Moments in Time - 5. Goldfish & Flat tires

When I was very young, my dad took my older brother fishing. They caught 3 comet goldfish. silver with orange spots all over. Not the little bitty things you keep in a bowl. Nope, the smallest of the fish was 12 inches, the largest, closer to 18 inches. My brother was upset, he wanted to let the fish go. He didn’t understand that the fish were already dead. Mom and Dad argued over whether or not they were goldfish or carp, and if you could eat goldfish.

My dad gutted the three fish, wrapped the fish in plastic wrap, and put them on a shelf in the deep freezer. We never got around to eating them. Possibly because they looked too much like the fish in the bowl by Dad’s chair, or maybe because Dad was allergic to fish. But every time someone had to get something from the deep freeze, the goldfish were staring back.

I made a new friend in high school, Chris, who had a Commodore Computer. His house quickly became my friends’ and my favorite hang out. His dad, Papa Muck, loved to fish, loved to have fish fries, and loved to feed his sons’ friends. So I ate a lot of what I thought was catfish. It was pretty good too.

One day I was coming back from babysitting for some fishermen when I blew a tire. I managed to manhandle the spare tire out of the trunk, and got the bumper jack set and ready to lift the car. I just couldn’t get the lug nuts loose, and I tried every trick my driver’s ed teacher taught us. I was thinking I would have to walk home and have dad get someone to help when a familiar car pulls up behind me.

Papa Muck got out to see why I’m pulled over. He looked at the blown tire and pointed out that the spare was flat too. He loaded the spare in the trunk, and had me get in. I could call Dad from his house to find out what he wanted to do about the flat spare. And we could have a fish fry.

I climbed into the back seat next to a big bucket, which held that days' catch. I was curious what the catfish I’d been eating for years looked like so I peeked into the bucket. Peering back at me were large goldfish!

In Memory of JAR, aka Papa Muck, you knew how to make tasty carp.