A Quickie...

Man, I wish I had time to post a long update tonight, but this is going to have to be a fly-by.

I checked my garden today and everything is coming up nicely. Most things are just starting to poke their heads through the dirt, but I hope to have stuff up high enough to be able to take pictures early next week.

Had a good practice with the Jazz Band tonight. We just kind of jammed for a while. It was fun. We have a small gig tomorrow night at South Rowan High School for the Drama Club fundraiser. We also have a gig coming up on June 6. That will be here before you know it. Still, if you are looking for a good one to come down for, our Dixie's Farmers' Day gig should be a good one to plan for.

This weekend I'm heading out with a couple fraternity brothers and their families to Lake Chatuge for some fishing and catching up. I'm not exactly sure how things will go. I'm the only single going with three families with kids. Yay. I am sure that it will be fun, but I am a true hermit at heart, and four days of tip-toeing around 12-13 other people will have me most ready to return to my little hermitage. There are pluses and minuses to single life! Hopefully I will find a nice fishing hole with some trout. I haven't caught any of those since I was a kid.

Tomorrow I'll be slammed. I have some mowing to do, and would really like to finish putting out my garden before Friday's rain arrives. (Thank God that we are getting rain regularly this year!) There is also a family dinner and I have already mentioned the gig. On top of that I need to go to the bank, the grocery store, do some food prep and pack. Perhaps I won't sleep... That should make me nice and sociable!

Well, if I don't get to update again before I leave. Have a great Memorial Day, and in the midst of your celebrations take some time to remember the men and women who have laid down their lives to give us the freedoms that we so often take for granted.

Yikes!

Have you ever seen anything as bizarre-looking as this fish? It is an oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau). They eat oysters... in the shell. Very impressive. Of course they aren't very picky eaters. They will eat about anything that comes along.

According to Wikipedia:

The fish has a distinctive "foghorn" sound that is used by males to attract females in the mating season, which is April-October. Following the foghorn sound, the female comes into the nest, lays eggs, then leaves (the toadfish lays the largest eggs of any Chesapeake Bay fish). The male fertilizes the egg; they hatch after approximately one month. When the eggs hatch the young toadfish stay attached to the yolk for some time. When the yolk has been absorbed for energy, the young toadfish learn to swim. Even when the young have started to swim the adult still protects its young.

We caught a few of these radical looking fish on our fishing trip this weekend. Actually one of the ones that we caught may have been pretty close to a record-breaker. According to the Wikipedia article they don't get much bigger than 16 inches, and one of the ones that we caught was pretty close to that size.

Our guide told us that they have a pretty nasty attitude too. He said that they will actually come after divers sometimes.

My brother-in-law found out the hard way how aggressive they can be. We had a few in the cooler on ice along with the other fish we caught (a southern cod, several black sea bass, and a nice flounder.) He wanted to show my sister and niece the fish that we had caught and went rummaging around in the ice to find them. Well, one of them still had a little fight left in him and when my brother-in-law got his hand close to his mouth, the fish decided a little pay back was in order.

The next thing we knew, Dusty was bellowing and the fish went sailing through the air! (Shortly after having been attached to one of his fingers!) I told him that would happen! Needless to say he didn't dig around for any more fish.

All in all it was a pretty nice trip. The water wasn't too rough and we caught a few fish. Our guide was OK, although he wouldn't qualify as our best guide ever. That honor would have to go to a fellow that we chartered with out of South Port, NC. Still, it was nice being on the water and catching some fish. We also got to watch a group of Navy ships coming back from Iraq, bringing some Camp Lejeune Marines back from their tour of duty. That was neat too.

Today we got the fish cleaned and I buried their remains in our garden. That should have some future archaeologists scratching their heads one day!

Migratory Urges

Tomorrow begins the annual fishing haaj to the NC Outer Banks. This year's crew is noticably thinner than the past several years. The older fellows are starting to die off, and the younger fellows are busy.

I am glad to be going, but it hasn't always been so. The first year I went I got so frustrated. There were all these men I didn't know that well and I felt like I had to prove my manhood to them by being proficient at catching fish. Those of you who have fished on the surf know that surf fishing is completely different than pond or river fishing. The same rules just don't apply. So I was pretty frustrated. I wasn't catching fish, my line wouldn't stay down and kept getting tangled in everyone else's lines and to make matters worse, they were catching fish and I wasn't even getting a bite!

My frustration kept mounting until one of the men that I knew pretty well pulled me alongside. His son was there and was feeling some of the same pressure I was. Charles told me, "You know, I told Jeff that the whole reason I come out here is just to hang out with these fellows. If I catch fish, it is just a bonus." Well, those may not be his exact words, but it was something along those lines. It helped me to realize that there wasn't a competition and that I could just relax and enjoy being there. Oddly enough, I did relax and began to catch fish.

How many times in our lives do we let a performance mentality ruin the moment? How often do we let it set unrealistic expectations that end up leaving us feeling disappointed and unfulfilled? I can't count the number of times that I tried so hard not to fail that I ended up doing that exact thing.

It is the same with the Christian walk. We will never walk successfully when we are trying to follow some regimen or stand up to someone's perforance guidelines. This is why Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." By our effort we will never be holy and we will never be more worthy to God. It is His grace that produces sanctification - not our human righteousness.

I know some people now that are so afraid of failing and disappointing God that they are pharisaicly trying to maintain a "Christian" law and are failing at it. The problem is that the law always brings death and failure. Human flesh (fallen human flesh, that is) simply cannot live in holiness by adherance to the law. It is only by living life by the Spirit of God that we are able to achieve holiness - it is a free gift so none can boast.

As we learn to relax and allow the Spirit of God to live through us, we will find that we start to succeed!

So, back to fishing. I am looking forward to our annual migration. It will be a good time spent with my dad and my grandfather and the other men who have become familiar over the past few years. I will get to sit on the beach and smell the salty sea air, watch dolphins and whales swimming beyond the breakers, maybe get a little sun, and maybe, just maybe, catch a few fish. Fish or no fish it is going to be a great trip.