Babbler Excerpt No. 5

"We're having fun, aren't we, Dad!"
Reprinted courtesy of The Beemer Babbler

He is telling a fish story and it contains what he calls a golden moment—one of the transitory, transcendent experiences that can make the afflictions of parenthood seem worthwhile after all. They occur, these golden moments, about as routinely as the flash of ultimate insight known as Zen satori, and it is this spiritual brilliance that makes his eyes go wide and his face register the soul-plumbing awe of a pilgrim beholding the Holy Land.

"It was a couple of years ago," he begins, "maybe three, and Danny came upon some rods and reels in a Sears catalog, and he says, 'When me and you go fishing, Dad, we need to get poles like this.' And it was all his idea, see, because taking him fishing had never crossed my mind—but, of course, it became a solemn promise from that point forward."

The subject of promises apparently strikes a nerve, and "Shortboy" Beemer wrenches his corpulent corporeal self from the sofa and begins pacing the room like a hog on amphetamines.

"You think kids don't remember promises? I got news for you: kids never forget them. I trace my cynicism to that night when I was twelve and a friend of my parents named Larry McCann stopped at the doorway of my room on his way to the crapper and said, 'Have you seen Revell's model Corvette with an electric motor and upholstery for the seats? Hey, I'll get you one.' That's what he said. 'I'll get you one.' Well guess who's been waiting 34 years for his model Corvette, Jack. And Larry's been dead for 20 of 'em. Oh, the horror. The horror!"

Which brings us to the promise kept to take Daniel fishing.

"I hadn't wormed a hook since my teens," explains the Short One, "but it all came back pretty quickly. Fortunately, my former future son-in-law knew of a lake out in Oxford where the fish had been biting like crazy, so I took the lad there. Man, were the fish ever biting! Danny and I caught 17 in the space of two hours."

Okay, so the biggest of the bunch was perhaps three inches long, but size mattered not to Daniel.

"I'm threading up a worm, and my boy says to me, 'We're having fun, aren't we, Dad,' and I said, 'We sure are, buddy, we sure are.' And it struck me right then that I was standing in the middle of—"

A golden moment?

"Exactly."

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