Few who know Earline accuse her of having an overabundance of patience. Earline herself still remembers her kind, forbearing mama saying, “Sister, you have got to learn patience!” Earline loved her mama, she really did. And she wanted to please her. But some things just weren’t possible. What happened on a south Florida Tami-Ami Trail fishing trip back in 1959 shows how far she still was from developing that particular virtue.

Fishing figured largely in those southern Florida months, and not only for Earline and Betty’s weekday trips. Weekends, Earline, Bob, Betty, Al, Bruce, Carol, and Susan sometimes headed down to Key West, but most often out on the untamed Tamiami Trail. Some said that name came from a contraction—“Tampa to Miami Trail,” referring to the paved road across the wild Everglades. But Earline and her sister didn’t care much about the name; it was the fishing, picnicking, and occasional camping there they loved. (p. 98)

On the particular day in question, we were all fishing, and we were all catching a lot of fish. Each of us felt glued to our favorite spots, as was Earline—a little way down the bank from the rest of us. She’d been catching so many fish, she’d used up all of her bait.

Desperate to continue the thrill of the catch, Earline yelled, “Hey, somebody bring me some bait. I can’t leave this spot for a minute!”

Nobody moved. Not a soul even acknowledged her plea, each intent on pulling his or her own prizes from those bountiful waters.

Earline called out again. No response. Good grief! What was wrong with everybody? She needed bait, and she needed it now.

Looking around her for possibilities, she spied a smaller fish she’d caught—a bream. It had been lying there on the bank for a bit, so it was a little sun-dried. Swooping it up with her hand, she raised it to her mouth, bit off its tail, and presto, she had bait, and she used it.

Years later, I asked her how it tasted. “It wasn’t bad,” she said. “Kind of sweet and flavorful.”

A fairly positive response from someone who shudders at the very thought of sushi. And a practical one from one whose patience has its limits.

A detail. An impression. A scene, or a scent. Any one can evoke a memory. Cycling this fresh summer morning on one of Boulder’s quiet bike paths, breathing soft air, gazing at the still snow-capped mountains off in the distance, an image of those decades-ago summer trips with my mother, brother, sister and aunt came rushing back. The memory evoked was of that first, distant view of the mountains as we traveled west across the Colorado plains.

Those mountains had seemed a mirage hovering at the edge of the expansive plains, remote given the haze borne of physical distance and our months of longing for them. “I see them!” one of us would shout, a shout that was invariably followed by “I saw them first.” Then came the predictable bickering that springs from siblings co-existing in close quarters for many hours.

Sometimes, with the mountains in sight, we’d stop at a roadside picnic table for lunch. We loved those picnics, which was a good thing since restaurants were few and far between on many stretches of those mid-1950s highways. Earline always had picnic fixings along. She’d assign one of us to bring out the cooler full of cold drinks and cold cuts, another to bring the box of bread, crackers, and canned foods as she spread a cloth over the table.

Most often one of the cans held that picnic staple, baked beans, a dish my little sister abhorred. On one occasion, then four-year-old Susan decided she’d speak up about having to eat such dreadful fare. Balling her chubby little fists and placing them firmly on her hips while looking Earline right in the eye, in her high-pitched voice she delivered the message to her tormentor. “Mama, if I was Mama and you was me, and you didn’t like beans, I would make you eat beans anyway!”

Earline was not to forget that message, nor was Susan to eat beans for some time. Smiling as I pedaled alongside Boulder Creek, I mused about how a mountain scene can somehow remind one of beans. ~~~

Susan — Annoyed

Susan taking a stand, but in a better humor than with the bean incident.

(Photos by Earline,circa 1953-4)