One night Dad packed up our '52 Plymouth with ice fishing rods, the kerosene lantern and the bait bucket and said to me, "Let's go fishing!" I was six years old and thought he was teasing. For one thing it was a week night and I never went anywhere on a school night! I'd remembered fishing from the previous summer, but now a foot of snow covered the ground and it was freezing! But I loved fishing with Dad, so I climbed into the passenger seat and wondered just how we were going to manage this adventure.
I held Dad's metal lunch box on my lap, which was a bit difficult after Mom had bundled me up to within an inch of my life. Three pair of mittens kept my fingers warm, but almost unbendable.
A bright full moon in a cloudless sky lit up the snowy countryside like a wintry movie scene. We stopped at a small store and Dad bought minnows for bait. I was fascinated by the small, silvery fish and wondered if I could put one in the bowl with my gold fish at home. So far my bait of choice had been worms. Dad said, 'Here, this is for you." and gave me the change from the purchase, a shiny dime which he tucked into my mitten. Wow! A whole dime! I thought about all the candy that much money could buy and my mouth watered as I felt the cool metal warmed against my fingers.
We arrived at the same lake where we'd fished that summer, but this time it was deserted, just Dad and his tiny over-wrapped daughter who stood stiff wrapped with wool and excitement. Dad pulled my wooden sled from the trunk of the car and piled the gear onto it, then and sat me on top like a Christmas tree topper. We must have made an interesting sight sillouhetted against the snow drifts, but nobody was there to see us. We didn't need our flashlight as the full bluish moon lit up the night with a fluorescent glow. As Dad crunched ahead, pulling the sled, I amused myself pretending I was a movie star on a holiday float in the Macy's parade that I'd just seen on TV. For extra drama I blew out large puffs of air that looked like smoke and nodded to the nonexistent crowd. Back then it was almost patriotic to smoke, so it was a good thing.
After a couple of minutes, I saw the shanties in the distance. It was amazing how a whole little town sprang up as soon as the ice was deemed safe. Since no one else was there it looked like an eerie ghost town. When we reached our shanty, one that Dad said belonged to his friend "Pee Wee" at work, he opened the door and lit the lantern. I stepped inside and sat at the end of the bench, the only thing inside the shanty, and eyed the round hole in the ice. The shanty reminded me of the out-house at summer camp, but the hole was in the wrong place!
The whooshing sound and scent from the kerosene lantern filled the small room. It cast a bright light and sent dark shadows dancing about on the walls. I watched Dad clear the ice from the hole that had partly refrozen. He did it by hand with what is called a 'spud', a metal chopping tool at the end of a broom handle. There was a rope loop on the spud handle and Dad said, as he wrapped it around his wrist, "to make sure the spud didn't end up in the bottom of the lake!" I eyed the hole and wondered if I shouldn't have a rope around me too. Dad must have seen this on my face and said, "Don't worry, your mom has you bundled up too much to fit through the hole." He chuckled and I let out a huge sigh of relief and he chuckled even more.
Dad baited my hook with a minnow and I eased the line into the water. Now and then he'd clear the ice quickly forming on the opening. It seemed as if the lake wanted us to go away and was trying to close us out.
Ice fishing poles don't look like much. The limited space in the shanty requires them to be quite short. I held the pole as tightly as my mittened fingers would allow. Dad then baited his hook and added his line next to mine.
We sat there for what seemed like forever but was probably only twenty minutes. The ice groaned, moaned and creaked and I felt just a wee bit scared. Dad assured me that it was just the ice forming and getting thicker and there was nothing to worry about. I worried anyway. It seemed like we were on our own frozen planet.
Then I felt a small tug on my line and my pole dipped so that it nearly ended up in the water. Dad laughed, saying, "You've got one!" We coaxed the fish out of the hole and onto the ice floor of the shanty. This was when I became 'hooked' on fishing. I finally realized what all the fuss was about. Now I understood why people sat on a dark, cold frozen lake in a strange little out house of a shanty. I was also amazed at how beautiful the fish was with its silvery scales and colorful sides. I must admit to a flash of sadness that it had to die. Dad said it was a sunfish or a perch, I can quite remember.
Soon my toes felt stiff, my fingers were tingling. But we caught about a dozen "keepers" as Dad called them. He said it was time to go home and started packing up the sled while I waited on the bench. My nose started to run and I removed one mitten to use the hanky Mom had tucked into my snowsuit sleeve for just such an occasion. As I did this my shiny dime slipped from my hand and I watched in horror as it bounced onto the ice then splashed into the dark watery hole. It sparkled and glinted in the black water as it danced to the bottom of the deep lake and out of sight. I felt like crying as my link to all that candy disappeared, but I somehow felt a bit like it was meant to be. It seemed as if I owed it to the lake as a tribute for the fish and a magical fishing trip with Dad.