When I was a kid…

we spent a week or two in Utah at my grandparents house each summer. We flew from Los Angeles, to San Fransisco, to Salt Lake City–then drove the hot, tedious 45 miles to grama’s little brick house in Provo.  We did all kinds of things that were impossible at our place like–climbing trees and exploring rivers and swinging on rope swings. We usually even got to walk to the grocery store–by ourselves. That might not sound like much but growing up in L.A. in a rougher part of town–we didn’t even play outside much because it was too dangerous. Funny way to grow up.

So when we came to Utah–it was like being free for one little speck of time. Another thing that my brother loved to do when he came to the mountains was go fishing with my grandpa. I thought it was a pretty sick thing to do but they had a wonderful time and would come back with a ba-zillion trout or catfish in tubs. The year this picture was taken, the guys brought home catfish by the busloads and strung them on a broom for pictures’ sake. My brother asked me to hold the bristle end of the broom while he held the other side. He warned me not to mess with them–like I would–because they had whiskers that would sting you bad. I respect that.

Only trouble was that he was much older and taller than I was and no matter how hard I tried to hold the stupid broom up, those nasty fish kept sliding towards me…almost like someone was raising the broom on purpose. I wanted to believe that those creepy fish were trying to poke the wits out of a screechy little six year old…but I had to wonder. Brothers can indeed be a bit naughty sometimes–after all.

Scared me to death. I had nightmares of giant,  jabbing, stabbing fish for weeks afterwards.

Never looked at my guppies the same again.

Positively detest catfish.

Other than that…

I’m over it.

heh.