Print

Icefish

As parents, we teach our children in many ways, and as teachers, we do the same thing. My father, I think, taught his children not to take life too seriously, to find a bright side, and to move on. He was a great story teller, and could find a good story in most any situation. He could laugh at himself, and find a “moral” to the story.

I remember ice fishing in northern Nebraska. (Wonder why I thought of ice fishing this week? It’s COLD!) Anyway, it was a fun, but very cold activity. We’d bundle up, pull covered sleds of fishing equipment behind us, find a spot in the middle of the lake, dig an icy hole, sit on the sled, and drop the hook into the hole in the ice. When fishing was good, we’d enjoy pulling perch through the ice; when the fish weren’t biting, we’d drink a cup of hot chocolate, and move to a different spot to dig another hole. Maybe that’s what kept us warm, digging so many holes!

 

My father’s lesson on “Pride Goes Before the Fall,” was this: (He didn’t mean for it to be a lesson, though!) Dad caught a large Northern Pike through the ice. Was he ever proud of that huge fish! He let it lay on the ice quite a while. Then he decided he wanted to save the moment for posterity, so he asked my uncle to get his “movie” camera out. Dad put the fish, which he assumed was dead by now, back on the hook, dropped it into the hole in the ice, and told my uncle to film him pulling the fish out of the water. What he hadn’t counted on was the fact the fish had a little life left in him yet, got off the hook in the water, and when Dad pulled the hook out of the water for his big “Kodak Moment,” the hook had no fish on it! Dad then yelled for my uncle to “stop the camera,” and proceeded to get down on his hands and knees, with his layers and layers of coats, etc., and swish around in the icy water with his arm, trying to catch the fish with his hands! The result was one very cold father with one arm totally drenched inside the equally drenched coat, laughing (insensitive?) relatives observing the scene, no big fish to show the folks waiting back home, and a very sheepish father!

Dad later said he was just trying to illustrate a lesson, but, of course, we knew better. It was just another funny story we kids loved to hear over and over. I think we learned more from our father about not taking situations too seriously, accepting things with a good attitude, even if it wasn’t to our immediate liking, and enjoying our God-given life to its fullest.

Do you have any funny stories that you can share with your children, ones that may be a lesson, or ones that may just let them know you are human, too