right after a well eaten dinner with headache, malaise, and "feeling feverish". They would crescendo through the entertaining sunday evening T.V. programming until, at normal bedtime, I would suffer complete physiological collapse, proclaim my obvious inability to attend school in the morning, and retire, moribund. Monday morning would find me unimproved until after the schoolday had started, at which point I would begin a gradual improvement coincident with dinner time. Unless, of course, I wanted to miss tuesday or wednesday as well. At times, mother might suspect I was making too much of what she still believed was a real illness, but I was always one step ahead of her. I could create a fever on the thermometer at will, lose my color, produce bags under my eyes, even wimper. I once overdid it and was actually hospitalized for three days while they ran tests. I was "mysterious". I did have to be careful not to be sick on fridays because that might create problems with my weekends, which were, season permitting, reserved for hunting or fishing. There are many ways to keep a calendar. The classic one, beginning on Jan 1, was completely superfluous to my childhood existence. My fishcal year began on opening day in April and ran through the last fishing trip in August. At that age, little more than a toddler, my real passion was hunting. The hunting year began with the annual grouse hunting trip to eastern Washington, then bandtailed pigeon shooting on my father's property until the start of duck season. From the duck opener, usually then the first week in October, until the closing the third week in January I hunted ducks some part of every day I was not in school from the age of 6 until I left for college. Our hunting property was five minutes from my father's house. Late January through April was the pits. Therefore my chagrin when, one year, two days before the opening day of grouse season, I ACTUALLY BECAME ILL. Mother fussed as usual, big deal. I took aspirin gladly. Emotionally I was desperate to communicate to her that something was really different this time, I really WAS sick. Not that I was afraid of the illness but I was afraid of missing the once a year grouse hunting trip. Even my father might not take me along if she could produce tangible evidence of infirmity. I couldn't miss the trip. When you are eight years old there are only so many chances to actually shoot and hit something with the .410 I was intrusted with, and the grouse shoot was one of them. Obviously we're not talking about flying birds here. Friday morning my fever was down, but I felt awful. I smiled, restored the color in my face, packed away the bags under my eyes, and went to school. I even hid the vomiting, which under other
								More Text =>
		<= Back
			Table of Contents			Fishtales Start		Order/Contact