March 8 – “Scream”

Josh and his family have arrived for a few days.  This week is their Spring Break, so Zakary needed someplace to get in some serious fishing.  Within mere seconds of their arrival, Christina and her kids arrived. And suddenly the pack was doubled.  The noise level rose instantly and stayed there at its apex for, oh, about the next 7 or 8 hours.  Cousins getting together. 

Amidst this merry band of noisemakers, Ezra was the funniest.  All the others (save, perhaps AnnaGrace, who was kind of stumbling through the mass of cousin-ity, pretty much as stunned as I was), were laughing and running and talking excitedly, happy to be with the cousins.  And Ezra?  Well, Ezra was just a bit clueless.  Hard for a little guy to understand exactly what is happening around him.  And his response was somewhat different fron that of AnnaGrace.  Ezra would watch the proceedings for a while, and then, out of nowhere, just scream.  That’s it.  No particular reason.  Just scream.  Had to let us know he was here, too, I guess.  World class … noise.  Oh, and I forgot to mention, at some point in the morning I took out my freshly cleaned and serviced hearing aids.  Sorry if I missed something. 

The next morning dawned upon … Fishing Day.  And of course it was terrible weather for it.  Paramount among the evils of the day was really strong wind.  And to compound things, it was out of the North (code for saying … It was cold).  We caught nothing for a long time.  Typical cold fishing day.  But then, a strike.  Josh’s pole bent toward the water.  A fish was definitely on line.  Now at this point you have to understand something about Josh’s first born, Zakary.  The boy absolutely loves fishing.  So much so that one of his favorite Netflix shows is that one where the guy tries to catch fish with his bare hands, or with just his hands holding the fishing line.  And how could Zak resist the temptation to emulate his favorite TV character?  He grabbed his Dad’s line and started pulling in the catch.  Josh understood what was happening right, so he stopped reeling and let Zak have the full experience.  Zak pulled and the fish pulled back.  Zak tugged and the fish tugged back.  Quite the little struggle before Zak came out on top with a beautiful keeper red fish.  Hand-lined.  Pretty impressive.  That, my friends, will be a story for the ages, one he will be telling his grandchildren.  And like any fish story, that redfish will miraculously grow with every telling as well.  Nice catch, Zak. 

Psalms 37:3 says, “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.”

Father, thank you again for the great fishing and fish we enjoyed yesterday.  Amen.