I was a very busy boy in my eleventh year of age in 1953. My job every Saturday morning, working in my father’s machine shop as an assistant to Roosevelt LeGreer, was now bringing me in one dollar each week, which Dad paid me with four quarters. I kept two of those quarters in my pocket to spend and saved the other two in a glass canning jar made by the Ball Company, with a brass colored metal threaded cap on top. I kept the jar in my bedroom on a shelf next to my bed. Every day I counted the quarters, so I knew exactly how much money I had. I decided then to only spend two quarters each week, one half of my income, and save the rest for what some people might call a rainy day. But in my case, I was thinking about saving for times like when the fish weren’t biting (see previous Essay No. 35). It is a habit I never broke and continue to this day.

My Saturday afternoons were filled with Little League Baseball practice or games. My Sunday mornings were taken up with Bible study at First Baptist Church. Most Sunday afternoons were spent with my mother visiting my grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins in Boynton Beach. Therefore, between work, baseball and church, I wasn’t getting in much fishing anymore. I really missed it.

So I started thinking about my weekly schedule and what I could do to get in more fishing time? Suddenly, an idea entered my eleven-year-old brain from somewhere, which my mother later said was the Devil. I could hide one of my fishing poles and some bait down by the Hillsboro Canal, about where the dock and boat ramp is today. After Sunday School, I could walk into the church, making sure my parents saw me, and then scoot out the back door before service started and run down about 100 yards to the canal where I’d hidden my fishing gear the night before. I could then fish for about an hour and then show up back at church about the time the service was getting over.

My scheme worked the first week. It also worked the second week. However, by the third week the Holy Scripture prediction “be sure your sins will find you out” came true for me. I hooked and caught the largest catfish I had ever seen, even until today. It

was about 30 inches long and twenty-five pounds in weight. I fought him for about thirty minutes before I was able to slide him up on shore. I knew church was going to be over soon, so I ran the 200 yards or so to my house to get my wagon. I ran back with it and loaded the catfish in the wagon. I pulled the wagon with the fish as fast as I could through Pioneer Park to our house where the tennis courts are today. I left the catfish still breathing in the wagon in our backyard and ran east through the park again to the church.

Fortunately Reverend Rowe was long-winded that day, and I arrived back to church just as people were coming out. Mom was the first to spot me as I tried to stroll casually up to the church, breathing heavily. “Where were you during church, David?” she asked. I couldn’t lie to my mother so I just blurted it out, “Mom, you got to see this huge catfish I just caught!” She didn’t smile. Neither did Dad.

The ride home seemed to take forever. First out of the car, I ran to my wagon and pulled it with the catfish right up to the back door seeking approval. Dad didn’t even come out to look at it. Mother came out, took one look at it and said loudly, “David, that is a Devil fish! The Devil made you skip church and go fishing! Now take that fish and throw him back into the river!” I did, and the catfish, still alive, slowly swam away. I never fished on Sunday morning again — even up unto today.

David Eller, Publisher