There are many days I am pretty sure that my Grandpa K is
laughing at his little princess. I am sure amongst the laughter is pride but I
am pretty sure most of it is laughter at my expense. You see I was willing to
try and do certain things but the whole getting dirty and gross was not my cup
of tea. I would fish, but I would not hook a live worm or take a fish off the
hook. At that point I would look to my Grandpa and make him do it. I think that
is why he stopped taking me fishing when I was 8. When a 4 year old does it you
expect it, when an 8 year old does it you stop fishing with that 8 year old. My
dad put up with it until I was 12 and then my brother did it till I was 16 and
after that I stopped fishing. See I still hate putting worms on hooks. Worms
are gross. They are slimy, wiggly and so good for my garden that I can’t help
it, I feel bad killing them. So when I was old enough to know I didn't have to
kill them I started using fake ones and flies, as for the touching fish part,
it still grosses me out but I am getting over it.
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| Grandpa and I after fishing in Florida. |
That is one of the bonuses of my crazy job. Things that used
to gross me out I am getting over. I still can’t deal with fish eyes. I can’t
cook fish heads at work for this reason but touching the slimy fish doesn't
bother me so much anymore. I have learned how to scale and gut a fish. I used
to watch my Grandpa do it when I was little and would attempt to help but I had
never really done it myself. When all of a sudden I had to do it I had to suck
in my fear of not only touching fish, and dealing with fish eyes, but the idea
of pulling out the gills and the slimy gross guts and do it. So I did, like a
boss I might add. I think I handled it so well that when my finger punctured
something yellow and it squirted all over me I went oops and kept going,
meanwhile a few buy standers went nope and walked away. I think between the
accidental puncture, my face as I tried to pull out the guts and everyone
else’s reaction, if my Grandfather K had witnessed the whole thing he would have
been laughing hysterically and not much could make that man laugh out loud. He
was the one who had an amused smile.
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| A fish I cooked at work but didn't have to clean. |
I am not going to lie though learning how
to gut a fish made me wish I had paid a little more attention when we were
fishing. Though my last memory of us fishing was us in the middle of the lake
and I had caught 3 small pickerel and he was getting annoyed he hadn't caught
any.
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| My Grandfather’s fish cleaning knife |
See that is the thing some of the things that I used to fear
doing I don’t any more, or as much. I am still disgusted by fish guts but they
don’t scare me anymore. After eating the fish that I cleaned it not only made
me want to start fishing again but clean one again (I did a few days after I
wrote up the draft of this post).
Historically though cleaning and gutting fish is something
everyone in a household would help with. I a lot of paintings of fish in the
market are being sold by women. The larger ones that a housewife might not be
able to pick up a husband would do but smaller ones a housewife would clean and
cook rather easy. Even if she couldn't fish she would easily clean it and cook
it to feed her family. A lot of families in the country side would have a space
just for this purpose, and old barrel outside the house that they would put a
board on to clean the fish on. (Trust me you want to do this outside, when you
are descaling the fish scales go everywhere.)
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| Beucklear's Four Elements painting, "Water" |
Who knew fish could be historical, now let’s go find me a
rod, a reel, a hook and some bait so I can do a DIY blog on how to scale and
gut a fish.
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| Norman Rockwwll's "Gone Fishing" |
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