Uncle Gum and the Fishing Trip: A Growing Up Story

Every time Uncle Lynn comes to our house he gives us a piece of gum. Meghan and I call him Uncle Gum.

Uncle Lynn wears a necklace like a girl! It’s made of gold and he calls it “Just a Chain.” One time at Uncle Lynn’s pool, Meghan fell in and we thought she was going to drown. Uncle Lynn jumped in with all of this clothes on, even his shoes!

Uncle Lynn smells spicy like Big Red, and once when I drank Dr. Pepper, I thought it tasted like  Uncle Lynn.

 I told Becca and she said, “Food can’t taste like people because then you’d be a cannibal. You have to say, ‘It tastes like Uncle Lynn smells.” So, that’s what I tell my class at preschool.

Mrs. Linneruth at preschool is going to retire. I ask Mom if that means she is going to die now, and she says no.

On the fishing trip, Uncle Lynn says that Aunt Nancy was married to a different man before him, but that man died. I asked him if that man was a bad man because he died. Uncle Lynn got kind of mad at me and then he laughed.

Sometimes on the fishing trip, Uncle Lynn can feel my tummy and tell me exactly what I ate. He is always right - how does he know?? Somehow he knew that I ate a bunch of candies called rainbow drops and lots of red licorice and two Snickers.

Uncle Lynn and Dad both have boats, but Uncle Lynn’s is cooler. It has a little glass door that you can open and close, and it has a built-in well that the fish get to swim in once they’ve been caught. Dad’s boat smells like mothballs and it’s ugly and brown. Every day I tell myself I’m going to stay with my dad in his boat so he won’t be alone and feel bad, but then Uncle Lynn’s boat calls to me and I have to go. Meghan and I both can’t help ourselves. Becca always stays with Dad.

My cousin Geoffrey is so cool, but he only likes Becca. He made up this story about Pablo Zimbabwe, and he tells us stories about him every night. He always says, “Yeh” and Becca says it’s because he’s from Washington DC.

Uncle Lynn always tells Geoffrey he has Cherokee blood,and I think that’s no fair. Why does he get to be a Cherokee? My dad has Cherokee on his jeep too. What does that mean?










We went swimming, but it was gross with leeches. I tried to not get the leeches on me, but they just couldn’t help it. We try to pull them off.

Uncle Lynn and Dad like to burn them. They bring these green things in the cabin that burn in a spiral, and that’s where they put the leeches.







Dad says we are  going to have fish stew. I look at the pot while it is cooking and I see a fish eye in there!

When Dad says I have to eat that I run away and think I might run away forever. Or, I’ll probably at least wait until everyone is sleeping.

When I see Dad and Uncle Lynn cutting up the fish, I see how beautiful and how rainbowy the fish scales are.

They would make a beautiful coat. I know how to sew now, and I think I could make a coat, or even a really nice skirt out of fish scales. Everyone will wonder how I did it. And I will make it be secret. I find a plastic bag, and then I go and collect the fish scales that all the people are leaving behind. There are a lot of flies. I put the bag in the camper for later.

Geoffrey teases me a lot and asks me why am I how I am? I tell him I was born that way. And he and Becca just laugh and laugh, and they keep repeating, "Because I was born that way!" and hooting and laughing in the mean way of laughing.

And then Becca says that they picked me up when they were on vacation once, and that’s how I’m in the family. And then, when I got in the camper, Dad said, “We picked up a weirdo.” Becca’s so mean. She makes Geoffrey laugh at me all the time and I hate it.

On the fishing trip, I was looking at a book, and then all of a sudden, everything makes sense and I can read it. It is Hop on Pop. I read Hop on Pop to everyone.

I am so proud.

When we were getting ready to go on the fishing trip, Becca made a book and on every page, she drew what she was going to wear for each day, and how she would do her hair. She probably should have planned harder because when we’re with Dad, our hair always looks like a rat’s nest. He lets it be really messy.

I notice that when Mom washes our hair she always pours the shampoo on her hand first and rubs her hands together and then puts it on our heads. When Dad does it, he just puts the shampoo right on our head. Why do they do it different?

Dad does things a little more sloppy than Mom. But he usually doesn’t get mad, so we like being with him.

Geoffrey says that when I was a baby he said I was so cute all the time, and so what happened??

There’s an old man at the store. He sells candy. There are lots of candies for one cent, and lots for five cents and some that are twenty five. Dad has a fishing trip jar and it’s full of Canadian coins. We look through it and then we fill our pockets with Canadian pennies and dimes. I take a dollar full of Canadian pennies and I count it out, one by one, for the old man, but it was  worth it because I got a candy bar.

When we’re leaving the fishing trip, we get in the camper and dad says something smells really bad. What is it? Becca follows the smell, and she finds my plastic bag full of fish scales.

Dad says, “Throw it out, Babes. How did that get in here?”

I tell Dad about my secret plan to make a beautiful coat out of fish scales, and he just laughs and laughs. Becca throws the fish scales away. I got so close to my dreams coming true. I guess I’ll have to be more sneaky next time.