If we were lucky, Pop might take us fishing down at the Lot. The Lot was a common property on Loop Drive that allowed residents who didn’t have a place on the river to have access to the water. He’d grab the old fish cage and some cane poles, and we’d gather up some snails and grasshoppers and crickets for bait and walk down the road to the corner. We’d spend a couple of hours snagging perch and mud turtles and watching the waves that the speed boating folks would kick up come slapping in against the shore. I must admit I was really afraid of the river (even though we always wore gigantic orange life jackets), because I had no idea how deep it was or what could be lurking under the cloudy green water. At the time I had already seen The Creature from the Black Lagoon on a Saturday afternoon movie and had a nightmare about the Creature emerging from our river with two children’s heads from which dangled their bare skeletons [an vision probably crossed with an old Laurel and Hardy movie.] Not an image that encouraged me to be a waterman. When bored of fishing we also liked to throw in sticks and see how long it took the current to carry them away. Pop usually let all the fish go, but sometimes we’d bring home a turtle or two to keep as a pet for a while in a home-made terrarium in a big tin bucket lined with rocks. Eventually we’d return them to the wild as the novelty wore off.
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