...gotta mention that every time he joins me at the dock he greets me with "got any bait i can have?" or today we graduated to "what are we usin for bait today?"....not sometimes, but every time...the kid works, he could get some of his own!!!......

can't wait to see what lesson there is for me to learn from j.j....he's such a trial i'll bet it's a good un....you know, one of those things where i finally have to look at somethin real ugly inside of myself that i've never exactly noticed before an i'll hafta do somethin about it......why else would i have been sent this particular kid?!....

if ya run across a kid ya can be a fishin mentor to....i urge ya to do it like hillbilly and pick em yourself.....don't do like me an wait to have em sent your way.....think hillbilly's way is easier....

**********

p.s.s. i'd love to hear about kids y'all have mentored along the line....i need to hear lotsa your stories bout this whole thing right now cuz of j.j... ...

peace....naturelovr

[olhillbilly]

Sumtimes its difficult to tell which one the Angel is.

[buzzard]

Lot of kids out there need help like ya said, and they're just looking for that helper that God sends their way. And sometimes it's hard to tell who's help who the most.

[Sinker]

Hope ya don't git th idea I'm tryin ta preach atcha, cause my formost quality is bein a bad example. But even that has its good side. Folks is always droppin hints, hopin I'll catch on, course even if I do I seldom "let on", as Tom Sawyer was so fond of doin. But back to it, I been told a whole lotta wisdom an a little dab has soaked in. Like "God won't give ya more than ya can handle", and" God always puts th right person in yer life exactly when ya need'em th most" and "All things happen for a reason, an it may be none of my business what that reason is!" I also lernt that even tho I think I cain't live without knowin why somethin IS or AIN'T, I will.
Just a speculation on my part, but I'd say if you wasn't gonna benefit this kid in some way (whether you ever know how or not), ya wouldn't be noticin so much about him.
Like some of th yunguns Hilly fishes with, he knows th chances of him ever knowin for sure what his contribution to their life an character will be are perty slim. But its his job! He can dig in his heels an tell 'em "No more", or he can just keep on settin th best example he knows how. It all pays th same unless ya look at th bigger picture.
Ya know, Boy Scouts ain't th only ones that can benefit from doin a good deed fer th day! So if th Good Lord sees fit fer yer good deed ta involve th same kid several days runnin, it keeps ya from havin ta look around fer a victi....oops.......benefactor.

[naturelovr]

hey there sinker....

you said, "I'd say if you wasn't gonna benefit this kid in some way (whether you ever know how or not), ya wouldn't be noticin so much about him."

just so you know.....i can't help noticin' that kid....when he sees my truck at the pond he stops so he can fish with me.........an if i don't show up for a day, he calls......an if i pull into the parkin' lot an' he's already there, he comes runnin' to meet me.....

no way to NOT notice him, other than findin' a different fishin' hole, which i am in the process of tryin' to find, but ain't havin' much luck with......i know the big guy in charge has somethin in mind on this (that he doesn't hafta' let me in on) or i'da had some luck locatin' a fishin' hole by now, but goodness it's tryin' sometimes!!!

i appreciate you takin' the time to share your wisdom.......

i'll try to remember all that stuff next time when i'm fishin with him an he decides to cast his line so it'll land inches away from where a kitty fish has been workin' for a while on the decision of takin the bait i'm offerin' or not...(my experience has been that they tend to decide on not takin' it, in case ya wondered)....the list of stuff he does like that is not endless, but it's certainly long.........

last paragraph was just venting.....(i just love it that in today's oh so politically correct world, some whiner somewhere decided to call whining venting.....sounds so much better to say, "just venting" than havin' to say "just whining" to justify what was just said... ;D....)

[karolinakitty]

I'd say i'd have to agree to all parties....
Jim has had his share fo adopted children for 11 to 50...and i ain't jokin........
through em all we've learned alot but mostly we've learned to say no when we must. It's a hard lesson to learn and to do. I remem ber a young one about 13 we met when we first moved down here.... he had nothin to speak of to fish with.. a few old beat up zebcos and rods that were truthfully held together with duct tape. He would come and fish with Jim and I and even when Jim was there by himself, he'd be over talkin and chattin up a storm. He too looked for hooks and jigs and whatever he could find and showed em off proudly like they was gold coins.
During the course of the spring we come to find out him and mom were moving into the trailer at the end of the road where we was fishin. they had no power so they cooked outside and of course without power they had no heat or air conditioning. Mom had the usual alignment of future daddy's and he could have cared less about any of em. He just loved to fish. He told us when he couldn't fish he only got in trouble and fishin kept him out fo trouble....
Now me, i've been a mithcell 300 fan since my gramps gave me my first one when i was 8. I've had a hard time findin the old ones that were built better but i'd buy em when i could and had quite the collection for a while. As they broke and couldn't be fixed. I had to send em home to be with Jesus. When Jim and i moved here i had one left and on my very favorite eagle claw
rod. When i saw this kid with the duct taped rods, wired reels, that i couldn't figure how they were still workin, and seeins how this kid loved to fish so much, one day when we was leavin i took that rod and a few more setups i had and gave em to that kid . Youd a thought i gave him a million dollars he was so excited.
I believe that at times, we are led my our Master to do one or another thing....he gave us choice in the matter....the difference we all need to learn is whether we do the right thing or oops and do the wrong thing, we don't let it blind us to everyone else out there.
Again we get back to life lessons, and I feel as long as we've learned, we've grown, and grown wiser.
Patience is one thing, i have very little of and until i get it right, i'm still goin to be "taught" it.
Maybe natur, that's somethin you and i have in common, maybe our patience level isn't where it should be yet and ya got to stick it out and learn it and feel it and see what happens....

[naturelovr]

Ms. Kitty,
it appears that i have made an excellent decision in selecting you as my hero........not only can you catch really impressive kittie fishies worthy of dancin' with, you have a whole lot of good stuff packed inside you........
Thank you for sharin' all you have, but thank you so much for that last line......i needed it.......

[Sinker]

Gittin so's afeller better be careful where he steps round here.........lible ta wade off inta philofuhsy plum over'is hed!