Tag: Trash Fish: A Life

I MENTION THESE various attempts by my Oklahoma kin to procure culinary wonders through questionable methods in order to set the stage for my cousins, Ralph and Leo. They were Grandma’s sister’s sons who lived in their mother’s tarpaper house on the Salt Fork River. When Ralph was a toddler, he had fallen off of the porch of that house and on to a...

PERHAPS I SHOULD WADE OUT of this dream water for a while toward something a little more rational and positive—say, my grandfather. Ah yes, Granddad, my mother’s father, now there’s someone who would never shrink and scream at me from a puddle. Maybe we’d both shrink and scream at someone else from a puddle, but at least we’d be in it together...

WHEN I WAS SEVEN, my mind was sufficiently developed to decide that Father didn’t take me fishing enough. The year before, we had moved to Cortland, New York for Father’s first full time job in the English Department and Cortland State Teachers’ College. That’s right, Cortland, New York, home of Cortland fishing line, Cortland reels, Cortland you...