Dad, Dog & Fish
Second Edition
A Memoir by Charles Franklin Emery III
Copyright 2010 - All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-4524-4211-2
Smashwords Edition - June 2010
*****
Table of Contents
Preface
Dad
The Salton Sea
Big Fish
Gavilan Hills
Dad and Racing
Conflagration
Bunkie - Enter the Dog
Bunkie and the Demolition Derby
Bunkie Discovers Physics
Bunkie and the Birds and The Bees
Bunkie Goes Abroad
Bunkie Goes to Sunnymead
Bunkie’s Big Day
Bunkie and the Hunt – Part 1
Bunkie and the Hunt – Part 2
Bunkie and the Hunt – Part 3
Bunkie Meets the Missus
Dad and Bunkie
Bunkie's Requiem
Bunkie's Opus
One Heart to Live
Dad Lessons
Dad's Philosophies
Brothers In Arms
Dog Tags
Short Stories
The Car
Gene Autry
Do You Think That He’ll Remember Me?
Imprints
Sweet Pain
*****
Preface
First off I want to make it clear that this book is for those folks that enjoy roasted anything, BBQ, good hamburgers, steaks, fish dinners and wear leather shoes or other products that may come from animal origins. If you do not eat meat or animal products of any sort and are a member of PETA, then this book is decidedly not for you. This book also contains minor colorful language but no F bombs. I highly recommend that adults screen for what they might consider objectionable content.
That said, this book is dedicated to Dad and my yellow Labrador Retriever Bunkie. I also wish to thank my lovely wife Sherry for her encouragement while I wrote this memoir.
My son Jared helped with editing; he's the one responsible for the typos and bad grammar.
I don’t expect this book to change your life, but the events that I write about in this book have forever changed mine. My main intention is to record my experiences with Dad and Bunkie, so those that come after me can know what a good man Dad was and what a great dog Bunkie was as well. This book also offers a glimpse into life in Southern California in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s.
Dad loved to hunt and fish. He lived for trips to the Salton Sea to fish for Corvina and duck hunting and he loved Lake Irvine for the Catfish. He was an uncomplicated man but I remember how in love he was with Mom. I mean he was smitten all his life by Mom and she with him.
They could not have been more different. He had never finished the 8th grade and Mom was a high school graduate. He was a natural with mechanical devices likes locks (he could open combination locks by feel) and Mom could not operate a can opener, but she eventually became a Regional Vice President of Security Pacific Bank (later absorbed by Bank of America).
Mom was also a chess champion and kicked my butt on a regular basis until I learned to hold my own. Dad was a very quiet and private man, while Mom did not meet a person that she didn’t like (well, not many anyway) and would not talk to.
Mom always had a full house, family or friends, my sister and I never knew who we were going to run into in the kitchen in the morning.
My sister is a lot like Mom, I can see Mom in her eyes and Mom's love of people and family. I tend to be more like Dad in those respects; I keep close council with myself and allow few in to my private domain. It's both strength and a weakness.
Carfax Street in Bellflower, California was a wonderful place to grow up in the 60’s. It was a hodge-podge of different cultures; Mexican, white northern, white southern. Low riders and racers and surfers had their own culture and got along well.
Southern California in the Los Angeles suburbs was a great place to be in the 60’s & 70’s; crisp, cold clean air in the winter daytime and frigid nights, beautiful weather winter, spring & fall. Hot as hell in the summer, it was glorious. There were lots of kids in the neighborhood; we even had a street bully.
Anyhow, welcome to my world.
Dad
“The light filters through the curtains in the bedroom as the sun dawns a new day. The couple in the small bed are crowded but comfortable; a marriage not yet strained by time. The man in the bed is in his late twenties, but the way he wheezes you’d think he was in his sixties. However, his labored breathing is not from a physical malady, but from the weight of his three year old son planted firmly on his chest in deep slumber. Rather than wake his son, the father bears the weight agreeably; the father knows it’s a fine morning.”
My earliest memories of Dad consist of moments sliced from time in vignettes such as the one that leads us into this chapter. Dad was so busy providing for our family that we had to grab those slices and do the best we could with what we had.
Dad was born in 1931 in Mt. Vernon Indiana. He was raised on the family farm and I believe a lot of Dad's humor and insights comes from that life on the farm. His constant exposure to farmyard animals and the hunting he did in the southern Indiana bottomlands lent itself well to his outlook on life and innate sense of humor.
He had an awful lot of animal jokes and lots of common sense anecdotes from those experiences. He always told me that if I wanted some insight on how to act, watch a dog. He says dogs do things for a reason unlike human beings and if a dog won't do something, well then, I shouldn't do it either.
I've remembered most of those jokes and anecdotes, and pass them on when I can; much to the chagrin of my wife Sherry and the delight of my son Jared. I admit it; I'm a sucker for cornball humor and my life with Dad brimmed with humor of all flavors.
Dad was not a traditionally learned man, having not finished 8th grade. But regardless of the lack of a formal education, he was one of the smartest men I've ever known. He was a wise man that was fond of foolishness; that quality made his lessons to me all the more palatable. Dad was quiet most of the time, but that brain was always churning. Dad could say more with a look than most college professors could get out in an hour of class.
If I had to describe the defining quality that embodied Dad’s spirit, I would have to say it was his sense of humor. Dad loved and lived to laugh, and even in our darkest family moments we found a way to inject some humor into the situation.
Ever since I can remember, Dad worked for Weiser Lock in South Gate, California, except for a short period of time when he got laid off and worked for Smith Tool. He eventually went back to work for Weiser Lock.
Dad’s layoff was a major forming of my work ethic and a transformational experience for Dad. I learned from Dad's layoff experience that the days of employee company loyalty went the way of the horse buggy, and that you need to develop skills that you could take from job to job.
A company sure wasn't going to be looking out for you. As soon as they think that they can get along without you, they'll dump you to save some cash.
Dad and I held the belief that the more knowledge and experience you can garner the more valuable you become to an employer or client. When the job comes to an end, and it will end, you'll be prepared to move to a new assignment and won't miss a lick.
Dad loved beer; Burgermeister was his favorite, it was also known as Burgie. Dad gave me a sip one time and ruined my taste for beer until I tasted some real beer in my Navy days. That Burgermeister was vile stuff; I think they repackaged carburetor cleaner and sold off their inventory that way.
Dad was a smoker, his favorite brand was Camel unfiltered. He'd smoked since he was 10 years old and until he passed away in 2002. Mom and Dads smoking cured me of ever wanting to try it. I had massive migraines from the second hand smoke and for a while they thought I had a brain tumor and subjected me to every test available at the time. As it turned out, it was the cigarette smoke that was giving me the headaches.
They couldn't quit; so they built an addition on the house and I lived in that, away from the heavy smoke. Once I was out of the constant pall of the cigarette smoke, my headaches went away completely and I haven’t had a migraine headache since.
One of the earliest memories I have of Dad was his early morning coughing and hacking. It would start every day around 3am. At that early age, I had no idea what it was all about; to me it was a normal process that Dad's went through. Mom smoked but she never had it as bad as Dad. Mom stopped smoking around 1985 and never looked back.
Dad eventually quit right after Mom died, but later when we moved him to Pennsylvania, he started up again. That was a sad day for me but at that point in Dads life, I decided not to give him any grief about it. He smoked on the porch of the Pennsylvania stone house and watched life and the critters go by.
Enough of that, I digress.
The year was 1964 and Dad was a dyed in the wool Democrat pulling for Johnson and Mom was a rabid Republican cheering Goldwater on.
Dad could never understand why I voted republican; he always said a working man should be voting democrat; to do otherwise was like shooting yourself in the foot.
Let me just say, that I probably remember this time vividly for the excitement and arguments taking place at the dinner table every night.
We know from history that Johnson wiped Goldwater out, but that story carried through till Mom passed away in 2000; that was the longest election and argument in history, if you lived in our household.
1964 was notable for one other reason; Christmas. I got a BB gun from Dad.
That BB gun sparked a bigger debate that year than the election. Mom did not like guns or hunting, and Dad and I loved both. Mom also didn't like the way we killed fish either; but we loved fishing too, so she eventually learned to live with our passion for hunting and fishing.
Dad loved the outdoors; he was an avid hunter and fisherman, but I'd have to say that he loved fishing best. We spent most of our fishing time at the Salton Sea in the California desert, man was that place hot. It was a perfect place for kids to run wild and not have to worry about getting into much mischief. The Salton Sea is a huge inland saltwater lake located close to Indio California.
Dad spent four years in the Navy aboard light and heavy cruisers during the Korean War; sailing between Long Beach CA and Korea. He was seasick from the time the ship left the dock till the time it berthed. He did this for four years; this should be an indication as to how tough he was. If you've ever been seasick before I don't have to explain this.
I always tried to get him to go ocean fishing with me, but he would have none of it; he used to say that he was seasick for four solid years and he swore that he'd never go on the ocean again. And he didn't either.
Dad bought a 14' Sea King Montgomery Ward aluminum boat with a 6 horsepower Sea King outboard motor, and that's what we’d use at Salton Sea and Lake Irvine. Dad never got seasick on Lake Irvine but there were a few times on the Salton Sea that he'd green up and in we'd go to do our fishing from shore.
Once in, Dad would get a sleeping bag out and lay it out under a tree and go to sleep in that 120 degree plus desert campsite. That was after he'd had a few Burgie's of course. Hey, it was hot out there.
We usually had my best friend Jack with us and Jack and I would head off and do some shore or wade fishing. If we weren't doing that, we’d be trying to catch lizards. Those were some fast lizards; they could run upright like a man and use that tail for a rudder, we didn't catch many of those, but we never stopped trying.
Dad would lay there and watch us chase lizards; he'd be smoking and sipping a Burgie, cheering us on. He'd eventually take a nap and wake in time for some late afternoon and night fishing.
Dad always made sure I had a few bucks to spend on fishing during the weekends when he had to work overtime and couldn't take me. I'd wake up and there would be a five on the table with a note from Dad saying "Go Fishing!"
Dad loved animals, especially dogs. We always had dogs; Mom had cats. Dad could sit for hours and just watch animals. He had a pet covey of quail in Hesperia California that used to roam his back lot. I always kidded him about getting a few for supper and he'd rear back and give me the 'look'.
Dad always had a bond with nature and I know he looked to nature for guidance in his life; I know that's where I got it from. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I still feel Dad around me at all times; as long as I stay connected with nature, I stay connected with Dad.
I don't think I know of but a few folks that Dad didn't cotton to. He was civil, even to people he wasn't particularly fond of.
One of his favorite sayings was: "This guy's as full of shit as a Christmas goose." I could always tell when he was thinking that, he'd look over at me and wink real fast. It'd always bring a smile to my face.
Dad loved to flirt with the ladies too. When I was older and started bringing girls around the house, Dad was always hitting on them. I think he would have had a heart attack though if one ever took him up on it. It flustered the hell out of them and gave him the biggest kick.
He'd always let me know if he approved or not; there weren't many girls he didn't approve of though. Mom would just sit there and roll her eyes at Dads antics, she knew she had nothing to worry about there; Dad was just a natural born charmer. He especially liked picking on Cecilia and Phyllis, Mom's work friends.
No story about Dad would be complete without talking about Mom some.
Mom was Dad's life. I can't say it any other way.
To this day, I have never known married couples that were as devoted to each other as Mom and Dad. They weren't perfect by any means, but they sure had that going for them. In fact, I can only remember one time where they had a loud enough argument that frightened me.
I was about seven years old and I heard a ruckus coming from Mom and Dad's bedroom early one morning. I was still in my pajamas and was standing in the darkened hallway when Dad burst out of the bedroom. He turned around and told Mom "I'm leaving!"
I was stunned. Dad had turned around and saw me standing there. I looked him in the eyes and said "If you leave now, I’ll kill you!"
I don't know why I said that, I guess that I thought Dad was leaving forever and I'd never see him again or Mom would get hurt, or probably both.
He stood there shocked.
Then he started to laugh. He came over to me and knelt down in that darkened hallway, put his arms around me and said "Chuck, you know I'd never leave you kids or your Mom. I'll be with you forever." I grabbed onto him and probably started crying, I don't remember, but it seems that crying is something a seven year old boy would do in those circumstances.
I didn't know that Mom had left the bedroom and was standing behind Dad and Mom had witnessed the whole thing. She was standing there crying.
Dad waited till he knew that I was ok and then went with Mom into their bedroom and closed the door. From that time forward, I never saw a blowout like that between them. Sure, they had their differences and I'm sure that a lot went on behind closed doors. But I was never privy to their arguments after that and I'm pretty sure that they made sure that we kids were never subjected to their arguments after that episode.
Mom was about as close to a genius as I've ever known. She had a head for business and did very well with her career at Security Pacific National Bank. The only thing that kept her back was her weight; I can certainly relate to that, it's a life long struggle for anyone that has bad eating habits and does not exercise enough. I'm sure that this criterion applies to lots of folks.
Mom loved people; I don't believe that I've heard her speak against more than a few people my entire life. She loved her friends, and man, she had a lot of them.
Mom was one of the most loving and kind persons I've ever known.
Mom had a love for family; no matter how bad they were, she still loved them. And we had some bad relatives.
I used to kid Mom that we could trace her side of the family through the State of Indiana Prison System records. She didn't find that too funny, but Dad and I did.
Mom loved to play games; any kind of games that did not involve sports. She loved board games, and was a chess champion on a regional level. We played all the time and especially when we all went camping at Salton Sea. When the personal computer debuted, Mom was in heaven. Here was a whole new gaming world exposed to her. She became a computer geek and marathon gamer.
She played them all: Nintendo, Atari and any game available on IBM computers.
While Mom was a genius, accomplished business woman and gamer, she was absolutely inept in the kitchen. Mom hated to cook; I always thought that Mom was so bad at cooking by design. Like I said, she was a genius.
Mom left the cooking to my Aunt Dee, who was an excellent cook. Aunt Dee was a saint as well. To this day, I've never known a person who was so selfless in her dealings with family and friends. Aunt Dee had a wild side too, but I'll leave that for her kids to write about when they see fit. She was lots of fun and good natured to boot. She passed away at a relatively early age and I miss her terribly, the world is poorer for her leaving us, and that's a fact.
Mom could cook a few things well though; fried chicken and fried fish. Dad loved fried chicken and fish, so that's probably why Mom did it so well.
It just about killed Dad when Mom passed away. But life goes on; Dad was still attracted to the ladies but this time around, Mom was not around to protect him.
When I moved Dad to the old stone house in Pennsylvania to stay with us in the country, it was an adventure for him. We had critters everywhere. It was a joyous experience for him. He'd sit on the front porch in a Cracker Barrel rocking chair and watch the life all around him for hours.
These are just some of the memories I have of Dad. If you've made it this far, maybe you'll stick around for some more. I need to start another chapter, or this book will end with this one.
The Salton Sea
"The young man has wandered away from the campsite and comforting hiss of the Coleman lanterns. It is a clear and warm late summer night with a light, steady breeze. He finds a clear sandy area along the Salton Sea beach and decides to set a while. He lies on his back, gazing upward into the heavens. The Southern California low desert sky at night shimmers; the bright and varied pinpoints of starlight stand out in stark contrast against an infinite cocoon of darkness. How insignificant he feels, enveloped by the darkness and presented with the magnificence of the starry sky above. He feels privileged to witness and be a part of this tapestry; this point in time is his and his alone, certainly a gift. The fresh, yet melancholy scent of sage brush wafts over and through him and refreshes him anew. Yes, this time is most certainly a gift."
The Salton Sea is the perfect place for kids to raise hell. It does not matter how old your kids are; young children can have a good time, teenagers can have a better time.
It's hot though. Boy is it hot.
And sometimes it stinks. Boy howdy, does it ever.
Once a year, the red tide moves in and depletes the oxygen in the salty water and the fish die off. They float to the top and start to rot. Eventually, the dead fish carpet the beach in waves for miles. But heck, kids don't care about rotting fish, that's cool.
Mom, on the other hand, always called the Ranger Stations to see if the red tide was in; if it was in, she'd stay home and read. She wasn't partial to rotting fish. That never stopped me and Dad though; we'd go and camp far away from the beach to miss the rankest stench. It was still pretty ripe though.
They also had mutant horse flies at Salton Sea. They would cruise around the campgrounds looking for their next meal, usually a human back was a preferred lunching spot or maybe they would just latch onto a small dog and cart him off for brunch.
Just kidding about the dog; the horse flies preferred squirrels over the dogs and very rarely made off with Chi-Chi.
The store owners up at North Shore used to pay us kids a nickel apiece for a horse fly; a dime for scorpions.
Between fishing, chasing lizards and killing and selling mutant horse flies, we kept pretty busy.
Most of the time it was just really hot at Salton Sea. It was so hot in the daytime that the lizards would run from shady spot to shady spot; just like us kids. Summertime nights were so hot, that I slept in the campground showers with the showers running as a sort of impromptu swamp cooler.
Speaking of lizards, there is a desert lizard in the southern California desert that runs upright on its two hind legs, just like a human. They use their tail like a rudder. Those lizards can haul ass too and turn on a dime. Many hectic hours were spent by my friends and me chasing those suckers from shade spot to shade spot. We provided many hours of entertainment to the beer drinking adults in the campgrounds.
I bet you're thinking that this Salton Sea place must be a pretty fantastic place to spend your weekend's right?
You're damn straight it was.
If you were a teenager, it was even better. If there were girls in the other campsites, it was the best. On holiday weekends it was a teenage boys dreams come true. There were plenty of girls for the boys to choose from and plenty of boys for the girls to choose from. There were all kinds of dark and private places to run off to and… talk.
Hormone City in the desert; oh what stories those campgrounds could tell.
That's enough of that for right now.
Salton Sea was all about fishing. We used to stop at the bait shops around the Salton Sea and buy a few dozen mud suckers. A mud sucker was an ugly and dark brown little fish, properly slimy with a big mouth. The Corvina loved them. The Corvina was the prized game fish at the Salton Sea; it was basically a White Sea Bass with an orange rimmed mouth. They had teeth, but were never a threat to a fisherman, but were certainly a threat to the mud sucker on your hook.
Corvina was good eating fish, and the neighborhood always enjoyed the fish fries we would throw after a Salton Sea trip.
There were other fish in the Salton Sea; Croaker and Sargo were the other main fish to catch; Croakers made good Corvina bait. The Sargo were fair table fare, but were by far the best fighters in the bunch.
There are some BIG fish in the Salton Sea. I mean the Corvina can get big; some up to 32 pounds or better. But this is a different kind of fish story.
Dad and I were fishing at the south end of the Sea by Bombay Beach. We were in Dad's 14 foot aluminum boat and Dad always kept a pretty stout rod rigged with a Croaker for bait. He had never had a hit on that rod till that day. Something picked up that Croaker and took off. Dad set the hook and line started screaming of the reel. Dad tightened the drag and the fight was on. We had been drifting north with the wind; but that fish was heading south. It started pulling the boat against the wind. Dad looked over at me and you could tell he was pretty excited.
There was rumor of giant black sea Bass planted in Salton Sea. I don't think it's a rumor. Something a lot bigger than any Corvina was at the end of Dad's line.
Dad fought that thing for over an hour; finally something gave. Dad reeled it what line was left out there and that was the first time in my life that I saw a hook that was straightened. When Dad finally lost the fish, we were over a mile away from where he hooked it.
There's a monster in Salton Sea; I know there is because we left it there.
I remember one time Jack and I took off to do some shore fishing while Dad was taking a nap. We got into the Croaker heavy that day; I remember we got exactly 42 of them. We had no stringer, so we used Dad's favorite green army jacket to haul them back to the camp in, you know like a stretcher. Unbeknownst to Jack and me, we had caught a bunch of spawning Croaker and that jacket was soaked in milt (Croaker spunk) by the time we got back to camp.
We tried to wash the jacket out, but Croaker spunk is some clingy stuff. That jacket looked like a glazed doughnut by the time we got through with it. It smelled really great too. We thought we'd be smart and hide the jacket in the truck cab, behind the seat. We rolled up the truck windows and stashed it behind the seat.
Did I mention that Salton Sea was hot? It was 120 degrees in the shade that August weekend.
Well, we thought it smelled great before; it smelled REALLY great when Dad opened the truck cab door two days later. I can laugh about it now, but I can tell you that Jack and I weren't doing much laughing then.
Later (much later, like 20 years later) Dad would laugh about it.
Needless to say, Dad's favorite green army jacket did not make the trip home with us. For a while there, I thought Jack and I weren't going to make the trip home either.
Jack and I were best friends growing up; Jack's Mom Aggie was divorced and talking care of three kids and was having a hard time of it. Jack spent a majority of his childhood years growing up at my house and I believe that Dad also served as Jack's Dad during that time. I know we each got our butts spanked by Dad on occasion (too many occasions I thought at the time!) when we got out of line. We got out of line a lot.
Dad hated to give a spanking. Boy, I hated the sight of that belt. I always made sure I had my 'Whipping Jeans' on when Dad used to give us a spanking. 'Whipping Jeans' were a brand spanking new set of Levi's; those things were so stiff that you could tolerate a good spanking. Add some good theatrics and you could slide by with minimal damage. Mom always wondered why I never wore those jeans; if they got washed, they'd soften up and not do their job when the belt came out.
Like I said Dad hated to give a spanking. But he knew that it was for our own good; at least that's what he said to us when we were a fixin' to get one.
I learned from Dad that the most effective spankings weren't the ones that hurt the most; they were the ones that sounded the worst. In a kids mind the louder the whack, the worse the spanking. If you held your hand just right, you could make a loud whack that didn't have much bite. I used it on my kids later, and I'm telling you it works.
One of the best things about Salton Sea was the night and ghost stories. Out there in the middle of the desert by a campfire telling scary stories, it doesn't get any better than that.
One night, I was telling Jack a story about the dreaded 'Arbogaster' (I got the name from a fishing lure that I used to have), and he was freaked - I could tell. We were in our sleeping bags lying on the ground. Jacks head was close to a Coleman lantern. Just as I delivered the shock line (you know, the one that scares the stuffing out of you), a bat swooped down at the lantern after a bug and buried itself in Jacks hair. Jack had longish hair that Dad was constantly on his butt about.
Anyway, when that bat buried itself in Jack's hair, Jack screamed.
What happened next is the gospel truth. Jack cleared that fully zipped up sleeping bag in an instant; it was turned completely inside out. He was hopping around the camp trying to get a bat that was long gone out of his hair.
Dad and I didn't stop laughing for an hour. Jack was pissed and I'm sure that when he went running off for the campground bathrooms it was for something more than washing his face. All I know is that he came back in his bathing suit. We made him wash out the sleeping bag when we got home.
Dad liked to gamble some; he got my allowance (25 cents) every week for a year one time by skinning me at the pool table. He loved to play poker once a week at the house with his neighborhood buddies. He used to skin them on a regular basis as well. Later on, I'd play too, and between Dad and me, we'd skin them all alive. I paid for a lot of my dates that way.
Dad usually took me for my allowance but I got him back good at Salton Sea one time.
One day, down at the Salton Sea beach I told Dad that I could make a rock float. He said something to effect of 'Yah, right.' I said 'I'll bet twenty bucks that I can'. So he agreed to the bet in a heartbeat. I reached down and grabbed a big chunk of round rock and pitched it into the sea.
It bobbed around out there like a bath toy. Dad was flabbergasted. I took his twenty bucks.
Here's why that rock floated: Salton Sea is situated in an area that at one time had significant volcanic activity. As a result of that activity, there is a lot of pumice rock in the area. Pumice in its native form looks like a river rock, with pin holes. Pumice is very light. And it floats. Dad did not know that pumice would float; he thought it was just a bunch of round rocks and small boulders.
Dad was pissed and amused at the same time. He didn't stop trying to win that twenty bucks back for years.
Later on I also discovered that pumice was a great BBQ grill cleaner. I went down to Salton Sea and loaded up a truck full of it and took it to the swap meet to sell. I unloaded every bit of that pumice in no time.
I went deer hunting with Dad and Uncle Bob for the first time when I turned sixteen years old. I used a Remington 700 BDL in 30.06 that I borrowed from my uncle Junior Hust. It was a gun that my uncle never used; I believe that I was the first one to ever fire it. It didn't have a scope, just the factory iron sights. It was a good shooter; I sighted it in a few days before we went hunting and I could put three rounds into a three inch circle at 100 yards.
We left for Shaver Lake in the California Sierras that next weekend. You're probably wondering what Shaver Lake has to do with Salton Sea, but trust me; there is a connection.
Anyway, this was my first deer hunt and I was pretty excited. Dad was excited too, he'd been going deer hunting with Uncle Bob for years and neither he nor Uncle Bob had ever gotten a deer.
We made camp by the lake and Dad and Uncle Bob stayed up late talking about past hunts and the hunt coming up. I listened and soaked it all in. we cooked up some canned corned beef and hot dogs over the open fire and roasted marshmallows for desert. The grownups drank their beer and I made do with Cokes.
There is nothing like a night in the Sierras; the flickering light, crackle and smell from an open campfire, the smell of the Ponderosa pines, the mountain air is cool and crisp and the sky is a blazing carpet of stars.
The light from the campfire slowly dwindles as the fire reduces itself to glowing embers; the stars are even more spectacular as the campfire light wanes. I can hardly imagine a more peaceful time as those spent in the Sierras and Salton Sea at night.
I was too excited to sleep much and at the first light, I made a new fire and put the coffee on. I left the coffee percolating and went down to the lake to try for some Trout. In half an hour's time I had five Trout on the stringer, three rainbows and two browns. I caught them on a Mepp's spinner and as Dad would say "They were biting so good, I had to stand behind a tree to bait my hook!"
I cleaned them down at the lake and brought them back to camp. Dad and Uncle Bob had gotten up when they smelled the coffee. When they saw the Trout, the Trout soon joined the eggs and Spam that were frying up in the skillet on the Coleman stove. There is nothing like fresh Trout for breakfast. I fished all three days and filled up the coolers with fresh rainbow and brown Trout and smallmouth Bass.
We ate breakfast, cleaned the dishes and put the food up out of the bears reach before we headed out to scout around and claim our hunting spots. We had purposely picked an area far away from the other hunters that were up on the mountain. It's nuts up there with all the fair weather hunters that show up on opening day and we didn't want to take a chance on getting shot by a newbie hunter. We had our bright orange caps on; it's too easy for someone to mistake you for a deer without having some orange on.
Some folks shoot at anything that moves, but Dad taught me at an early age to make sure of what I was hunting before I took a shot. Sure, you might miss an opportunity but at least you won't make any tragic mistakes.
Anyway, we found an area a few miles from our camp that was heavily trafficked by game, game trails were worn through the Manzanita brush. Uncle Bob set up a few hundred yards away, as was Dad in the opposite direction. Our positions formed a triangle and we knew exactly where each other was.
I found a spot on top of some huge boulders overlooking a clearing in the pines and above a heavy Manzanita patch. I set back up there and waited for something to show. I feel asleep on those boulders with my back up against one of them.
I was awakened by a shot. I stood up and looked around. I saw a buck running away from me through the Manzanita brush at an angle about 50 yards going from left to right and opening the distance. I chambered a round in the Remington bolt action and took aim at his shoulder. I fired and he didn't even slow down. Damn.
By this time he was out 75-80 yards and I chambered another round. I aimed and fired and this time I hit him. He catapulted forward and did a somersault and landed on his back in the Manzanita brush with his feet in the air. He didn't budge an inch after that shot; he was dead before he hit the ground.
I was shaking from the adrenaline and got down off the boulders to go and check out my deer. I made my way through the brush and onto a game trail to get over to the buck. I got over to where I thought he was, but had a hard time seeing him in the brush. When I finally found him ten minutes later, he was still in the same position; on his back with all four legs in the air.
I checked to make sure the buck was dead and then I dragged him onto the game trail to get a better look. By that time Dad and Uncle Bob had found me to see if I got what I was shooting at. When they saw me with the buck, they couldn't believe it. They'd been hunting here for years and here was a kid, on his first hunt, standing over a buck that he'd shot with a rifle with iron sights, no scope.
Dad was beside himself; he'd never live this down when he got home and Mom found out that I'd got a deer the first time out on the first day of the hunt and he didn't. The pressure was on him to not go home empty handed.
We looked the buck over. He was a forked horn; on the west coast he was a two pointer; on the east coast he'd be counted as a four pointer. The antler tines were about five inches long and he was heavy for his size, about 140 pounds dressed out. My first shot had passed through the top of his neck. Uncle Bob was convinced that that hole was from his shot; he was the one that fired the shot that woke me up. But since it was my deer, I get to tell the story my way.
Sorry, Uncle Bob.
My second shot hit him in the shoulder and took out the buck's heart and lungs. He didn't know what happened; like I said, he was dead before he hit the ground.
Uncle Bob showed me how to dress out a deer; I won't go into that here. Not a pleasant job, but a necessary one if you are to hunt or fish.
We dragged that deer back to camp and that was a chore, let me tell you. We dragged that buck up gullies, down gullies and across rocks and streams. When we finally got that sucker back to camp we were beat. We had to get the deer strung up, skinned and bagged before we could rest up though.
We got the buck roped up where we could skin him. I washed him down with lake water and Dad and Uncle Bob showed me how to skin a deer; we bagged the skin for tanning and I stashed it in the crook of a tree away from bears and other critters. Then we washed the deer down again with some more lake water and we bagged the carcass for butchering later and up it went in the tree out of harms and bears way.
Then we rested up and got ready for the next day's hunt. I was ragging on those guys pretty hard and they were taking it pretty good and razzing each other and telling me how lucky I was.
We cracked open a can of Pork and Beans and passed it around. As anyone who has eaten this concoction knows, there is rarely more than one piece of pork in the can. Being the kid in the bunch, I was third in line for the can. I looked in there and saw the pork and spooned it up. I said "I can't believe you guys missed the pork!" and scarfed it down.
That's when I learned of the Tradition. It seems that the Tradition involved canned Pork and Beans.
The Tradition is this: he who shares a can of Pork and Beans and finds and then eats the one piece of pork, gets thrown into a lake, river, ocean, pond or whatever body of water is closest.
In this case, the closest body of water was Shaver Lake; fed from the Sierra ice pack. Did I mention it was fall in the Sierras? Uncle Bob and Dad informed me of the Tradition as they marched me down to the lake. I was a big kid, but I was no match for Dad and Uncle Bob.
They pitched me off the boulders at the edge of the lake into the ice cold November lake water and laughed their asses off. I wasn't laughing; I was trying to get to the bank and out of the water, all the while cussing them as much as I knew how to do at sixteen years of age.
I made it out after a few minutes and spent the next few minutes checking to see where my boys (balls) had gone. I believe that they scrambled up into wherever it is that balls go when they're frozen solid. It took a few hours and a good campfire to get the boys to come out from where they were hiding and join the party.
Dad and Uncle Bob would laugh for hours after the dunking. They'd look over at me and start cracking up all over again. I wasn't really mad; I was having a good time playing along with it. It was pretty funny after all.
We spent the next two days hunting up there. Since I got my deer and filled my tag on the first day of the hunt, my hunting was over. I helped Dad and Uncle Bob by walking through the Manzanita brush trying to get the deer to move so they could get a shot. That Manzanita is some wicked stuff; I needed new jeans and shirts after that two days.
We didn't see a deer in those last two days.
Uncle Bob and Dad were good sports about it though; at least we were coming home with something, the last six years they had been skunked.
We left on Monday morning and made our way home. As expected Dad and Uncle Bob came in for some pretty good razzing from Mom and Aunt Dot.
Uncle Bob butchered the buck and gave me the antlers. I still have those antlers; a few years ago I told my wife Sherry the story after she found them in an old box of my belongings. Unbeknownst to me, she had the antlers mounted on a plaque and gave them to me on my birthday. They are now on display in my office and I look at them on occasion; good memories there.
Uncle Bob made venison sausage with some of the meat and we split the sausage, remaining venison cuts and fish up between our families. That's how our families did it; we would always split up fish and game, so the families would share equally in our hunts and fishing trips. Back then it helped a lot with the food bills for our families and the passel of kids we had.
Our families liked wild game and the venison was a welcome addition to the family meals. Uncle Bob got the hide, I think he tanned and cured it. He took the hooves and used them to make knife handles.
I never did get Uncle Bob back for the lake dunking. I did get Dad back for it the next year. This is where the Salton Sea tie comes in.
Dad and I took off to Salton Sea in the spring to do some Corvina fishing. We were doing really well and had filled our limits of nine fish apiece everyday that weekend. We were making our last trip on Sunday afternoon and only had a few fish to go before we limited out that day.
We had an old 1960 Elgin boat and 40 horsepower Elgin outboard motor that Dad had traded our 14 foot aluminum boat and six horsepower outboard motor to Uncle Bob to get. Let me put it to you this way; Uncle Bob got the better end of that deal; that Elgin outboard motor was a piece of crap. But it was very dependable; you could depend on that thing to not work when you needed it most every time.
We normally never ventured far from shore, but on this day we were way out on the Sea. Sure enough, when it came time to move to a new spot, the Elgin would not start.
Dad got up and took the cowling of the Elgin and started fooling around with it. Thank God we had a good battery, because it took a half hour of cranking the Elgin over to finally get it running.
Dad put the cowling back on the Elgin and stood up. I was at the controls and put the boat into forward gear and started motoring out. I increased speed; Dad was braced up against the motor. I backed down suddenly and Dad lost his balance and staggered forward.
As Dad staggered forward, I jammed the throttle forward, causing Dad to go ass over teakettle flying backward and out of the boat into the Salton Sea.
Payback for the Shaver Lake dunking was upon us.
I was laughing and circling Dad in the water. Dad's sailor ways surfaced and he was calling me anything but Chuck. He was laughing too but he was mad also. That, in itself, was funny as hell. I circled him for a good twenty minutes, reminding him of how cold Shaver Lake was and he should be thankful that we were at Salton Sea in bathtub temperature water.
He didn't seem very appreciative of my consideration though.
I finally let him back into the boat, after I knew that he wouldn't kick my ass. I kept my eye on him for the rest of trip and for a long time after that. We would recall that story later on and for many years after that and laugh about it.
Dad loved his camper truck; Dad loved his camper truck because he now had a place inside out of the sun to keep his beer cold. Dad liked to drink beer. Dad's friends like to drink beer. Sometimes they all drank too much beer. It never got violent, but was almost always funny.
One night Dad and his Salton Sea fishing buddies got a little loose during the beer fest and one of his buddies got sick and puked in Dad's shoes. Dad always left his shoes outside on the ground at the bottom of the steps to the camper door. Grown-ups slept in the camper and the kids slept on cots outside.
I remember getting up and thinking that someone must have gotten sick, cause it was reeking pretty good out there; but I couldn't see anything, so I went back to my frosted flakes. Dad got up and sat down in the camper door opening and slid his feet into his shoes.
I remember looking at him while he was doing this, and I remember the look of wonderment and surprise as his feet hit that cold puke. He hollered and kicked the shoes off and stood there in all his glory with puked up feet. I started laughing when I realized what happened and Dad starting hoofing it across that rocky beach, bare-footed, to the sea to wash his feet off. Now that was disgusting, but man was it funny watching Dad hoof it off down there, swearing a blue streak.
I think his shoes ended up with his favorite green army jacket.
We fished Salton Sea from 1959 until I went into the Navy in 1977. Salton Sea could be a nasty place, but it could also be a fun place, especially when I was with Dad.
Hell, I think anyplace would have been alright with me as long as Dad was there with me.
Big Fish
"The boy enters the tepid waters of the Salton Sea armed with a seven foot fiberglass rod and Garcia-Mitchell 300 spinning reel. It's late at night and the only light is from the Coleman lantern hissing forth upon the bank. The boy feels his way out into the water; feet being scraped and cut by the salt crystal formations that carpet the bottom of the Sea and form a gauntlet between the boy and the chest deep water that is his destination. The boy traverses the gauntlet and reaches water deep enough to start his wade-fishing. The boy sets the bail on the old reel and rears back and pitches his bait deep into the night in search of the big Corvina prowling the depths in search of an easy meal. It's peaceful and the boy drifts off into a light nap, awaiting a tug on his line."
Wade fishing in the Salton Sea at night is an experience that every kid should have to do at least once. First off, there is nothing in the Sea that can hurt you, other than the chunks of salt crystal that litter the Salton Sea floor. Those things will cut your feet to ribbons if you're not careful; of course, how many kids do you know that are careful?
Needless to say, my feet were killing me from the previous night's wade fishing trip.
Let's get back to the wade fishing.
Now that we've established that no sea faring critters are in the Sea to terrorize an unsuspecting populace, we'll get back as to why a kid needs to do it.
First, the Southern California desert night sky is a sight to behold. Every kid should see it; he should see it as far away from any source of light that he can get to. Your mind will open and be stunned by the sheer enormity of the universe displayed above. If the sight of that stellar panorama doesn't makes you wonder, feel awe and help you realize that there is more to this life than just the earth and your home town, then you don't have a soul. It's fantastic.
Second, it's dark. It's really dark. I mean it's so dark out there that you can't see your hands in front of your face. The only light is from the beach bound Coleman lanterns and the light from the campsites a good distance away. On some nights the starlight and moon is so bright, it's like dusk all night long. If you're fishing with a buddy, you can tell ghost stories all night long and scare the beejeezus out of each other.
Third, the air and water are very warm, most of the time you can hardly feel a temperature difference between the two. It's like bath water. In fact, you don't have to get out of the water to find a bathroom it's so warm. Hey, you're a kid. It's the last time before you get to the nursing home that it'll be acceptable to piss your pants.
Fourth, minnows and small Croaker nibble at your legs all night long. You haven't lived till you've felt small fish eat away at you. They don't have any teeth, but you can feel them biting away at your leg hair. It's creepy, therefore glorious to kids.
Fifth, you can sleep standing up. That's right, you can nap standing up. The Salton Sea is so salty that the human body floats like a cork. You can be in chest deep water and just sort of float in place. It's like being in a vertical, all encompassing water bed.
Sixth, bio-luminescence. This might be the coolest thing about being in the Salton Sea at night. When the conditions are right you can see green trails in the water from the big fish chasing the little bait fish. It's awesome. Sometimes it looks like bright green spider web against a black background. It's like a light show sometimes. I'm grateful to have seen it and if you ever get the opportunity, do it.
Okay, now that we all know how cool it is and why every kid needs to do it, let's go fishing forty years ago on a hot August night.
Dad and I had started out for our fishing spot along the Salton Sea beach around dusk. We carried Coleman lanterns, an Ice chest stocked with Burgie, Pepsi and snacks, and our fishing tackle. We didn't have to travel very far to get there; that was an advantage of fishing at Salton Sea, you didn't have to travel very far away from the campsites to get to good places to fish.
We set up our night camp, baited up with live mudsuckers and got into the water.
We pitched out our baits and stood there in the warm chest deep water at the sun set over the mirror like surface of the Sea.
It didn’t take long for the Corvina to make an appearance; I about had my rod yanked out of my hands.
The Corvina made a run, line screaming off the reel. It wasn’t a big fish, but made a decent showing. I got him close enough to me and yelled over to Dad “Ha! I got the first fish, he’s about five pounds.”
When you catch a fish while wade fishing at Salton Sea, you need to walk it back with the fish still in the water and then put him on a stringer. Then you can bait up and start the wade back to where you can start fishing again.
So, that’s what I did. I was right; he was about five pounds and would make a fine meal. Life was good and I had the first fish. I was one up on Dad right off the bat. It was shaping up to be a good night.
It was dark by now, with just enough light cast from the Coleman lantern to see where I was going and to make out Dad’s outline about twenty yards from me.
Dad was walking his first fish back to the stringer. As he passed me he hollered “You might have got the first one, but mines bigger! He’s a ten pounder at least.”
A ten pound Corvina is a pretty good fish. But there are much bigger ones in the Salton Sea. At the time, the state record was 32 pounds.
I pitched my mudsucker out there. I stood out there napping and waited for the next strike. Dad had made his way back out after putting his fish on the stringer and pitched his bait out there.
It wasn’t but a few minutes that I heard Dad yelling and his reel screaming. Hell, it was the middle of the night and pitch black but I could tell that Dad was into a big one.
He yelled “I’m gonna get spooled! I can’t stop him!”
When you get spooled that means that the fish is so strong you can’t stop him; all your line gets stripped off the reel. That's a Big Fish.
I couldn’t see it, but I knew that Dad was running after the fish as best he could. Running in chest deep water is not an easy thing to do. But he was doing it.
Dad yelled “I turned him! He’s a big one! Oh my God, Chuck get to the beach and grab the net!”
Grab the net. I didn’t bring the net. Oh shit.
I reeled in and hauled ass for the shore. Dad was still fighting the fish when I clambered up onto the beach. It was too far to go back and get a net, so I just waited there for Dad.
Dad had finally won the battle and was walking the fish to the beach. As Dad approached the bank he could see me standing there without the net. He started laughing and said “You didn’t bring the net, did you?”
I said “Nope. We’ll have to wrestle him up here.”
We wrestled that monster onto the beach; Dad had the tail and I had him by the gills.
That thing was huge. It was the biggest Corvina Dad (or me) had ever caught. We double stringered that dude and we were done for the night. That fish was easily twenty pounds plus.
Dad was one happy fisherman that night.
We got back to the camp and put the fish on ice. It would not fit all the way in the chest, it was just too big. We forced it in by bending the tail in a hook shape and iced it down good. We got up early the following morning and took the ice chest holding Dad’s fish down to the North Shore Marina to get it weighed before cleaning it.
It weighed in at 26 pounds. The guy that was running the marina said it was the biggest fish ever weighed in at that marina. Now I can’t swear to that, but that’s what he said. It was short of the 32 pound record, but Dad’s fish was still a monster. The guy said that the fish could have easily lost a few pounds of weight since Dad caught it the night before. That fish could have gone 30 pounds.