Friday, April 28. 1978 Weekender 3
Universal pleasure' of fishing leads
to weekend of drunkenness, mistakes
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By ALLEN JERNIGAN
Photography Editor
I have come to the conclusion that there are but four
universal pleasures and that all other pleasures are
subsets of the primal four. I refer to the pleasures of
sex, drugs, poker and fishing. All pleasures pale beside
the latter.
It has been said that the Lord does not subtract from
a man's allotted span the time spent fishing. Fishermen
die young because they drink so much. A good ole boy
and I took our girlfriends to the beach with us fishing
last weekend. He and I will die young.
This was not the first time we had braved reports of
rain, hurricanes or fallen bridges and struck out for
Manteo. The women rode shotgun as we caravancd
across eastern North Carolina, sipping PBR and
chattering on the CB. Previous treks had been all-male
adventures, but we still managed to make the same
mistakes. We stopped at the McDonald's in
Williamston, ignored the posted speed limit and got
rip-roaring drunk.
The rain was only intermittent until we reached
Oregon Inlet. By the time the friendly ranger had
selected our campsite and we had decided to pitch our
tents, the rain had discarded all uncertainty. With the
religious fervor of the alcoholic, we determinedly
pitched our tents. No, pitched is too kind a word.
Anyhow, somehow, the tents got up.
It was raining, and we were wet, but the Coleman
lantern still blazed faithfully the purring beacon of
technology. Lighting the lantern, like pitching the
tents, we held as a major accomplishment. After an
abortive attempt to fashion a picnic table into a lean
to, and a futile debate on the merits of fishing for
channel bass in the inlet at night, in the cold rain of a
northeast wind but by the benevolent light of the
Coleman lantern we decided to sit in my tent, the
larger and less stable of the two, and tell lies and drink
Scotch.
weekend
theatre
'Ain't Supposed to Die
a Natural Death!
Ain'l Supposed In Die a Nulural Death, a
ja-rocksuul musical by Melvin Van
I'eehles. will k-presented at 8; 1 5 p.m. I riday
and Satuiday in University I heatie on the
campus (il Nnrlli Carolina (ential
University in Duihum,
A mat nice will be pciloiuied at 3 15 p.m.
Sunday
Kenneth Si ceil is dim Imp the musical and
Ins cast includes N((U students and
Iriiili.tin lesiJenls I he pl.t uses poems set
to music to piesenl a poiiiayal ol the !') K
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As though we were entering some Buddhist shrine
rather than crawling into a sagging tent, we removed
our soggy shoes and left them in the sand inside the
door. Linda could not get one of her shoes off and sat
with one foot sticking out the entrance. I broke the seal
on the Scotch, and the rain stopped. I took a hit to
celebrate. We all celebrated and stayed in the tent. We
knew the rain was waiting to ambush us.
After a more-than-due celebration, the topic of
conversation came again to fishing. The ladies argued
against fishing, in favor of sleeping. I reminded them
that sleeping was neither a primal pleasure nor possible
in our condition. Mitch brought up the fact that
fishing was probably not possible either, for to fish one
must stand or sit, while to sleep one merely reclined.
Mitch and I sat in my car and primed ourselves for
the five-minute drive across the treacherous Oregon
Inlet Bridge. We realized we might never return. Good
ole boys kept reporting over the CB that the bridge had
fallen in and that 20-pound bluefish were attacking the
hapless victims of the bridge's collapse. What better
time to fish. The blues were probably even eating the
cars. A bluefish will eat anything, whether or not it
remotely resembles a natural food. A bluefish, like a
fisherman, just doesn't give a damn.
As we reached the far side of the bridge, Mitch
brought up the fact that the bridge hadn't fallen after
all. 1 added that the fishing would probably be the
worse for it. Still unintimidated, we drove to the inlet,
fired the lantern and rigged our fishing gear.
We had inadvertently parked next to two souls more
dedicated, if less intoxicated, than we. They confessed
to being Yankees and to never having surf-fished
before, and they innocently followed us across the
dunes and into a tide pool. As they splashed out of the
knee-deep water, we apologized for leading them
astray. Somehow Mitch and I had avoided the water.
Having found the surf, we began the serious business
of casting. There is an art to casting heavy lures into a
high wind, especially when the caster is higher than the
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Aulumn Dobies
The author without his catch.
wind. I retrieved my initial cast to find an uprooted sea
oat dangling from the business end of my three
quarters of an ounce Mann's grub. At least Mitch's
first cast found the water. . .two or three feet of it.
anyway.
"Well, I didn't backlash it," he said confidently. Ik
cast again, and I heard the tell-tale sound of a severed
lure singing off into oblivion.
"Good shooting," I said. He didn't reply, pointing
instead at the tangled mass of monofilament line rising
from his jigmaster reel. A class "A" backlash.
"The fish are all asleep anyway," he said.
Such was the story of our weekend. Whenever we
were awake, the fish slept or displayed a
foreknowledge of our moves and cunningly avoided us
at every turn. But we didn't care, because we were
engaged in the pursuit of a primal pleasure, or two or
three. What else besides fishing can you do and
completely foul up and still have as good a time as if
you'd done it right? Next time we'll catch every fish in
the ocean or die from a hangover trying.
iu.ci V i
1
Something new ond exciting is about to come into your life -a rock
'n' roll bond culled Nantucket. The ve come up ttw bard way -for tl
pa it five years they've played up ond down the Ea&tern seaboard, refin
ing tlveir craft ond developing o fanatical following. Trie ve bad tfe
unenviable ta-Jt of opening for acts like Yes and Kiss -and Hy've in
variably converted ft mot skeptical of audiences. In fad, ft ve
developed o stage pr ewsnct so spectacular ttwt f pic Records signed
Hwm on ff spot - wiftioul o demo tope or finisJted recording.
My tlieve firtiilifcd Hir first album ord it's filled with every tliirvj
rtnuf's ntoie tln'ir live stiow legwulary - niernof oili songs, powerful vocals,
twtllwit nwytiornpNp wtd o tough, noUA6 barred attitude towards
ni 'n'roll. in rlfis age uf tt latiiv ond the wimjy, low does Hwt yuAi y?
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