Enjoy my first published article which first appered in the 2004 (volume 14) publication of Miambiance magazine.
Stump Knocking
“Get down and hold real still,” I heard my grandfather say as I lifted my head, turned around, and saw something coming straight for my face.
There I lie on my back, watching the hornets flying near overhead as our boat drifted underneath the nest. The cold aluminum deck told me that the surrounding river was ice cold. I might have to decide which was worse: the freezing water or a hundred hornet stings. The thought got my heart pumping fast and loud, drowning out the sounds of the moving river and the insects clacking in the trees. I shut my eyes, but I knew that I slid by close. The vibrations of the flying bugs tickled my nose.
Finally, I felt the sunshine hit my face and I opened my eyes. As usual, Grandpa had escaped unscathed. He probably swung the back of the boat out from under the tree.
“You have to pay more attention to what you’re doing,” he said.
“I thought you were driving this thing,” I replied.
We were stump knocking on the Oklawaha River — that is fishing for the panfish nicknamed “stump knockers.” It was simple fishing and Grandpa loved it. We would take the johnboat upriver and drift back, casting our baits along the shoreline. I was up front and Grandpa sat in the back with the paddle, supposedly to keep us from running into the trees or hornets, snakes or spiders or anything else dangling over the river. It was, in the end, harmless, but still an adventure.
Grandpa. I have a picture of myself in diapers, standing on a large rock with a fishing pole in my hand, Grandpa in the background smiling. Today I am a professional fishing guide, and though I can’t say that he was the only influence on my career choice, he certainly had a lot to do with it. He meant the world to me.
Grandpa’s formal education ended with the fifth grade, but there wasn’t anything he couldn’t design or build. Most mechanical engineers could have learned something from him. He was also the bravest and toughest man I’ve ever known. At five foot nine inches tall, he feared no one or no thing. When WWII came about, he was told that he wouldn’t be drafted because of his job making tools — so Grandpa quit and enlisted in the Navy.
I was Grandpa’s favorite grandchild, bar none. To this day I can clearly remember my mother’s second wedding, when he got into a fist fight. He was sixty-eight years old and the other guy was thirty-four — Grandpa knocked him out. The guy had upset me by screaming at me a couple of years prior — he thought I was messing with his daughter.
Grandpa never forgot how much that incident had upset me and retaliated.
When he retired, Grandpa moved to a town just outside of Ocala, Florida. I was sad to see him leave Miami. It was great, however, that we got to visit every summer vacation. It was better than any summer camp I could have gone to. For about six years I spent my vacations with him. I would treasure every memory of his home, but for one moment that darkens all the others.
It was about when I met my wife. We were only starting to date at the time, so I was reluctant to bring her along. I went to visit Grandpa because he had had a stroke. It was a mild one and had little noticeable affect. I went to visit, nonetheless, to see him of course, but also hoping to get a chance to fish.
“Let’s go stump knocking,” he said the first day I was there.
“I wanted to go bass fishing,” I said.
I had decided that I’d grown out of fishing for the puny panfish, fit for old men and children. I needed something more glamorous, like a largemouth bass. Also, I knew, just knew, that Grandpa’s presence would shorten the trip. He was unable to spend more than a couple of hours out in the sun anymore. I preferred to go on my own.
But I could see disappointment in his eyes, so I reluctantly said, “Would you like to come along for the ride?”
His face lit up, and I woefully took it as a mere “yes.” What it actually meant was that nothing in the world could make him happier than spending what little time he had left with his favorite grandson, doing our favorite activity. But wisdom comes at its own pace, like the river. I was a foolish young man.
He immediately went to dig some worms. I should have been thinking about how we found the best stump knocker bait, hellgrammites, behind the pine bark of the firewood we had cut and collected together. Instead, I reminded him that we would not need that much, because I would be bass fishing. I should have thanked him for showing me a little intestinal fortitude when I collected them with rubber gloves rather than bare hands. Instead, I rushed him along to get to that damned river.
I started to relax a little when we got to the water. It hadn’t changed much since the first or last time I was there. It sounded the same, like a distant filling bathtub. It looked the same, even though the cypress trees that lined the banks were probably taller, maybe even greener. Some patches of lily pads had become thicker, others thinner. You could still hear the katydids in the trees like miniature buzz saws. The air was damp with a slight musty odor.
We dropped the boat in the water and made our way upstream. Grandpa was all smiles. An electric motor had been added a few years prior to replace the oars so Grandpa could fish without too much trouble. Not long after I put the motor down and started fishing, Grandpa paled and stopped smiling. I was busy, but I did notice how strained he had become.
“We have to go back now,” he said. His frown was for himself, for his guilt, for disappointing me. I didn’t know that at the time and got angry.
“I knew this would happen. I knew you were going to do this to me. I wanted to fish and you ruined everything!” I said. “I knew I would have to deal with this shit.”
And that was the last time I went fishing on the Oklawaha River. When the second stroke left Grandpa’s left side paralyzed and took away his ability to speak, I rushed to see him. My wife and I were getting serious about our relationship, so I took her with me. I wanted her to meet my Grandpa. When I saw him in his hospital bed, weaker than I could have imagined him to be, he pointed at me, then at himself, and then reeled in some imaginary fish. All he could think about was going fishing with me.
All I could think about was what a selfish bastard I had been on our last trip, about how I wanted one more chance to sit with my Grandpa on that quiet river, about the hornets, the hellgrammites, and our stump knockers. I cried.
Grandpa died in his sleep a short time later. I was glad that my wife met him before he died. I could tell that he liked her. He scratched the words “you marry her” on his notepad. Yes, Grandpa was a big influence on my life.