For Pappy

Some of my favorite memories are of those times Dad would take us fishing. He'd always pretend to be satisfied with the cane pole, since we boys always wanted the fancy rigs. Yet it was Dad who baited the hooks, took the fish off the hooks, unsnarled our lines, and patiently endured every kind of childhood clumsiness we could dish out. "We" went fishing, and Dad did 90% of the work, down to cleaning what we'd caught.

I always associate fishing with North Carolina, because on family vacations to see my grandparents, we spent an awful lot of time at various fishing spots. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized why we went out so much--Dad wanted to get out of the house!

Thanks, Dad.