The Prince Of Perch Fishing - University of Pittsburgh Press

on ice chests and buckets, watching our bobbers and gossiping, discussing
kids and grandkids and berating the government, lamenting
above all the price of gas. We drank coffee or pop and hauled a fish
up now and then and nobody kept anything, unless whatever it was
was too big or too stuck to pass up. If you watched, around one or
one-thiry, you’d see Widow Fudge curving down the hill on her bicycle.
Down the steep grade she’d fly, past the salwater ta9 and kite
shop and the quick-fill and Bodega Gallery, which offered tourist-
grade art — fishing boats floating shrouded in fog, sea boulders battered
by surf, gulls standing on pilings with foq sunsets beyond.
She’d hitch her bike to the fence in the dirt lot and head down the
slaxed ramp, carrying a bag she’d pull rom her wicker bike basket,
a bag of zucchini muffins or carrot bread or cookies usually, nothing
too sinful, fixing the pins in her hair as she went. Even the dullest
and deadest among us would brighten, hearing her step.
Well, what have you learned? she’d ask, addressing us all.
Not one single thing, Lady Fudge, Reverend Bob would respond,
shaking his head for the rest of us. It’s a whimsical world,
he’d say — or something similar, equally philosophical. And add:
What’s in the bag? Whiskey?
She’d scowl and ask who caught what. If the action was slow she’d
ask what was the maxer; clearly, she’d say, what we were lacking was
drive. All the while she stepped along beween us — Bob and Casper
and Hammond and Leo B. Jensen and me and whoever (flan-
nel shirts, windbreakers, Dacron vests) — and over and around the
obstacle course of tackle boxes, bait bags, creels, and coolers. She
didn’t exactly tower over us, either. She stood maybe four-foot-ten
in her high-soled sneakers and jeans, hair piled in a windblown
blond bun on her head. She’d accept a diet Sprite or a cup of black
coffee rom somebody’s thermos and tell us how worthless we were
but she loved us anyway. Then she’d pull a hand line out of her
purse — she didn’t own a rod or reel — and get a bit of bait and toss
her baited hook off the dock with her bobber.
Somebody needs to get luck here, she’d say. Guess it’ll have to
be me.
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