Lessons Learned from Fishing and New Shoes

I loved to fish when I was 7 years old. Summers were often spent catching minnows in the creek, fishing for sunfish and bullheads at Wally’s Pond, or early Sunday morning fishing with my dad to the bayou of the Wapsie River.

Wally’s Pond was a tiny body of water that was a few feet deep. It was a short half-mile from our farm on a gravel road. My neighbor, Russell, and I used to fish at the Pond about once a week in the summer.

We used sturdy long sticks as poles and tied lines, floats, sinkers, and hooks to the sticks. Earthworms were dug up from damp places on the north side of livestock buildings. We carried the worms in a tin can.

Most days we didn’t catch anything and soon grew bored with fishing. However, some days we were lucky. One such day, I caught a 5-inch-long sunfish. I was so excited and wanted to take it home to show my dad. Russell had the brilliant idea that we should empty the worm can and put water in it so the fish could stay alive until we got home. It was a good plan but dumping the worms on the ground resulted in them trying to escape. I had the second brilliant idea of putting the worms into one of my shoes.

I was wearing the new school shoes that I had gotten a few days earlier. They were Buster Brown Saddle Shoes, and I was so excited to have them. I begged mom to let me wear them to the pond and she finally relented and said yes. With the new excitement of having caught a fish, we continued fishing longer than usual that day. We knew we had better head for home. I planned on throwing the worms into the pond to feed the fish before we left, as we always did. 

I picked up the shoe to heave the dirt and worms into the pond and my fingers slipped. The whole shoe went floating through the murky water until it disappeared. Russell and I stood there with our mouths open. We knew we couldn’t go into the pond, and I knew I was in big trouble. My mother was going to kill me as this was my only pair of shoes for the new school year.

I limped home with one shoe on and the other foot barefooted. I told my mom that there had been a slight accident and somehow my shoe had fallen into the pond. She was mad. “You are just going to have to go barefoot to school next week” she said. “How could I be so careless?” she asked. I cried, of course, and wondered how my feet would fare when it got colder that fall.

The next day, we went back to Cedar Rapids. I got a new pair of shoes for school, just like the ones I had had for two days. I learned some important lessons from my shoe disaster: 1. Don’t put worms in your shoes, 2. Don’t accidently throw a shoe into a pond, and 3. Moms can get mad, but they will not let you go barefoot to school.