That turbulence in the water

Fish in Massachusetts are trembling. Sandra and I recently picked up our fishing licenses. They shall know us by our worms.

Or, we might use lures. Or, as the guy at the Phillipston chicken barbecue said, shiners.

The chicken barbecue on Saturday was a part of Phillipston's 50th country fair. We drove through frog-strangling downpours in Fitchburg on our way to the fair, arriving on the town common where not a drop of rain fell all day.

The flea market filled the gymnasium of the elementary school. There you could find Drydene machine lubricant, a rusty electric fence controller, and child car seats into which you could put a child you didn't like very much. There were several two-burner gas stovetops, scary contraptions capable of igniting a kitchen with just a crosswise glance. Still, there were plenty of fun and safe things as well. Most people found at least one thing worthy of purchase. One of the flea market coordinators had purchased and was wearing a beaded necklace that Sandra had contributed.


Mid-day, a pianist was happily playing ragtime tunes on an electric piano in the foyer of the church, the music filling the common from speakers on the front steps.

Inside the old church, quilters from the town and around hung samples of their work from the balcony railings. The quilts, nearly all hand-stitched, were bold and charming. Each had a story that described how and why the quilt was made.

The church had wooden pews, stained dark, with doors for each section. At one time, families would have their own reserved pews.

But, this was a story about fishing. I haven't been fishing in a very long time, since I was a kid and didn't need a license. Back then, the Gardner News published a chart that showed which days in the coming week would be good for fishing. It was about as accurate as an astrological chart, but it was easier to believe. I don't remember why I didn't continue fishing. The last that I remember was working on a horned pout that had swallowed the hook; I was stung a couple of times and fishing stopped being fun.

So, we'll try again. We'll have a family fishing derby this weekend in honor of Father's Day. We will have prizes for the most, least, largest, smallest, cutest, and ugliest fish caught. If we catch something edible, we'll figure how to eat it.

The Massachusetts Wildlife agency publishes a booklet to help us understand the fishing regulations and to know, in case we've forgotten, what a small-mouth bass or northern pike looks like. At the back of the booklet, they publish sunrise and sunset times for the year. (The one we received gave the times for Worcester along with offsets for different places in the state. Boston is about three minutes earlier and Pittsfield is about five minutes later.) For the next week, we'll have the earliest sunrises, about 5:10AM, EDT. The latest sunset, 8:28PM, occurs in late June into early July.