The Fish Story

[I found an album of some of my stories - which I am reprinting here.]

This is one of those times you wish you had a picture to go with the story, because some fish stories are known to be stretched from the truth. You just need to try to create the picture in your mind as you read along. [Time - around 1972, I have added more details about the house and property to help picture it.]

My grandfather (Paul D Shafer) used to own 175 acres in NW New Jersey - just east of a town called Phillipsburgh (and Easton, PA). Are you a map person? Can you figure out where this might be now? The property was located on a hill. To get there from Bloomsbury, you had to go up a steep road with a hairpin curve.

The property had a farmhouse with wooden winding staircases. There were two of them leading upstairs - one out of the dining room and the other from the living room. The other one went down to the cellar. I recall them sitting their bottles of pop on the steps. Have the fun staircases made it extra fun for hide and seek. I remember at least three bedrooms upstairs. One was for Granddad and Grandma, another had the 3/4 bed in (that I have now), and another had a set of twin beds in it that my parents used to sleep in. There must have been another bedroom - since we had a family of 6 plus the grandparents.

The property had lots of fruit trees - apples, cherries, pears. There were rows of raspberry bushes and a vegetable/flower garden out front. I remember eating from the cherry tree and then having a tummy ache. The yard was pretty big too - large enough to play whiffle ball in or croquet.

Anyway - on Granddad's property was a pond. On one end was a dock with a ladder - so that when we went swimming, we could climb out. I think it was pretty deep. I remember Dave diving off of the dock. I think Dad used to do cannon balls. When I swam, I had to use a life jacket to float - since I didn't know how to swim yet. I remember treading water and feeling the fish swim past me. That was a weird feeling.

The pond was also stocked with fish - bass, perch, bluegill, sunfish and pumpkin seed fish. Granddad had a shed back towards the house that was filled with fishing poles and other tackle. I remember using the shed to change our clothes in, too. I don't think Grandma wanted any wet bodies in her house.

So this one particular day, we were fishing. I had a zebco 202 rod - and had a flat fish lure on the end. I casted it out across the pond and preceded to reel it in. I felt a tug on my line. But I just kept reeling it in - just the same. Then the tug got harder. And I could tell that I had caught a fish. My sister Anne was watching and she said she saw two fish on my line. "What?" When I finished reeling in the fish - there were two 15 inch bass on that one lure. I couldn't believe my eyes. My dad was there to help take the fish off the lure. Then we packed them in a cooler. We were heading the Maine later that day - and so when we arrived there - Dad prepared the fish and mom fried them up in a pan with butter. Yum - they were delicious.

I had witnesses, and hopefully they remember, too. It was sad when Granddad had to sell the property - by then he was in a nursing home. I drove by it again in 1982 or so - and it had changed so much. Most of the fields around them had become cul de sacs with new homes. Who knows if the land is still together anymore.