Fishin' Taught Me to Love...Baseball

"That lake and those fish and us, we all belonged to God, and He said it was ok to fish."
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When I was kid, Mommollie would take me fishing.  Mommollie was my grandmother's name.  Well, not really her name but that's what we called her.  And truthfully, I'm not sure if that's the way you spell it.  Her name was only spoken, never written.  Kinda like Yahweh in the Bible.  Spoken but never written.

When I got older I figured out that because her name was Ollie Talitha, what I think we were saying was "Mama Ollie".  But being from "Missippi", that's what we called her. "Mommollie", cause we ain't got time to say "Mama Ollie" just like we ain't got time to say "Mississippi".

I remember Mommollie taking me to the lake.  I don't really know what lake, they were all the same around Tupelo.  They're in the middle of nowhere with just a dirt road running beside them.  You’d pull off the road, pull out your lawn chair and cane fishing poles and those red and white bobbers and that dark brown box shaped like a small ice cream carton with the air holes punched in the top.  You didn't need a license like you do now.  That lake and those fish and us, we all belonged to God, and He said it was ok to fish.

When you pulled the lid off that box, get ready, because the live worms in that box crawling around in that moist potting soil have kind of a sickening smell.  But Mommollie would reach in that box like it was nothing and grab one of those worms and impale him several times with the hook on the end of her fishing line and throw him out in the lake.  It was gross but Mommollie loved it.

Mommollie always wore flowery dresses.  The one I remember was blue with white magnolia blossoms on it.  Those blossoms matched the color of her hair.  When I knew her, she didn't walk too well.  She kinda shuffled along.  Her shoes looked old, but comfortable. She'd cut slits in them right where the joint of her big toes were so her bunions could breathe a little.  She'd bait my line and I'd sit in that itchy grass next to her in her lawn chair with her wide brimmed straw hat and we'd sit... and sit... and sit... and sit... and sweat.

The "Missippi" sun is hot and there wasn't any shade and not a cloud in the sky.  She'd tell me to keep my eye on that bobber and if I ever looked away, which I did about every 30 seconds, she'd say "Look!" and I'd look back at that bobber and it looked exactly the same as it did when I last looked.  How a person could stare at that bobber and not get dizzy, I don't know, but Mommollie could.

The ripples from the wind in the lake made that bobber roll and bob and I couldn't tell if it was a fish nibbling at the worm or just the bobber dancing in the wind.  Mommollie could tell.  If a catfish or a brim so much as licked that worm Mommollie could tell the difference.  But I'd just sit as long as I could, which wasn't very long, and then I'd hop up and start looking for flat rocks along that dirt road.

I loved to throw things and there are an endless supply or rocks along dirt roads in "Missippi".  I think maybe that's why God put me there.  I’d grab a rock and throw it in the lake.  Sometimes overhand, to see how far in the lake I could throw it, and sometimes side-arm to see how many times I could get it to skip, but always throwing. The way I saw it, lakes were made for catching rocks, not for staring at bobbers.

So there we were.  Me and Mommollie in the blazing "Missippi" sun.  Her staring at bobbers and murdering worms and me throwing rocks.

I loved Mommollie and she loved fishing and fishing taught me to love...BASEBALL!