Ten-Finger Exercises

Fish Tales

I baked some flounder filets for supper, because the wrapper of the frozen package said they'd be best that way. They were okay. They were inexpensive and nutritious and a little tasty.

Not tasty like fish I remember though, the ones that I don't think have become more flavorful with the years, but they might have.

Both sets of grandparents had 'lake cottages.' The Thompson cottage was on Manitau Lake in Indiana. It was on the side of a hill, a short steep bank between the lake and the road. The house itself probably wasn't over 500 sq ft on the main floor, if that. It had a living room, kitchen and bedroom. In the kitchen was an ice box and a coal oil stove that fried the best fish you ever ate.

We all used cane poles and fished from a rowboat, but I remember more often fishing from the dock with a hand line Baba made me. There were sunfish and perch to catch; and even if everybody else had to catch 'pan fish' to keep them, Mom would fry up a mess of 'pin fish' if that's all I caught.

The downstairs of the house was the work room and bathroom, and you had to go outside to get down to it. The boat was stored in there in the winter. I remember Baba's cages with crickets and catalpa worms in them to use for bait. The worms spit and were scary. I liked plain old fishin' worms better, and was happy to dig for them in Aunt Edna's garden when we went to visit.

Mom, that's what I called my grandmother Thompson, would take me with her when she went to Aunt Elsie's for eggs, or to Aunt Edna's for a fresh chicken. Mom could twist that hen's neck in a jiffy and then chop it off. I never knew whether to laugh or cry when the old hen would go off headless, flapping her wings. I probably did both. Then Mom would pin it upside down from the clothesline to let it bleed out.

Both Mom and Baba were from familes of eight children, mostly girls, so there were multitudes of great-aunts all over Indiana. There were often cats and new kittens hanging around the barn at Uncle Frank's farm. Every time we came by he'd tell me he'd just taken all the kittens out and drowned them, and I'd cry. Mother told me he had always teased her too. When they went on family picnics, he'd always tell her, "Betty, I sure am sorry but I accidentally put my foot in the cream pie."

Maybe I'll go on with the Cantwell lake cottage and fish stories tomorrow.

About flounder though, Mother and I used to go to the Emory University cafeteria on nights Daddy was working late, and we'd have flounder almondine and turnip greens as often as they were on the menu. I sure miss cafeterias. We don't have them out west much. Maybe they've disappeared everywhere.