| |
A Long-Standing Family Tradition: A Different Sort of Fish Tale
by Aubrey Bemis
No one’s quite
sure just why Grandpa Herbert began standing on fish, but I’ve certainly heard
tales. Rumor has it that he started doing it for attention when he was a child.
You see, Grandpa Herbert had anywhere from thirteen to thirty-one brothers and
sisters on any given day. Sometimes you had to stand on a fish just to get
recognized.
Dad has always
said that I remind him of Grandpa Herbert, aside from his being old and a man.
“Vanessa,” he’s
always said, “You certainly have inherited your grandfather’s strangeness.”
The truth is, I
don’t remember Grandpa Herbert very well. I was just a little kid when he died,
but relatives and close friends of the family are always telling me, “You have
your grandfather’s eyes, Vanessa.”
“Vanessa, you are
the image of your grandfather when he was a little boy with your long blond pig
tails.”
“Vanessa… you’re
such a freak.”
Oh I have his
smile, his personality, his fair skin, his ability to entertain himself in the
oddest ways… Sometimes I flair my left nostril when I’m confused. Yep, he did
that too. I have his eyebrows, his finger nails, his small pores, his medium
sized lips, his sharp nose, his blah blah blah blah, and a bag of his favorite
chips.
“There must not
have been much left when they buried him, Aunt Marge.”
“Oh, don’t worry,
dear. We didn’t bury him.”
Anyway, I imagine
he started standing on fish out of pure boredom. This place has driven people
to stranger things. You see, we live in Lake George,
New York, a little vacation speck nestled in
the Adirondack Mountains. I’ve lived here my
entire life, and I still can’t figure out why people want to spend their
vacations here. I mean, lots of places have lakes and mountains. Is it the
multitude of miniature golf courses? It’s beyond me what brings the tourists
back here, year after year, Memorial Day through Labor Day. And I bet they
wouldn’t even believe me if I told them that Taco Bell is closed in the off
season.
I see location as
an essential contribution to the origins of fish standing. The way I imagine it,
it was an overcast September day in the village of Lake George.
As usual, there was nothing to do. The tourists had left the village in its
ghostly winter state, but it was only fall and not too cold yet. So in his
boredom, with Taco Bell closed, Grandpa Herbert decided to go fishing.
He limped down the
hill from the shut village shops, through the park, and balanced himself on the
edge of the big wooden pier. The autumn lake jumped and bit his dangling ankles.
The mountains were orange and red and brown.
“I better use my
fall colored M&Ms if I want to catch anything today,” said Grandpa Herbert to
a pair of boys contemplating the edge of the pier, who were both about four feet
tall and who had both forgotten to tie their sneakers. The boys ignored Grandpa
Herbert, as they were in the depths of a serious proposition.
“I’ll give you my blue
parachute man if you jump off the pier and land on that minnow.”
“But they all look
the same!”
“You just have to
keep track of it with your eyes. There’d be no point if it was easy.”
The other boy
picked sand out of his nose, “But I don’t see how--”
Grandpa Herbert
didn’t think much about the boys at first. There were always kids jumping off
the pier and drowning at Apathy Point. But as he sat there and the fish
devoured the fall colored M&Ms, he realized that he had no idea what he was
going to do with his pink and white checked handbag full of fish. He already
had two backpacks and a fanny pack full of fish at home, and his sister only
liked fish caught with spring colored M&Ms.
Grandpa Herbert
glanced over at the boy with the plastic parachute men and then surprisingly at
the soggy boy who hadn’t drowned. The soggy boy, however, did not look at all
relieved to be back on the pier, but only disappointed at having missed his
minnow and his chance at a blue parachute man.
That’s the
approximate time when Grandpa Herbert poured out his pink and white checked
handbag and stood triumphantly on the flapping fish. He was nearly thrown off
the pier. What a thrill. “Do I get the parachute man?” he asked the dry boy. He
now had both boys’ full attention.
That’s how I
imagine it went anyway. His plan was, most likely, to give the parachute man to
the other boy, who obviously deserved it. But then, maybe he just wanted it for
himself. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. No one knows how fish standing really
started, after all. I suppose that is one thing Grandpa Herbert did take to the
grave with him… or wherever it is that he ever ended up. All I know for sure is
that standing on fish has become a tradition in this family. Grandpa Herbert
would be glad to know it. He enjoyed being a trendsetter. He tried desperately
to start fads.
“When I was a kid we didn’t have Chinese take-out,”
Grandpa Herbert would tell his kids, “We had to make our own fun. I bet you
never played stare at the rock. Stare at the rock was one of my favorite games
growing up.”
“What
kind of a weird game is that, Dad?” they’d ask.
“Well, first you
have to find a rock. A good solid old-fashioned rock, not some wimpy little
modern rock. It’s best if you can find one about the size of your head. Then
you set it down on the ground, lie down on your stomach and stare at it. The
idea is to hold the stare longer than the rock.”
The
family always thought that Grandpa Herbert was a tad off, especially after they
tried some of his games for themselves. I guess rock staring wasn’t all Grandpa
Herbert built it up to be. This made them reluctant to try his other games, and
I guess that’s why standing on fish remained taboo for so long. They had yet to
understand the enjoyment that one gets from cool fish scales under your toes on
a scorching July afternoon. Grandpa Herbert did seem to truly enjoy it.
Uncle Rudolf was
the first family member, besides Grandpa Herbert, to stand on a fish. Unfortunately,
just as Uncle Rudolf went to step off of that fish he slipped, fell off the
roof, and died. You see, Uncle Rudolph was going for the world record for the
longest anyone had ever stood on a roof. The fish was brought up to him for his
dinner, but it turns out Uncle Rudolf didn’t like seafood. It was most likely some
sort of an anti-dinner fish standing protestant kind of statement that Uncle
Rudolph was trying to make, but of course, we never got to ask him.
After that, Dad
and the rest of the kids started standing on fish out of respect for their poor
brother Rudolf who fell off of his fish and died. Dad says he can still hear
the neighbors.
“What the heck are
you kids doing?”
“Standing on
fish,” they said, “You should try it. It’s delightful.”
The neighbors were
skeptical, as the kids had been at first, but their curiosity eventually got
the best of them.
“So…why is it
exactly that you stand on these fish?”
“Well,” said the
kids, “ever since Rudolf died it’s something we’ve been doing as sort of a
tribute to him.”
“Wasn’t he the one
who always used to stand up there on that roof?”
“Until the very
end.”
“Poor kids,” the
neighbors said, “they’re wrenched with grief for their brother.”
That’s when the
neighbors began to stand on sympathy fish. It really was nice of them.
Soon tourist
season came, and Southerners, from places like Poughkeepsie and such, flocked to the
campgrounds and beaches. When they saw all of the locals standing on fish they
thought it must be some sort of a ritual. In an attempt to not look awkward
they too began to stand on fish. When the tourists returned to their respective
locales, they brought fish standing back with them. According to Dad, this led
to a little known fish standing craze sometime in the late 70’s.
Sure, my parents stood
on fish right on through the 80’s and into the 90’s. They didn’t even notice
that the craze had died out. They always stood on fish when I was little. Mom
would stand on fish while she was making dinner. Dad stood on fish while he was
paying bills. We had the happiest cat in upstate New York. My very first step was
onto a
fish. Whenever people came over they would say, “No offense, but your house smells
like a swamp.”
“Thanks,” Mom
would say, “I was afraid it might smell like fish.”
It wasn’t until
Grandpa Herbert finally died of lead poisoning that the family realized it was
alright to take those beaver traps out of that upstairs closet. It turns out
Grandpa Herbert’s favorite kind of chips were paint chips. He had been eating
the paint that he peeled from that closet for years. Everyone had always blamed
it on beavers. Mom had even called an exterminator about the beaver problem at
one point. She really felt dumb when she found out it was Grandpa.
Exterminators can’t do much about the elderly. Anyway, once my parents realized
that they had adopted one of the hobbies of a man whose other hobbies included
staring at rocks and eating lead paint they seriously rethought the whole fish standing
thing, despite poor Uncle Rudolf who fell off of his fish and died.
It’s been fifteen
years or so since we found out Grandpa Herbert wasn’t beavers, and not much has
changed in the village
of Lake George . Several years
back a local man thought that he had discovered a new species of pine tree. The
Great Metallic Pine he called it. It was a false alarm though. Turns out it was
just a cell tower disguised as a pine tree. Now whenever they put a new one in
there is an announcement on the radio that a new cell tower disguised as a pine
tree has been installed, and its location is given. Just so no one gets
confused. Up until those radio announcements started everyone thought that
those giant metal pine trees with the perfectly spaced, absolutely even
branches, and synthetic pine needles were just more highly evolved than the
rest of the trees.
No, not much has
change here in Lake George. The village gets
quiet once all of the tourists have either been eaten by June Bugs or driven
back to New Jersey.
The only sound is the occasional passing boat in the distance, persuading the
lake to slowly push and pull sand castles into the water, and some guy yelling,
“HELP! I CAN’T SWIM!” There’s one every Sunday. And we stand on our fish
because that’s just what we do here. Sometimes I think I know what Grandpa
Herbert meant when he said, “Vanessa, will you just pass the maple syrup for
Christ’s sake?”
|
