Big Fish and Shooting Stars

Dad reached in with both hands to pull the catfish out of the dip net. We were standing well up on the sandbar -- feet away from the water's edge -- and escape for our prize.

"What a fish. I haven't caught one like that on a bank pole in years. He must weigh six or seven pounds. Wow." The normally taciturn old man was virtually quivering with excitement. "Look. He's lost all the whiskers on one side."

Suddenly the fish whipped its thick body and Dad nearly dropped him. "What the heck are we going to do with this guy? Give me the stringer and let's see what we can do."

I handed him the stringer with the other fish on it. He took the smaller one off and strung on the prize, then put the small one back on. "OK, let's go see what else we've got. Won't be as big as this one, I bet. Here you take him. For pete'sake don't lose him."

I tied the free end of the stringer to my belt loop. Dad gave it a tug and nodded. Then I wrapped a couple turns of the line around my hand and tried to lift the fish. It was so long I could hardly get it up off the ground. I grabbed the line with both hands and carefully walked to the water and lowered him in. In my light I could see him sullenly shaking his his head slowly from side to side. Then he turned toward deep water and lazily pulled me away from the bank. I let him pull until the water reached my waist.

Dad was beside me again. "OK, I think we're re-organized. I put the biggest minnow I could find on the hook. Maybe we'll get another one."

So we continued running the lines -- checking, re-baiting, taking off fish when we found them. Nothing as exciting as the lunker that I could feel tugging on my belt loop.

When we'd checked the last pole, Dad scanned the bank with his light. "Now where the heck was that path we made?" Finding it he turned to me, "Looks like it's going to take two trips. I'll carry the bucket and stuff up first then you can hand me up the fish."

I untied the stringer from my belt as he clambered up the bank with the bucket in one hand. Looking up I saw his light and then his hand appeared above me. "Just hand me the end of the stringer. Don't worry about lifting them all the way up." I climbed up as far as I could and passed him the end of the line. The fish seemed to levitate up into the weeds above me. "OK, your turn." I climbed up the bank until I could reach his hand and then it was my turn to be pulled up.

"You take the bucket. I'll take the rest," he said turning away from the river through the nettles. I followed, using the minnow bucket to knock plants out of the way. We started to follow the dirt track back to our camp.

"Turn out your light," he said. "I always love this."

I turned out my light just as he turned out his. We were plunged into black. I couldn't even see the road any more. The corn to our left was a silhouette against the lighter black of the sky. Then I saw them. More stars than I'd ever seen to that time. In fact more stars than I'd ever see again until decades later in the sand dunes of the Egyptian desert. There in Illinois that night, it was like no sky I'd ever seen. The river valley focused the starlight like a telescope. The Milky Way seemed as though someone had swung a paintbrush of white paint across the center of the sky. Could you read by starlight alone? I wondered. The constellations stood out in sharp relief. There wasn't even a moon to dim the spectacle.

"Wow. That's a bright one." I said pointing.

"Must be a planet. Maybe Venus? The stars twinkle and the planets don't, I think. The only stars I know are the Big Dipper and how to find the North Star. Just follow the ends of the Dipper from bottom to top. The next bright star you see is the North Star -- always points north." I followed his pointing finger.

"Not very bright," I said.

"Nope, but when you're lost it's bright enough. Ho!"

Just then a light streaked across the sky -- a shooting star. "Your grandma used to say, 'Someone just died' when she'd see one of those."

"Really?"

"Nah. ... Well, sure, actually, someone's always dying somewhere. And someone's always being born. That's just the way it is. It's a cycle. No one gets out of this world alive. You just live and do the best you can do. Eventually you die, and someone else takes over." He looked at me.

Many years later when it was time for his shooting star, I held his hand in a hospital room watching him die. I remembered standing under that glorious sky with the stars and planets looking down on us. It helped.

But that was a long time in my future. We stood for a while in silence waiting for another shooting star, but none came. I was secretly glad. We walked to camp with our lights off.