My curlylocks daughter had never fished before two weeks ago.  Now?  She's fished three times and is becoming a veritable Van de Kamp.  She doesn't live with me, though I see her most days:  picking her up from school three times a week, eating a school lunch with her every Thursday, and having her stay with me roughly every other weekend.  So, the memories we make are extremely important.  Every step we take together, every snort of laughter, every tear is real and tangible.

We've done theme parks, bowling, tennis, biking, swimming, reading, and even ballet.  But none take the status that fishing has of late.  There's a pond nearby, and the two of us often stroll there (of course, I give her a piggyback ride on the return leg since it's uphill) to either feed the ducks or the fish.  On that fateful day two weeks ago, there was an older gentleman with a young girl already established on the short, sloping bank just off the main road.  Iddy (that's what the girl, his granddaughter as it turned out, called him) sat in a portable chair, one of those khaki-colored ones that fold up into the size of a laptop.  Bailey, the girl, flitted from spot to spot on the shore:  one moment squealing over the flapping fish flying out of the water on the line, the next pouting because the fish weren't biting fast enough.

 Iddy looked at my daughter (call her C), grinned, and said, "Would you like to fish, young lady?"  Immediately, and a bit to my surprise, she nodded and walked over to him.  He had four rods in various degrees of readiness, the closest of which was set to go--all C needed to do was bait it with the worms provided.  Naturally, I had to help with that.  Since I had fished quite a bit as a young boy, my tips to C were brief and knowing.  Thumb press, tilt back, snap forward, release.  She nailed it.

 And, she caught a fish the first cast.  It wasn't huge--in fact, it was as small as my pinkie and ring finger together--but it was a fish.  And C was, pardon the pun, hooked.  Unlike many who first start out (I come to mind), C wasn't terribly squeamish around the worms or the fish.  She did ask me to take off the fish at first, but she jumped right in putting worms on the hook.  Soon, she had caught a half dozen little bream, perch, and trout, tossing them back in as the pond rules dictated.  That hour and a half went quickly, and she must have caught 30 fish, hungry little suckers that they were.  Iddy offered C a rod as a present which she gladly accepted.  Seems he buys them at flea markets, cheaply, and doles them out as most people do advice.

Fast forward two weeks, and all C can think about is going back to the fish pond.  Not three months ago, feeding the ducks (realistically named by C as Black, White, and Mix) was a highlight of the weekend, and now she was on the fast track to being a fishmonger.  We stopped at a store to buy her a new rod.  Truth be told, the rod was for me, though I knew my little cutie-pie mcfly would choose one she liked and, thus, it would become hers meaning I'd get the old one.  I didn't care--just wanted to fish with her.  After that purchase, we got three dozen nightcrawlers (let me tell you those suckers were huge!), then drove out to the pond.

 C is a very bright and loving child with a healthy appetite for reading and, somewhat sadly, Boomerang.  I encourage the former, and counter the latter by attempting to get her outside when I can.  So, I was thrilled she took to fishing so readily.  Soon, our stuff was sprawled out along the bank:  extra hooks, floats, a can of corn (just in case the worms didn't work), needle-nose pliers, lead weights, and those squiggly-wriggly worms so aptly named by C.  While I fixed up the new rod with hook, leads, and a float, C got the old rod, grabbed a worm, split him in half with her own fingers, and threaded one half onto the hook.  By herself.

 Her first cast was a beauty, and soon she had reeled in a little three-inch bream.  Though it was small, C beamed as if she'd just landed a huge tuna.  It was her fish, her triumph.  She grabbed an old glove I'd brought for extracting hooks swallowed a little too deeply, its large size engulfing her delicate hand.  And within moments, C had the hook out and casually tossed the fish back into the water.  She repeated those steps for the next two hours, changing only the length of time it took to remove some hooks, attach a squiggly-wriggly to the line, or land a bream, crappie, or trout.

At one point, we were joined by a young woman and her boyfriend, off from school for the extended weekend.  The woman kept squealing, "Jo-o-ordan!  Yuck, get the fish!"  She hated to touch the fish or the worms.  Jordan, for the life of himself, couldn't cast worth squat, more often than not hooking the plastic bag they had set down on the grass than actually hitting the water.  They had no clue what they were doing.  At one point, the woman spoke aloud about how she wished they had a glove.  Without a word, C stood up, grabbed a glove, and casually walked over to the couple:  "Here, you can use this one."  As she passed by me coming back, she arched her eyebrows as if to say, "can you believe those two?"  Then, it was back to fishing.

 C immersed herself in fishing like little else she has before.  She would rip off little tips as though she had been doing this all her life.  "I like it when those worms wiggle, 'cause I know the fish like'em that way."  Or, "This rain'll help. . .get'em to bitin'."  And, "I know just where those fish like to sit and wait for the bait.  You oughta try over there, Dada."  I found myself smiling for no apparent reason, just caught up in the moment.

And so it went that afternoon. . .and the next morning and afternoon.  C was completely independent.  She didn't need daddy to bait her hook, catch her fish, reel them in, or take the fish off the hook.  She even got where she didn't need the glove.  Her, and my, hands got filthy, reeking of fish slime, worm poop, and pond mud.  A couple of the fish peed on her, too, which elicited giggles and loud "eeewwws."  She did ask for help with one particularly troublesome bluegill which had swallowed the hook deeply, and as she held it in her hands, it literally passed gas.  Her eyes grew big, and I snickered.  "Dada. . .it. . .farted!"  All of a sudden, we were laughing so loud and hard it brought tears to our eyes.

Soon, heavier rains began, signalling an end to the fishing for this weekend as well as serving to remind me she had to go back home.  As we cleaned up our gear, I realized C had grown in immeasurable ways the last 24 hours.  She was no longer the girl who wanted Disney princesses on everything from umbrellas to drinking cups.  She didn't school to be the primary gauge of the young woman she would become.  Tearfully, yet happily, she no longer needed her Dada to do everything for her.  In those electric blue eyes of hers, she had found a new depth, a strength, and a passion.  What better gift can you pass to your children?

My own personal memorial day. . .