Fishing and other Foibles
July 6, 2003
How is it that certain pastimes catch on while others fall by the wayside? For instance, why did gin rummy hang in there while canasta, a far livelier game, was relegated to being a fad? Why did checkers make it, but mah-jongg came and went? Why has Monopoly, one of the drearier, brain-numbing, games ever invented, lasted for seventy years, but nobody I know plays Charades?
In pastimes and hobbies, as in politics and love, there's simply no accounting for taste. Take fishing, if you will. As a career, it's a perfectly decent way to feed one's family. But, assuming fishing isn't your livelihood, what is the big attraction? What is there about sticking worms on a hook and standing hip-deep in freezing streams that appeals to so many of our friends and neighbors? And how is it that so many otherwise rational human beings regard 4 a.m. as a perfect time to leap out of a warm bed and beat the dawn down to the ocean, pole in hand, the better to get a jump on the slippery little devils?
Why is it that large numbers of people, who are otherwise circumspect about all their other questionable activities, will proudly boast to one and all that they're anglers? You see such people driving around town, bumperstickers and license plates announcing to all the world that they'd rather be fishing. Or, better yet, fishin'. (For some unfathomable reason, fisher folk, even if they're driving Jaguars or Benzes, like to assume a rustic identity. I don't know the reason for this, unless they regard it as a way to fool the fish into underestimating the opposition.) On occasion, such people have even been known to stuff and proudly exhibit fish carcasses on the walls of their homes, as if these little harmless, toothless, foes were the size and ferocity of fairy tale dragons. It occurs to me that these poor souls are nearly always male. In trying to decipher meaning in the madness, that is probably a very important clue.
I suspect that the fishermen among you are dismissing me as a know- nothing who has never experienced firsthand the eternal battle between man and mackerel. Not so. On more than one occasion, I have taken rod in hand. Twice, in fact. The second time, I even managed to catch something. But for that I take no credit. To this day, I am convinced that fish wanted to commit suicide and that I was merely the means. But, I thwarted his pitiful attempt. First, I pointed out to him all he had to live for, and then I tossed him back in the sea. I made a vow that day to never again go fishin'. I mean, what's the point? If you catch a fish, you have to deal with cleaning it, cooking it and eating it. Frankly, it goes against my nature to dine on anything with which I have been that intimate. And if you fail to land anything, there's no escaping the fact that you have been bested in man-to-fish combat by a creature that has no arms, no legs, and boasts an IQ of 0.
Which only goes to prove, I suppose, that IQ bears no relationship whatsoever to actual intelligence. I believe that, and I shall continue to believe that until I hear of a fish who climbs out of a warm bed, picks up his pole and goes manning.
