Hook, Line, & Sinker

Sat outside eating catfish this noon, and all that was missing was the Missouri River. Okay, maybe an XLG styrofoam glass of draft beer and the aroma of sunscreen and Deep Woods OFF would have completed the flashback. We lunched at the "Hook, Line, & Sinker" in the trendy Dallas Uptown Lemmon Avenue area on batter-fried jumbo shrimp, batter-fried catfish, Coca Cola, french fries and hush puppies. It was fabulous! I can't wait to go back with my dad, to try the rainbow trout, and maybe the corn on the cob. The boiled crayfish looked good, if time-consuming. Well, actually, I call them crawdads. That's why I flunked the dialect quiz.

In the Eighties, back in Omaha, we spent many fun summer evenings eating catfish and chicken, and watching the Missouri River flow past the Surfside Club. The Surfside is a very classy place, and you can't help leaving way more relaxed than when you arrived in the gravel parking lot. Sometimes motor-boaters on the river give the "Surfside Salute" and moon the diners. Back then we were usually too sun-burned and full of deep-fried batter to think anything of it.







Watching The River Flow
by Bob Dylan

...But this ol' river keeps on rollin', though,
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow,
And as long as it does I'll just sit here
And watch the river flow.

Watch the river flow,
Watchin' the river flow,
Watchin' the river flow,
But I'll sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow.

Thank heaven I had good teachers from an early age about holding a bamboo pole and watching a fishing bobber, or sitting on a Platte River sandbar. Thank heaven for bluegill, sunfish, woodpeckers, red-tailed hawks, blue dragonflies, slow rivers, oatmeal cookies, and kites.