Fond memories of family and fishing provide comfort

I grew up fishing in Northern Minnesota, in the lake country.

Grandfather Anderson had a summer cabin on Gull, a huge lake north of Brainerd. We spent weekends there, all through the summer. One of our biggest entertainments was to go fishing with my dad and brother, Nic.

I was catching fish by age 5, and learned to scale and clean them, too. The lake was so clear and pretty. In many of the best fishing spots, you could see through the water right down to the bottom. You could even see fish toying with the bait. Dad and Nic have died, but I remember those happy days.

I have so many fun memories of those fishing expeditions in our row boat. Dad taught us all about boat safety and fishing safely - don't stand up in the boat, how to row, what to do if the boat tipped, etc. This education started right after we both learned how to swim, but we still wore life preservers.

Well, as it turned out, my dear husband, Baheej, liked to fish as well, so we had lots of fishing gear and always found a good fishing lake starting years ago in Massachusetts. And we taught our children how to fish, with many fun fishing days and picnics on the Charles River in Cambridge, or at the lake on the Wellesley College campus where I taught for several years. We caught lots of blue gills and perch, which I cleaned and fried for the proud fishermen.

Then we moved to live on a lake in Spencer, Massachusetts, west of Worcester, for 14 years, which was great. We had a dock, and a canoe and a row boat. The lake had lots northern pike, largemouth bass and catfish. We could fish right off the dock. We loved it there.

We tried to find a place on a lake when we moved here to the Chicago area, but couldn't find one close enough to work, so we bought in Sleepy Hollow and love it here.

For some years we kept the fishing gear in the trunk and went to nearby lakes in northern Illinois. It wasn't the same as living near or on a lake. However, there is a little pond near the village green in Sleepy Hollow, just down the road, with fish in it. So when our grandchildren and niece and nephew were young, we took our picnic down to the pond and fished there!

The kids caught bluegills, mostly, and had good fun. Our granddaughter, Tara, even enjoyed digging up earthworms for bait in our garden. To my delight, she called me last night, grown up now with a child of her own, and we just talked and talked. She was on her way to a wedding where she is a bridesmaid.

Eventually there was a bait machine at a local service station in Dundee. It was like a soda pop machine but it dispensed minnows, live bait. My niece, Tricia, was amazed and very amused when she saw it - a bait machine! Years before that she too caught fish in our nearby pond, but we dug up our own bait.

I remember, long after the grandchildren, nieces and nephews grew up, Baheej asked for a new fishing pole. At the time, he was not well and there's no way were we going fishing. So I talked him out of it, and probably shouldn't have. I should have just gone with him and gotten one. He was probably thinking of happy thoughts about when we used to fish. Well, he recovered from that health crisis, and lived another 10 years, but we never resumed fishing, and all the grandchildren were grown up and lived far away.

So the point is: There are lots of things we all used to do, but do not do anymore. There's some sadness in that, but there are many happy memories and that's what I focus on, most of the time. I imagine standing on the dock, and reeling in a big largemouth bass with Baheej taking my photo, and me holding it up proudly.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Anderson-Kleif-Susan.