Magic

Growing up my best friend and I would fish at the local lakes in the town. We would never catch anything big, maybe a couple sunnies, a bass, or an occasional trout (when the lake was stocked of course). We would sit on the side and cast our lines out into the canal, which was maybe 10 feet across, with the other side being a tree line.  As you all know, where there are trees….there are lures, lines, hooks, and all sorts of fishing gear that have somehow gotten stuck.

We just enjoyed sitting and trying to be the best fisherman we could be. One day as we sat there at ”The Club”, a rubber worm stuck out of the sand next to where we sat. My friend picked it up and made the switch from metal to rubber. As I sat there laughing at the thought of him catching something with the sandy worm, he hooked it up and took a cast.

In seconds, and when I say seconds I mean seconds, he had what seemed like the largest bass ever to come out of Mountain Lake on the line. We were in utter disbelief. We continued to use that worm and what followed would be the greatest hour of fishing we had ever seen–the worm was magic.

Eventually the inevitable happened, and a cast went directly into the tree line. “I can get it out” and with a strong tug I pulled and snapped the line, the worm was lost forever. We searched the tree line, the water and every store we could find to try and find a copy of the magical rubber worm. Nothing proved as good as the one we found in the sand.

Even though we never found this worm again, that great day of fishing when we were 7 years old will forever be engraved in our minds. From then on we were both hooked on the excitement of fishing. For those naysayers who call it a boring sport , I say it is great time to suck down a cold one and have cigar with your best friend and hope that one of those lures you have in the bottomless tackle box will have some magic.

That to me is  what the American dream about–it is not just about sitting by the lake with your best friend, it is about finding happiness in what you are doing and to spend time doing those things with the people you care about because you never know when that one hour of magic will come.