“The Fisherman’s Daughter” is a series of short stories written by our youngest daughter, Summer Mayne, who is also an accomplished singer and song writer (not a fisherperson yet but I’m hopeful).

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The first in the series is a humorous view of a family boat ride on a local lake during a visit by Summer, Mark (her boyfriend) and Theodore (her dog).

The Love Boat

I’m on a boat with my mom, my dad, and my boyfriend Mark. Two of us are on a fishing boat. Two of us are on the love boat. And what’s not to love? Just floating on a big lake. Feeling the fresh spring breeze. Staring down at the water. Holding the rod at ninety degrees. Looking up at the open sky. Breathing in. Breathing out. Moving slow as a snail around edges, the banks that rise to fir trees, red sand and great big rocks. Just relaxing with the parents. Parents are relaxing.

Or how about I feel trapped. I am on a small boat with my mom, my dad, a guy they met yesterday and my unusually large Labradoodle, by the name of Theodore, who knew he couldn’t swim, but jumped overboard just the same.

I understand Theodore. You couldn’t hang with the unwritten boating rules of conduct.

#1: Do nothing. Enjoy doing nothing. Talk about how great doing nothing is.

#2: When passing other boats ask “any luck?” not “where you headed?” in an attempt to catch a ride back to the marina.

#3: All talking is considered whining after breaking rule #2.

#4: No one likes a whiner. Even other whiners look down on whiners. You’ll be doing collective whining and then suddenly the other whiner will deem your whining as one step too far.

#5: If you ARE pegged as a whiner, everything you say or do is considered in bad taste. Doesn’t matter if you have legitimate motion sickness, doesn’t matter if you have to pee. Just doesn’t matter.

#6: Petting a wet, whimpering dog is considered commiseration with defectors and makes my happy fisherman Dad want to make even longer, slower circles around imaginary fishing schools.

I could see it in Theodore’s eyes….”Why when God’s green earth is so vast should we stuff ourselves into a little boat with merely a few fruit and nut bars to snack on, just to hope and pray that once every thirty long minutes we get a nibble from a fish… or maybe, and this is the exciting part, hook a fish, so that we can look at him, overestimate his length and put his now injured mouth back in the water?

“Why?”

Ted was pleasantly surprised that he could swim, although the terror in his eyes was pathetic and even as Mark was hoisting his large wet body back into the boat, he continued to doggy paddle violently. My two guys soaking wet on a fishing boat… better call it a day!

Not so fast…..”Luckily these are special quick dry clothes especially for fishing. I’ll be dry in minutes.” Mark says as only a non-whiner could.

I tried. For the love of my Mark, I tricked myself into believing that if he loved being on that boat, then I could love being on that boat. The bad news is loving Mark doesn’t translate into boat fun. The good news is I’m off the hook.