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Last Weekend, we got invited to go fishing with Harold "Bubba" Johnson.
By we, I mean me and my Uncle.My dogs were also invited, but chose not come with us, choosing instead to go on a day hike on Uncle Theo's back forty. Although my dogs enjoy eating fish, they are not into fishing, mainly do to the fact that they do not have opposable thumbs and are there for unable to properly operate a rod and reel - although Macky experimented with "bear style" fishing sometime back.
In case you are wondering, "bear style" fishing is when you wade into the water and smack the fishes onto the river bank. Macky saw it on a PBS documentary. He wasn't very successful, a factor that he attributed to his size. Bears on average weigh about 600 pounds. Macky Rae only ways about 6 1/2 pounds, which means he was outweighed by the fishes he was trying to smack.
So my dogs did not come with us fishing. We were joined by John "Bubba" Johnson, who has been Uncle Theo's best friend and fishing buddy since the were kids.
Bubba owns a dog himself, a Rottweiler named Herbert. He (the dog) also does not fish, for similar reasons.
So it was just me and Uncle Theo who went fishing with Bubba Johnson."Bubba" Johnson and my Uncle have been friends since childhood. Of all the people in the county, it is generally agreed that nobody loves to fish more than Bubba Johnson. And nobody knows more about fishing than Bubba. If there is anything Bubba doesn't know about fishing, then it is probably not important to the art of fishing.
Thus having received the invitation, we naturally accepted.
The place we went fishing was the Pixley river, underneath the bridge on the Davenport road. We didn't know that until the day we went. Even Bubba didn't know. After several cups of coffee, Bubba contemplated the weather, and many other factors that only a fishing master such as himself could comprehend, and determined the optimal place to fish that day was the Pixley river beneath the Davenport bridge.It is a mystical thing, I think - sort of a fengshui thing that only true fishermen can know. It cannot be understood, just felt.
So we went to the Pixley river, beneath the Davenport bridge, and true enough it was full of fishes. Trouts and Salmons and Sturgeons and Basses and more.
There even some fishes that were not even native to the area, or even this continent, but were attracted to the Pixley river underneath the Davenport bridge by some supernatural force that summoned these exotic fish to the spot - no doubt the same experience that told Bubba Johnson that this was the spot.
As we were fishing, a funeral procession came down the Davenport road and started crossing the bridge.
For reasons long forgotten, the county cemetery was located several miles from the town of Pixley. So whenever someone passed on, after the funeral services are held at the Methodist church, the bereaving mourners proceeded several miles from Pixly, down the Davenport road (which crossed the Pixley river), until the reached the cemetery where the dearly departed was interned.
As the first car started to cross the bridge, Bubba stopped fishing. This is very unusual, because once Bubba starts fishing very little can make him stop.
It is still told about the time when Bubba continues to fish despite a storm that reached gale force winds!But stop he did. He lowered his rod and reel, then reached up and removed his fishing hat, and held it over his heart. Me and Uncle did the same, and we stood there in the middle of the Pixley river, silently, as the funeral possession proceeded across the bridge, down the Davenport road towards the cemetery.
As soon as the funeral precession had crossed the bridge, Bubba put his hat back on his head (as me and Uncle Theo did as well) and we resumed our fishing underneath the Davenport Bridge.
"You know, Bubba" my Uncle told him. "That was quite kind of you to stop your finishing and such until the funeral procession had past. In fact, it was quite surprising. In all the years I've known you, I didn't think there was any thing that could get you to stop fishing, even for a moment."
"Well, I guess I was being respectful for a change" Bubba responded. "But then, I was married to the woman for dern near 50 years"
