johnsonboy

My Dad used to wake me up when it was warm in my little bed and frosty out of it, from my prepubescent a nd pubescent dreams into the harsh light of the kitchen, where he would stuff me full of bacon and eggs, and lead me off down the hill, in the darkness, either wet or frozen, to stand on a riverbank at daylight trying to hook a cluster of salmon eggs and drift the bait under a steelhead. He showed me how to do it You have to be sensitive, as well as patient. It's like reading braille, as the bait taps along on rocks, or slides over sandy bottom. If a fish picks it up, you have to pull hard but not too hard and then try to bring it in.
It took me years, probably ten, to get to where I could do this with any kind of effectiveness.
I found out later that he and his relatives had survived winters in the Depression by catching steelhead in this way and preserving the meat in giant pickling urns. they ate the fish and traded or sold it.
It's a lucky thing my survival never depended upon catching a lot of steelhead.
of course, there were a lot more fish in those days.
In the summer we went to the same river every afternoon. Sometimes we met kids from town, and either fought with them or smoked and drank with them.
My sister showed me her tits on a dare and I had to show her my dick. I didn't want to but she and my brother persuaded me, and by the time I got around to it I was so turned on my dick was not just erect, but steaming and looking around like a wino in the sunshine.
Other times I went to the river by myself, camping out in the alders or on the bank, and trying to feed myself on wild plants and the fragile clams or mussels that live on the bottom, half, burrowed in sand.
It takes a lot of them to make a meal, so I usually brought some noodles or bread to go along.
It was also the place I first saw a hippie do a naked swan dive from the rock. Hippies were a new thing then.
I used to spend a lot of time walking up and down the river hoping I would meet one of the girls from school. It was mostly a vain hope but sometimes they would be at one of the swimming holes, the one people could drive to.
Of course under those circumstances there was drinking and flirting going on and I was kind of on the periphery.
But it stimulated my fantasy life.
I guess that's part of the reason I associate rivers with sex, if not with love.
There was always something tawdry and thus fascinating about wondering just what might happen next.
And it was always the same: like trying to read a language that you can't see, and everything depending on success.