Fishing Tales
- Kelly McManus
- Jun 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 2
By Kelly McManus
June 2025
My favorite memories of my childhood are fishing with Dad. When I was 6, we moved to a small rental house on Fish Lake for a year that was on the waterfront with a small dock. Fish Lake wasn’t really a swimming lake even back then with lily pads lining the shore, but it was a great little fishing lake. Our canoe was tied to the dock always ready for an impromptu fishing trip and in my little kid memory it seems like that was just about every evening when Dad got home from work.
As the oldest daughter, I was Dad’s fishing buddy. I’d be down at the dock waiting for him as he drove up from a long day of teaching freshmen comp at the local college, looking like an faded orange buoy in an ancient, canvas life-jacket that was way too big. Mom was very creative about tying me snuggly into it, though, and once I was in it, I could not get out. Dad’s pity at seeing the pig-tailed, round buoy every night waiting on the dock by the canoe is probably why we went out fishing as often as we did. He knew a fellow fishing addict when he saw one.
I’d been canoeing since babyhood, so I considered myself an excellent paddler. It never occurred to me that Dad was completely controlling the canoe from his seat behind me, even though I was frequently told to take my paddle out of the water. I thought Dad was just being considerate and giving me a rest from my exhuberent paddle strokes that soaked us both with water and threatened to capsize us.
Once we had splashed over to our preferred fishing spot and got our lines in the water, then fishing happened. And fishing, at least in my mind and I suspect the minds of most people who love to fish, isn’t about actually catching fish, although that is a nice bonus. Fishing is the whole package: the anticipation of just maybe taking home a big catch of trout to surprise Mom, the light growing longer as the sun sinks slowly on the horizon, the clouds of bug hatches appearing, the fish starting to jump, the feeling one with the lake as it gently rocks beneath the canoe, and most importantly—the conversations.
Everyone knows Dad was an expert storyteller, but he was also an expert teacher. He had a curious mind and was interested in everything. And he was happy to share those musings with an adoring 6 year old, who hung on his every word. Back in those days, Dad thought I was smart. Later in life, some of my not-so-smart decisions might have disabused him of that idea, but as a little kid I basked in the glow of presumed intelligence. At the time, Dad was interested in physics, so that’s what we talked about as we watched our lines.
I was especially interested in atomic physics, probably because this was in 1961. Dad taught me just about everything I still know about the structure and behavior of atoms while floating around Fish Lake. Unfortunately he also made the mistake of bringing it down to my level by comparing atoms to the sand in my sandbox. I’ve been suspicious of sandboxes blowing up ever since. Fortunately, my childish mind did not make the leap to sand beaches, which I still love and enjoy.
Discussing big ideas in a canoe when you are young makes you think big ideas. I still ponder the main big idea that I came up with while floating around with Dad talking physics. My thesis was that there was no such thing as nothing. This baffled Dad, so I tried to explain. Try as I might, my 6 year old vocabulary just could not communicate the big thought Dad had given me. Finally he just gave me the standard metaphysical response that nothing is the complete absence of anything. Oh yes, philosophy was also another of Dad’s favorite topics we discussed while paddling around the little lake.
While Dad’s response disappointed me, it was nothing compared to the response of the nun, who taught my 2nd grade class at St. Charles Catholic school. She had successfully taught 49 of the 50 other uniformed, little second-graders that zero is nothing, except for one little, stubborn, freckled-faced hold-out, who kept insisting that there was no such thing as nothing. I would miss all the zero problems on every test because 0+1= 2. Right?! It all was very simple to me, but it was obvious this nun had not been taught physics by her father in a canoe (the preferred method of learning physics). Eventually the nun resorted to the tried and true method of Catholic school education in the 1960’s (punishment) and had me stand by my desk all day until I folded…which I did not.
Shortly after that incident, we moved back to the tiny college town where Dad taught and I was enrolled in the Education Department’s laboratory school. I fit in much better with my fellow lab rats at the lab school, and the experiments the students tried on us were fun. My new teachers were also much more open to new ideas than Sister Mary Elizabeth. Nevertheless, I did not dare bring up my nothing idea again for a very long time.
After returning to college in my 40’s and being fortified by lots of enthusiastic discussions with young people about everything under the sun, I decided the time had come to give Dad another chance to be stunned by the brilliance of my 6 year-old mind. Mom was out of town with her sister, so Dad invited me to go out to dinner with him. Perfect! It was rare that I got Dad all to myself these days. We had a lovely dinner at our favorite restaurant. Dad was just as fun to talk to as he always was because he was still curious about everything and a voracious reader. Finally I asked him if he remembered my nothing idea? Turns out…not really. But then he was off and running telling me about the latest book on cosmic physics he was reading. It turns out space isn’t a void, quarks, radiation waves, particles, dark matter, and on and on. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I did know one thing—I was vindicated!
“Dad, Dad, that’s it!,” I said excitedly. “There’s no such thing as nothing just like I said when I was 6!”
Dad’s eyes glazed over. “I’m getting tired. Let’s call it a night,” he said, reaching for the check.
Still enjoying the renewed wonder of my brilliance, I offered to do the tip.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll get it,” Dad said. “You still haven’t figured out zeros."
Oh yeah.
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