At severe risk of understatement, my Dad was an avid fisherman. He loved fishing, whether it was surf casting for blues and stripers from an ocean beach (usually in the wee hours of the morning), spending a lazy summer afternoon bobbing for perch along a quiet lake, or fly casting off a marina’s dock early in the morning for some fish to complement breakfast. He found it both relaxing (grab a beer, sit back, talk to other fishermen, and watch your poles) and stimulating (if you rig your fishing pole to give blues a fighting chance, it can take over 30 minutes to land a hooked one), and never suffered from “fisherman’s ego“.
And, he introduced all his kids to fishing, perhaps in part due to the old adage:
“…if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour; if you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn.”*
Now that my Dad’s doing his fishing off of this mortal coil, I wonder how he might react if that time-worn adage was updated to reflect today’s realities:
“…if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour; if you teach him to catch a fish you can…
- keep a Union teacher employed, and Unions strong,
- fine him for fishing without a license,
- ban him from rigging his line with lead sinkers, which could potentially pollute the water,
- tax him as a small business,
- accuse him of depleting the world’s fish population
- penalize him for not having the FDA inspect his fish, kitchen, and cooking method prior to eating the fish,
- charge him to have OSHA come in and inspect his kitchen for any health or safety violations, and
- arrest him if he doesn’t dispose of fish waste in accordance with EPA guidelines.”
* Commonly written as “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.”, the phrase’s origin is discussed here.
Thanks for reading!
