The Christmas Bass

1986 was a very stressful and expensive time in my life. My wife of 10 years and I had gone through a bitterly contested divorce which ended with everything split equally between us, which according to Florida law meant that she got all of the material things and I got all of the bills.

In order to make ends meet I took a job traveling around the South Eastern United States remodeling K Mart stores. I was gone ten days and home for four. During my time off I was constantly see more with "Daddy's little girl", my youngest daughter who was born the day after Christmas at the turn of the decade. We had named her Christal Joy and I always reminded her that she was the best Christmas present that I had ever received.

The terms of our divorce stipulated neither of us could take our daughter out of the state of Florida without the written consent of the other parent, but one week end in the fall of the year I returned from my remodel job in Clarksburg, West Virginia to find the house empty and no sign of my ex or my daughter.

It was several weeks before I learned that my ex had met an Airman who was stationed at Hill AFB on TDY in Florida at the restaurant in Tampa where she worked and on the spur of the moment had moved with him to Utah with my daughter in tow.

I had hired a lawyer who managed to locate her and serve her papers and eventually my ex was forced to fly back to Florida to appear in court. During the hearing the judge asked, "Where is the child now?" to which my ex replied that my daughter was in Utah.

The judge held her in contempt of court for violating the terms of our divorce agreement and remanded her to custody of the Sheriff to be held in the county jail until such time that my daughter was returned to the state of Florida.

I petitioned the court and received temporary custody of Christal and took a job at greatly reduced wages with a local electrician to be home every night with my daughter. My ex elected to return to Utah with her Airman and sometime after Thanksgiving the court granted me full custody of my daughter.

Financially it became a real struggle as the bills piled up and my wages as an electrician were not enough to cover everything, but Christal and I were very happy to be together and spent most of our time outdoors on the old 5 acre homestead I rented.

The days before Christmas were very stressful for me because funds were insufficient to have the type of Christmas I wanted to give my daughter. I had barely enough to keep food on the table and I knew there would not be enough for presents or a traditional Christmas dinner.

Early one morning my daughter and I went off to the woods and cut a small cedar tree which we decorated with strings of popcorn that we threaded ourselves and ornaments we made from colored aluminum foil, oranges and what ever other things we had handy. The angel at the top of the tree was fashioned from cotton balls, wooden Popsicle sticks, a doll's dress, pipe cleaners and a picture of my daughter for the head.

Faced with the reality of a bleak Christmas I decided to explain to my daughter that we didn't have enough money to do much and asked her if she could do or have anything at all for Christmas what would she like most. I was prepared for her to request something I couldn't afford to do and was quite surprised when she said "Daddy, let's go fishing!" "You want to go fishing for Christmas?" I asked. "Yes Daddy, I'll just use the Snoopy fishing pole you gave me for Christmas last year." That was easy enough, I thought and wouldn't cost anything either, maybe I could still get her something yet.

Christmas morning just after day light we took the shovel from the shed and dug red worms from the compost pile at the edge of the old garden patch and loaded the poles and her dog in the truck and headed out to the pond in the state preserve where I often went to get away and think. Christal knew the pond as well as I did and loved going there. It was quite a hike off the main dirt access road to the pond following a path through the palmettos and dense under brush. We liked to think no one else knew that it was there because we very seldom encountered any one else in that area.

Once we were perched on the rocks over hanging the old phosphate pit I rigged Christal's Snoopy pole with a small hook and bobber and baited it with a red worm. When I started to cast it out Christal said, "Daddy! Let me do it myself!" I smiled and watched as she awkwardly cast the line a few feet out into the water miraculously avoiding the over hanging oak limbs.

I looked down to see the bobber resting on one lily pad and her worm crawling around another pad where it had landed. I asked her, "Christal, do you want me to help you get your bait into the water?" "No Daddy, I put it there on purpose so the fish can see it."

I laughed and began untangling the lines of my two poles, one of which I baited with a worm and cast towards the middle of the pond where there was a deep hole where catfish sometimes congregated. With the other rod I began working the shoreline with a "weed walker" looking for that ol' granddad bass that I often saw swimming, but never could coax to strike a lure.

Christal had propped her pole on a rock and began wandering about collecting snail shells, pebbles, feathers and other treasures little girls love to play with.

The sun had come up warm and bright and the wind caused little ripples across the surface of the water. In the distance you could hear the occasional croak of a bull frog or the splash of a bass feeding on some unlucky minnow. I saw a water snake winding it's way along the edge of the far bank in search of a meal and wondered where Mr. Gator was this morning. Usually by now he'd have popped his head up momentarily to see who had invaded his domain.

An old neighbor of mine had shown me where this place was when I first moved to Florida back in '77 and I had spend many summer afternoons here stalking the elusive bass or catching a mess of speckled perch (black crappy) on a cold winter morning just after the waning of the full moon.

Sometimes I would just come here to knock back a few Michelobs after work and escape the Beefalo Bitch's rantings. I guess most people have a special place that calls them to come relax and mellow out and this was mine.

Although I knew it like the back of my hand, the old phosphate pit always held some surprises; like the morning I sat quietly watching as a doe and her new fawn came to drink next to the cypress knee or the evening just before dark that the hawk family serenaded me with their mating calls and dazzled me with their mid air ballet. I loved this place and even now as I write I realize it has been too long since the last time I visited.

As some times happens I become mesmerized by the quiet and lose myself in thought, my mind wandering aimlessly like the fluff of a dandelion seed wafting on a summer breeze. Out of the corner of my eye I first noticed the crane wading along the shallows and then after a while Mr. Gator's eyes surfaced a few yards away slowly gliding through the water towards her. At the last minute the squawking bird leaped into the air as the gator burst from the water and clamped his vicious jaws shut on thin air. Christal tossed one of her pebbles weakly in his direction and said, "Nyah nyah missed him!"

At that moment there was a loud splash just down below the rock ledge where we sat and I had to do a double take to make sure Christal hadn't fell in head first. To my surprise I saw Christal jump and grab her Snoopy pole and heard her yell "Daddy, Daddy help me get him!" Instead of seeing her reeling in her normal bait sized blue gill there she was with both arms and legs wrapped around her pole trying to keep it from being jerked from her grasp.

I slid down the rocky bank next to the ledge and grabbed for her line while standing calf deep in water, up to my ankles in mud and some how managed to wrestle the fish up on shore. I stared at it in disbelief while Christal jumped around screaming in delight and giggling excitedly.

When I had it safely on a stringer and out in the water I heard Christal say, "Come on Daddy, let's go home!" Go home I thought? You just catch a 6 or 7 pound bass on a 5 dollar rod and reel and you want me to concede defeat and go home?? Before I could say anything I saw her with her little pole heading toward the truck so I pulled her bass out of the water, gathered the rest of the things together and loaded the truck.

On the drive home, Christal just smiled when I told her that was the biggest fish I had seen come out of the pond. Nothing special to her, she acted like she did it every day. When we pulled up in front of the house she asked, "Daddy are you going to clean my fish for dinner?" "You want to have your fish for Christmas dinner, Christal?" She shook her head in the affirmative as she and Paws, the dog scurried off towards the back yard. OOOOkkkkkkkkkk I thought as I unloaded the truck and put everything away and began cleaning the fish.

When he was filleted out I just shook my head as I remembered her worm wriggling around on top of the lily pad and wondered how she caught that slab of fish. Had the worm finally squirmed and wriggled its way to the edge of the pad and just dropped right in the bass's mouth? It made absolutely no sense to me and I had to admit I was both very proud and more than a little jealous of her angling ability.

I heard the old wood floor creak under her steps across the back porch and the sound of the spring stretching and the slamming of the screen door as she came into the kitchen with her little sweater pulled up and wrapped around an armload of booty from the back yard. "What you got there baby girl?" "Daddddeee! I'm not a baby!" she giggled as she unfolded her sweater and began placing her treasure trove on the kitchen table.

There were a few stray carrots left over from the garden, several eggs from the chicken coop, and an armload of some green leafy plants. I held one up and asked her, "What's this Christal?" "Daddy, you know it's poke. You remember." She was right, I did remember, and it was poke; a weed that grows wild by the back fence and tastes a little like asparagus when it's young and tender if it is cooked properly. I knew that we had often picked it together in the fields, but I was surprised she remembered what it was and I was even more surprised that she had found it growing on this property. I didn't know it was here as we had only lived here a few weeks. I also didn't realize there were still carrots coming up in the garden that had been tended by the old lady that lived here before us.

Christal had told me that she wanted poke and fish for dinner. I had cabbage and potatos in the refrigerator so I cut up the carrots and cabbage and made Cole slaw, French fries and bass and I twice boiled the poke like my Cherokee grandmother taught me and opened a can of whole kernel corn.

The table was actually quite full as we sat down to our not so traditional Christmas dinner. There was no ham nor turkey, pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce, no green bean casserole or candied yams, but we ate well that Christmas Day on Christal's Christmas bass.

After dinner Christal came out onto the front porch where I was setting in the swing and gave me a folded piece of paper. On it she had drawn a picture of a Christmas tree, a daddy and a girl and her dog. I felt a tear running down my face, followed by a hug and a whisper in my ear. "I love you, Merry Christmas Daddy!" I looked at her with tears now streaming down my face and said "I love you too, baby girl."

Then she said the words I hear echo in my ear every Christmas day. "Don't worry Daddy, I'll take care of you!" I realized once again that Christmas is not about money, or gifts or turkey or mince meat pie.

The true love and spirit of Christmas was taught to me by a little girl and her Christmas Bass.




I wish you all the love and joy of the season. Please take time to smile and remember the most precious gift you can give a child is your time.