Fishing trip, prt 1

It was three in the morning and Dad was shaking me awake.

"Hey Joe, it's time to go! Get Sam up too. We need to load the van."

In the split second between opening my eyes and realizing what was going on, I had the strong feeling that anything asking me to get out of bed was simply too absurd to be taken seriously. Then I remembered. Oh, yeah, fishing trip.


From the mattress laid out on the floor I reached up to shake Sam, or what I assumed to be Sam wrapped like a mummy in the heavy cotton blanket. "Sam," I told the mummy, "wake up. We have to get ready for the fishing trip." The mummy stirred -- away from my hand -- and went still. "Wake up," I said, "and get your clothes on." The mummy mumbled something. "That's no excuse. We have to load the van with the coolers and stuff. Come on. Off you go!"

I lifted my younger brother's body and pulled him down onto the mattress on the floor. Beneath his wrappings the mummy thrashed to free himself; Sam's head popped out of an opening, his sleep-scarred face wincing in the light from the hallway. He scowled. He said,

"Aaargagoorgeerargeegorrarr," and twisted like a contortionist in a violent stretch.

"Good morning to you," I told the mummy, and went downstairs to help load the van.

My older brothers Mike and Bill were awake, standing in the kitchen in flannel shirts and baseball caps, coffee mugs in hand. Dad was packing the last of the sandwhiches into the red cooler along with the mustard, maonaise, apples, Sunkist juice pouches, and cheese; he too had a flannel shirt and a baseball cap. He talked excitedly.

"If we can get up to New Hampshire by five-thirty we'll have plenty of time to meet Uncle Ray and have breakfast with him before the boat leaves at six-thirty. Wait'll you see the little seaside diner -- I was there a few years back with Uncle Barney. They serve you an enormous breakfast, eggs, ham, and a mountain of hashbrowns. The waitress is a big German lady named Trudy, and when she put the plates in front of us she said, "Now you better eat ALL of that or you're not coming back in here again.' She meant it, too."

"So did you eat all of it?" Mike asked over the rim of his mug.

Dad chuckled. "Well -- yeah." We laughed as well, imagining Dad and Uncle Barney, both with good appetites, hurridly eating a mountain of hashbrowns under the glare of the German waitress.

Sam shuffled in, wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap. He went for the coffeepot.

"Good morning, Sam," Bill said with a teasing edge in his voice. "What, coffee? You can't have coffee, I'm afraid, sir, you're too young. But we have some delicious -- soymilk, if you want. We just have to, you know, milk the soycows first."

"Mmmm." Sam said. He poured coffee into a travel mug and slipped on the lid. "Are we stopping at Dunkin Donuts on the way?" he asked.

"Once we get in New Hampshire," said Dad, heaving up the cooler. "All right, boys, let's get going!"

"Can't wait to sleep once we're in the van," Mike murmured, as we filed out the back door into the darkness of morning.