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            I am a bridge person, stretched between times and places. I was born in the late '40's in rural Iowa. The adults in my life had vivid memories of the Great Depression; I have vivid memories of a nation booming with material progress. I explained stereo records to my father; my son explained my phone to me. We seldom traveled beyond the state; my children and nieces and nephews have been all over the world. We knew there was more, we watched TV; but we never actually met any people like that. I left that small town fifty years ago, have become enamored with big cities, but that small town has never left me.

            I ate carp growing up. Never at home, only at my mother's sister and her husband's, my Aunt Verna and Uncle Claude. How normal the names of our childhood seem! In sixty-eight years I can count on one hand all the Vernas and all Claudes I have met. My own parents were Willis and Velva, and I can count on one finger the total all of the Willises and all of the Velvas I've met. And it wouldn't even be that if we hadn't named my son after his grandfather. 

            My aunt and uncle lived within easy driving distance, and I often spent the weekend with them. They had lost a daughter in infancy, and their parental inclinations, especially my aunt's, were focused on my sister and me. My aunt was diabetic and severely crippled by arthritis, her body bent into stature of less than five feet. She had been trained as a nurse, and often recalled being present at my surgery at six-weeks. “I could see your little heart beating.”   But when I knew her she sold Stanley Home Products with enough success to support herself and my uncle. Stanley Home Products were sold like Tupperware at house parties, and if there was a Saturday party, I was brought along. 

She would often introduce me with, “This is my son … shine.”  My uncle was physically her opposite—a tall, large-boned man with strong, enormous hands. He had farmed at one time, but now was the strength behind my aunt's enterprise. He had not served in the military. 

“I was too young for the first war and too old for the second.” 

            I suspect the truth was closer to an agricultural deferment. He had a darkly discolored leg that he attributed to bumping every time he would get on or off the tractor. I accepted this explanation without question as well. 

            The weekends spent with them had a routine. They would pick me up at home on a Friday evening. We would eat supper—never “dinner”—and watch wrestling on a small black and white TV. My aunt would make up a bed for me on the couch. Saturday mornings were mostly for fishing. The specific way is long lost to me, but I remember parking the car and walking a path through high weeds. Eventually, we'd arrive at a secluded spot probably on the East Branch of the Iowa River. In all the times we went I never saw another person fishing there.

            Lines on long cane poles were baited with a dough of cornbread and flour, a bobber attached, and the bait dropped into the water. Then we sat very still. I learned patience. 

            While I sat unmoving, I also learned a lot of songs. My aunt had a nice voice and loved to sing; my uncle did not. So she taught me “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?”, “Whiter Than Snow,” “It Is No Secret,” and many hymns. When the fish weren't biting, she would start a song, and I would join in. Then a pause of a few minutes to see if anything would happen and another song begun. We did this for hours. 

            Eventually, a bobber would move slightly. 

            “Don't pull it yet. Wait'll he (It was always a 'he.') takes it.” 

            The red and white bobber would move a bit more, maybe go under and pop back up. Sit. Sit. Breathe slowly. Then in a flash it was under the water and away. 

            “Now! Hook him!” 

            A fish, especially a carp, pulling at the end of a seven-foot bamboo pole has a great deal of leverage. The outcome was never in doubt, but the battle was always exciting. Eventually, he was pulled up, dropped flopping on the bank, and judged. 

            “Oh, that's a big one!” 

            “There's a keeper!” 

            And on occasion a tease if I caught a sizable fish. 

            “What do you think, Claude? Is it a keeper?” 

            “I don't know, Verna. He's kinda puny. Maybe we should throw him back.” 

            This would go on until I would cry, “No! No! He's mine!” 

            “Well, okay. Put him in the bag, Claude. We ought have a little one in there to keep the big ones company.” 

            The hook was removed by my uncle, and the fish put in a “gunny sack.” So for Saturday lunch we ate carp. A fish full of hundreds of tiny bones. A further lesson in patience as bites had to be smaller than the bones. 

            It wasn't the only fish we ate. We also caught bullheads out of lakes and, during an annual vacation “up north,” in Minnesota northern pike and walleye. Sisabagamah Lake in Aitkin County. Again, a place sparsely populated. My aunt and uncle were well-acquainted with a couple whose property fronted the lake and who rented boats and hook ups for at least one small trailer. In the evenings we would go up to their place after supper to visit and play cards.

            Carp. A fish I've never known anyone else to eat unless smoked. A fish so worthless that at one fishing spot in my later life a covered barrel was provided for throwing any carp away. An edible fish, eaten by some out of necessity, few by choice.

            My visits to my aunt and uncle's, like their names and eating carp, were accepted without question or curiosity. I was a child; my world had no larger context. I had no awareness of deprivation, no sense of their near-poverty. But looking back I see their house was tiny, their possessions few and well-used. I see now they did not fish for sport or entertainment, though they made it fun for us kids. They fished for food. I didn't know then that carp was what poor people ate. Carp was what was for lunch with an aunt who doted on me and an uncle who liked to tease. 

            And it was with deep poignancy as an adult I realized those weekends were not just a treat for my sister and me, but were, in truth, my mother's gift to her childless sister. 

            There was little else served with carp—homemade bread and butter—but there was an abundance of love at that table. My mother's love for her sister that delivered me there. My aunt and uncle's love for the child lost now given to the children loaned. And my love for two persons so close then and now so far away.