Read Online In God We Trust by Jean Shepherd - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jean Shepherd
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in life, surrender completely before the impassable transparent wall, and remain little kids forever. They are called “Fags,” or “Homosexuals,” if you are in polite society.
The rest of us have to claw our way into Life as best we can, never knowing when we’ll be Admitted. It happens to each of us in different ways—and once it does, there’s no turning back.
It happened to me at the age of twelve in Northern Indiana—a remarkably barren terrain resembling in some ways the surfaceof the moon, encrusted with steel mills, oil refineries, and honky-tonk bars. There was plenty of natural motivation for Total Escape. Some kids got hung up on kite flying, others on pool playing.
I
became the greatest vicarious angler in the history of the Western world.
I say vicarious because there just wasn’t any actual fishing to be done around where I lived. So I would stand for hours in front of the goldfish tank at Woolworth’s, landing fantails in my mind, after incredible struggles. I read
Field & Stream, Outdoor Life
, and
Sports Afield
the way other kids read G-8
And His Battle Aces
. I would break out in a cold sweat reading about these guys portaging to Alaska and landing rare salmon; and about guys climbing the High Sierras to do battle with the wily golden trout; and mortal combat with the steelheads. I’d read about craggy, sinewy sportsmen who discover untouched bass lakes where they have to beat off the pickerel with an oar, and the saber-toothed, raging smallmouths chase them ashore and right up into the woods.
After reading one of these fantasies I would walk around in a daze for hours, feeling the cork pistol grip of my imaginary trusty six-foot, split-bamboo bait-casting rod in my right hand and hearing the high-pitched scream of my Pflueger Supreme reel straining to hold a seventeen-pound Great Northern in check.
I became known around town as “the-kid-who-is-the-nut-on-fishing,” even went to the extent of learning how to tie flies, although I’d never been fly casting in my life. I read books on the subject. And in my bedroom, while the other kids are making balsa models of Curtiss Robins, I am busy tying Silver Doctors, Royal Coachmen, and Black Gnats. They were terrible. I would try out one in the bathtub to see whether it made a ripple that might frighten off the wily rainbow.
“Glonk!”
Down to the bottom like a rock, my floating dry fly would go. Fishing was part of the mysterious and unattainable Adult world. I wanted In.
My Old Man was In, though he was what you might call a once-in-a-while-fisherman-and-beer-party-goer; they are the same thing in the shadow of the blast furnaces. (I knew even then that there are people who Fish and there are people who Go Fishing; they’re two entirely different creatures.) My Old Man did not drive 1500 miles to the Atlantic shore with 3000 pounds of Abercrombie & Fitch fishing tackle to angle for stripers. He was the kind who would Go Fishing maybe once a month during the summer when it was too hot to Go Bowling and all of the guys down at the office would get The Itch. To them, fishing was a way of drinking a lot of beer and yelling. And getting away from the women. To me, it was a sacred thing. To f
ish
.
He and these guys from the office would get together and go down to one of the lakes a few miles from where we lived—but never to Lake Michigan, which wasn’t far away. I don’t know why; I guess it was too big and awesome. In any case, nobody ever really thought of fishing in it. At least nobody in my father’s mob. They went mostly to a mudhole known as Cedar Lake.
I will have to describe to you what a lake in the summer in Northern Indiana is like. To begin with, heat, in Indiana, is something else again. It descends like a 300-pound fat lady onto a picnic bench in the middle of July. It can literally be sliced into chunks and stored away in the basement to use in winter; on cold days you just bring it out and turn it on. Indiana
The rest of us have to claw our way into Life as best we can, never knowing when we’ll be Admitted. It happens to each of us in different ways—and once it does, there’s no turning back.
It happened to me at the age of twelve in Northern Indiana—a remarkably barren terrain resembling in some ways the surfaceof the moon, encrusted with steel mills, oil refineries, and honky-tonk bars. There was plenty of natural motivation for Total Escape. Some kids got hung up on kite flying, others on pool playing.
I
became the greatest vicarious angler in the history of the Western world.
I say vicarious because there just wasn’t any actual fishing to be done around where I lived. So I would stand for hours in front of the goldfish tank at Woolworth’s, landing fantails in my mind, after incredible struggles. I read
Field & Stream, Outdoor Life
, and
Sports Afield
the way other kids read G-8
And His Battle Aces
. I would break out in a cold sweat reading about these guys portaging to Alaska and landing rare salmon; and about guys climbing the High Sierras to do battle with the wily golden trout; and mortal combat with the steelheads. I’d read about craggy, sinewy sportsmen who discover untouched bass lakes where they have to beat off the pickerel with an oar, and the saber-toothed, raging smallmouths chase them ashore and right up into the woods.
After reading one of these fantasies I would walk around in a daze for hours, feeling the cork pistol grip of my imaginary trusty six-foot, split-bamboo bait-casting rod in my right hand and hearing the high-pitched scream of my Pflueger Supreme reel straining to hold a seventeen-pound Great Northern in check.
I became known around town as “the-kid-who-is-the-nut-on-fishing,” even went to the extent of learning how to tie flies, although I’d never been fly casting in my life. I read books on the subject. And in my bedroom, while the other kids are making balsa models of Curtiss Robins, I am busy tying Silver Doctors, Royal Coachmen, and Black Gnats. They were terrible. I would try out one in the bathtub to see whether it made a ripple that might frighten off the wily rainbow.
“Glonk!”
Down to the bottom like a rock, my floating dry fly would go. Fishing was part of the mysterious and unattainable Adult world. I wanted In.
My Old Man was In, though he was what you might call a once-in-a-while-fisherman-and-beer-party-goer; they are the same thing in the shadow of the blast furnaces. (I knew even then that there are people who Fish and there are people who Go Fishing; they’re two entirely different creatures.) My Old Man did not drive 1500 miles to the Atlantic shore with 3000 pounds of Abercrombie & Fitch fishing tackle to angle for stripers. He was the kind who would Go Fishing maybe once a month during the summer when it was too hot to Go Bowling and all of the guys down at the office would get The Itch. To them, fishing was a way of drinking a lot of beer and yelling. And getting away from the women. To me, it was a sacred thing. To f
ish
.
He and these guys from the office would get together and go down to one of the lakes a few miles from where we lived—but never to Lake Michigan, which wasn’t far away. I don’t know why; I guess it was too big and awesome. In any case, nobody ever really thought of fishing in it. At least nobody in my father’s mob. They went mostly to a mudhole known as Cedar Lake.
I will have to describe to you what a lake in the summer in Northern Indiana is like. To begin with, heat, in Indiana, is something else again. It descends like a 300-pound fat lady onto a picnic bench in the middle of July. It can literally be sliced into chunks and stored away in the basement to use in winter; on cold days you just bring it out and turn it on. Indiana
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