Moon and whoo!

OK, so right away I'm gonna let you know that I have no way of documenting this moment besides my somewhat addled memory. I had my phone with me, but it's got a shitty camera. And I don't think I could have captured the awesome that kinda happened even with a good camera.

Lemme 'splain...

Last Friday, while in the glorious throes of a mild bourbon buzz, I happened to notice the not-quite-full moon shining into our living room. What is that called? Gibbous moon? Gibbon moon? Monkey-Ass moon? Something like that. Anywho, we live on the east side of a harbor that makes a setting moon or a setting sun a truly glorious site. Even if the setting planetary body gets obscured by treeline on the other side of the water. Whatevs...it's still glorious.

I see that the Monkey-Ass moon is just about to set behind the treeline, so I grab a fresh whiskey and I head outside to solemnly observe the event. The moon was cooking that night. You know when a film shows a sun or moon set in fast motion? That's how it looked. I was barely out there for five minutes and I could actually see the moon racing to the treeline in some weird surreal way.

Then, just as the moon was going behind the treeline, I heard a gigantic "WHOO!" coming from the middle of the harbor. Maybe just about 50 yards away from where I was sitting. Turns out that there were a couple of guys out there in a dinghy doing some night-fishing. And, apparently, from the sound of the struggle and the joy of the men they caught themselves a big ole bluefish or something.

It was an odd moment. No one is ever out on an a boat in our harbor. We have a jetty close by and a bridge/causeway running over a dam into a salt-water pond. That's where all the fishermen usually hang out. But that night, there was not only one but three small rowboats out on the harbor. All yacking it up, drinking (I hope) and catching fish. At something like 1 or 2AM.

Every year, I tell myself at the beginning of the Summer that I'm going to spend a bunch of time fishing basically out of my back yard. We have availability to a dock, and our neighbor has 5-6 small watercrafts we can use. It still hasn't happened.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Don't answer that.

Noodling

So I was reading something or other last night with the TV on in the background on mute. I usually don't do that. When I read, I like to read. No distractions. But I wasn't reading anything important and the Yankee game was on, or so I thought. I actually had the wrong channel on, so ESPN was going instead. Whatever.

I looked up at one point and I saw the strangest thing. A dude wrestling with a huge catfish in some lake or river. Took me all of 1 second to put down what I was reading and re-wind to the beginning of the segment to see what I was missing.

It's called noodling, by some. You go down into a river or lake and you root around underneath rocks and logs to find catfish and you wrestle them out of the water with your bare hands. Seriously. And other stuff lives in those nooks and crannies. Like poisonous snakes, alligators or beavers who will BITE YOUR FREAKING FACE OFF! And those aren't the only dangers.  A number of noodlers each year will drown during their battle with the big fish.  Or by having a piece of clothing snag on a rock or downed limb.

My favorite part of the feature was about Lee McFarlin's daughter.  A young woman who took up noodling when not very many women were.  She proved her mettle by catching a 52-pounder!  And her father talked about how his father (a great old character) thought that women shouldn't go noodling, but after her big catch he changed his mind.  "I didn't think she'd be that stupid" the old man laughed.  Ha!

I'm a little torn on this one.  Whenever I see or read about man killing animals for sport or food, I feel a twinge of guilt.  Then again...catfish tastes gooooood.  And I guess it's more sporting to go after that food with your bare hands than a rod and reel.  I can't imagine how difficult this must be.  I've caught a few catfish with a rod and reel and those bastards are fighters.  Catching them with your bare hands, at the sizes up to and over 100 pounds, must be insane!

Another thing is that noodling is illegal throughout much of the country.  There is some environmental concerns, but it also sounds like it might be just a bunch of politics.  I don't know.  Have to look into it a little more to be sure.

All of it's right here on the embedded video.  Enjoy!

___________________________________________________

Note: Remember to play the Badgerdaddy Trivia Challenge every day. Wanna noodle with me?

So, where did I get that from?

"If wishes were fishes, we'd all be Pope" - No idea.

There are words and phrases that somehow just become a part of our everyday life. We hear them on the radio, on the television, in the local pub, on the street and in the bedroom. They speak to us, even cling to us until they become a part of us.

The quote up top is one of those phrases that has stuck to me.

The thing is, I don't know where I heard it from originally. In fact, I'm not even really sure just what the Hell it means. If wishes where fishes, we'd all be Pope. Does it mean that if wishes were as common as fishes, then we would all get our most cherished wish. To be Pope? Who the Hell wants to be Pope anyway? You have to ride around in that stupid bullet-proof car wearing that stupid hat holding that stupid cane. Hey, maybe it appeals to some folks, but I kinda like my way jeans and flip-flops.

I even Googled the phrase. You know what I found?

1. The message boards on deviantART.com. There is one user there who uses it as his/her tagline.
2. This blog from some woman in the Philippines. It's actually a pretty good blog. I've been reading it for a few days now. She used the phrase in one of her posts.
3. My blog.

That's it. That's all there is. We three are the only ones in the history of the interwebs to use this phrase, or so says the Google Gods. Maybe I'm getting the wording wrong, or maybe the three of us are living in a dream world where this phrase actually exists. Like we are all living the same dream at the same time, the three of us. I think I just freaked myself out!

So I put it to you. Have you A) ever heard this phrase before and/or B) heard of where it came from? What are its origins? I'm just dying to know.

Random Wiki: Wham Bam Slam was a short film featuring the Three Stooges from 1955. It was a Shemp, so no one really gives a shit about it. I think the plot revolved around Moe picking up a girl at the local diner, jumping into bed with her and then dumping her. Or Shemp has a toothache. One or the other.