TRI-LAKES AREA — I generally don’t write about something so personal, but this must have happened time and time again in homes all over The Natural State.
Over the weekend, my mother and brother came for a visit. Before I hugged Mom, my brother announced to everyone, “I brought The Fish.”
Everyone stopped and looked at me and smiled, except for my wife, who raised her eyebrows and stared — hard.
A few minutes later, after the baggage was brought in, my brother brought in a mounted sailfish.
Now let me explain. In 1989, I took my father fishing out of Palm Beach, Fla. I was a travel writer then, working on a story. I asked my father to come along because I could take his picture and get his comments better than writing my own impressions. Plus, I knew he would enjoy it.
The first day out, we were six miles off Juniper Beach at the edge of the Gulf Stream, which really is a river in the ocean — you can see it. A line pulled taut, and the reel zinged out. Dad sat up in the big fishing chair and took the rod in his hands.
As the captain reversed the engines and backed toward the catch, this beautiful sailfish flashed once, shining, out of the water. The mate said the fish was at least 4 feet long. I voted to bring it into the boat. When the sailfish arrived, it was magnificent.
As we returned, the mate hauled out a flag that told anyone who looked that we had a sailfish. It drew a crowd of admirers to meet us.
Dad posed for pictures with fishing pros, a TV celebrity and people walking along the dock. It was a great moment we both enjoyed. The Fish always reminds me of fun with my father. It was on the wall of the living room with several of my pictures of him fishing and on the dock with The Fish.
When he died, Mom said The Fish was mine. But then I lived 2,000 miles away, and you don’t just slip something like that into your carry-on. The Fish is 7 feet long from the point of the nose-sword to the tip of the tail. It is also more than 4 feet high from the end of a bottom “beard” to the top of its big blue sail.
It has taken years for The Fish to arrive. I said I wanted it in my office, but my home office is one of those top-floor rooms where the walls follow the roof line to a point. I don’t think it can go there, and the living room is out of the question.
It is a perception problem. I look at The Fish and see fun with my father. Others say they see a dead-animal trophy.
For now, The Fish is stretched over a small sofa in my office, the head and tail each on an arm. Maybe I can rig something on the slant, close to my daddy’s Army insignias and medals. It all fits here.