Turlock High School - Alert Yearbook (Turlock, CA)

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did not hear my aunt ordering my cousin to take my line while I went up the pier to put out my aunt's lines. A My cousin did not realize what my actions indicated, for she reached over my shoulder and forcibly extracted the pole from my hands. Such a proceeding would make even a' saint swear backwardsig and I am far from being a saint. Even so, what I felt like saying would have dried up the Indian Oceang what I did say would have burnt the paint off a battleship. My dear aunt threatened to tell my father on meg but as I remembered what I had heard early in the morning, I dismissed that contingency with a smile. Otherwise I think that I should be inclined to view su.h a proceeding with sus- picion as my father is quite old fashioned in some of his notions. VVhen I finally got them all settled, each with a snag line and a halibut pole, I made my way back to my cousin. A great ruin stared at me, My line was entangled in the firm embrace of an absent neighbor'sg and my cousin was crying over a, pin prick which she had received. lVhen I saw that mess, I said not a word, but I felt like an old.Christian martyr as I set feverishly to work to untangle the muddle before our neighbor should return. I knew very well what he would sayg and I knew also, that he would not say it in a very complimentary or a very soft tone of voice. I have untangled some very badly muddled up fishing lines in my day, but I never have seen the equal of the one my cousin made that day. VVomen are singularly adept and skilled in the art of tangling things. I begin strongly to suspect that that is the only thing 'which they can do with any degree of certainty and skill. I couldn't finish my work in time, and when my returned neighbor saw his line, I could tell that he was a fisherman who knew how to fish by what he said. VVhat he did not say was not worth saying. If there had been an officer around then, that man would most certainly have been taken up on the charge of disturbing the peace. After his initial out- burst, even though I used singular eloquence in clearing myself, con- versation lagged for some reason or other. H I breathed a great sigh of relief when we had at last separated our linesg and I sent up a fervent prayer that my cousin would turn her nose in some other direction than mine. My snag line I found to have attached itself firmly in a pile, andy that all the coaxing I could muster would not induce it to release its holdg so I applied the force of my arm and broke off all the hooks save one. I went over to the fishing supply store to get a new line. I was in hopes that I should be allowed a short space of time to myself in which to fishg but my hope was vain, In a very short while, my cousin came running down the pier, crying that auntie had caught a fish and that I was wanted immediately. I hurried anxiously and puzzledly to my aunt's assist- 17

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girl friend in the art of driving an auto, she released the hand brake, whereupon the left hind fender handed me quite a fetching crack in the eye, so disturbing my equilibrium in the operation that I sat down with considerable force in the goo of the wet pavement. What I said would have burned up a desert cactus but my cousin remained unmoved, and to make matters worse, my aunt gave me a lecture upon i'manners which interested me about as much as, X is to y, as z is to q: find the value of r, When we arrived at our destination, it was well on toward sig: o'clock and most of the choicest fishing had been missed. Needless to say, I was not in the best of tempers, but the women were jabbering away like magpies. VVonderful! Grand! and Ohl were the most commonly used words. Indeed, I do not believe that I heard much else. It.quite annoyed me. I was for fishing and nothing but fishing, We had come to fish, so let us fish. As the women couldn't see my reasoning, and as they insisted on sightseeing instead of fishing, I left them and started out to find a good comfortable bench from which to operate. In about an hour the stragglers straggled up, still exclaiming with large Ah's! and Oh's! They had not missed me yet. I had two lines out, a halibut line, which is one having the ordinary sinker, hooks and bait: the other, the snag line, consisting of a number of shiny hooks and a shiny sinker, The fish are attracted to this line by one's jerking the line up and down in the water. No bait is used and they are quite convenient, provided one does not hook a pile or a crab, if one does, then fifty cents to the bad. My cousin spotted me first, Why, there is Bruce! she cried. I had had fairly good luck and best of all, I had been removed from the distracting conversation of my aunt's coterie, hence I was in almost a good humor. , Why, hello! I said, holding up a two-pound halibut that I had landed, What do you think of this? That is all well and good, spat my aunt, but if we had missed you, what should we have done? I declare, you have absolutely no consideration for others at all, But you did not miss me, I replied. Are you going to fish here P she veered. Why, I expect so, unless you are, I answered. VVell, we are not. VVe are going out to the end of the pier, where all the decent people are. ' At this juncture a rather large fish, judging from the pull of him, began to nibble at my line. My attention was immediately diverted from my aunt as I began to play him off. I was so absorbed that I 16

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ance. I found her clinging desperately to her snag line. This per- plexed me somewhat for I could not see how she could have caught a large fish on that line. Indeed, I did not see how she could have caught any kind of fish. The line was perfectly stationary where it entered the water, close to one of the piles. I began to be suspicious. My suspicions faded, however, when I tugged on the line. I choked. VYhen I regained enough -of my composure to warrant speaking, I remarked that, by skillfully neglecting her line, she had managed to implant fifty cents in a thankless pile which was absolutely useless as a substitute for fish. My aunt, after thanking me quite coldly for the information, launched out on a general tirade against the unman- nerly actions of young boys, and wound up by saying that it wasn't her fault that the line got tangled. Here she paused as though she expected me to press the chargeg but I had previously ascertained the absolute futility of arguing athwart a woman's willg and so I kept a discreet silence while I viciously broke off the snag line just at the gut which had borne the last hook. After my aunt had been re-equipped, I returned to my base and recommenced operations. I took off a two and one half pound laddie, then I turned my attention to my snag line. I found that, during my absence, it had drifted around and caught in something. I gave a savage pull, calculated to break the line into several million pieces. But no. The object to which my line had become attached, yielded. My hopes soared as I carefully hauled in. When the object reached the surface, I gazed upon the battered remains of an erstwhile milk bucket filled with mud and water and the gathered rubbish of several decades. I marveled at the strength of my line. Very gingerly I worked the bucket up to within two feet of the pier. I leaned down to grasp it. just as my hand touched the rim, the line broke. I was intensely chagrined. I resolved never to fish with a snag line again even were I starving. I had about made up my mind never to come fishing again CI had long since formed a resolution never to come with womenj, when my cousin, that evil messenger, informed me that the school teacher, being very much absorbed in a debate upon the relative lengths of recesses, had indulgently allowed a fish to kidnap her pole and that even now the fish and the pole were under- neath the pier on their way to the opposite side. I had become inured to the silly flagrant foibles of my female torturers and I took this added blow without a word of remonstrance. To make a long story short, I was obliged to descend one of the piles to rescue a bamboo pole, minus the top section and all of the line. at the expense of great injury to my trousers and my personal feelings, physical and otherwise. It was getting along about ten o'clock when I finished my role as 18