Unpublished - An image of my father, by Alan Helvig
It is Father's Day, 2006 and I am daydreaming about my youth.
When I was about 6 or 7, my father took me on one of our many fishing trips. We were on our way to a pond, somewhere outside of Wichita, which was known for its rather large bass. As we were walking down the trail, dad was telling me about things to watch out for, like snakes. He told me that if I ever saw one, I should freeze and wait for it to slither away. It couldn't have been but another 100 yards up the trail, when I suddenly had to freeze.
I did not see the crafty creature; I felt it. In fact, it was climbing up the inside of my pant leg. I let out a slight whimper, "Dad" and he turned around to see what was wrong. Shaking frantically, I told him that there was a snake in my pants. He looked and sure enough, he saw something moving around down there. "Hold still", he uttered, with concern in his voice. "If you move, it may bite you!" Needless to say, that is not the most encouraging thing to tell a little boy who has a snake in his pants.
As I trembled with fear, dad put down all the gear and carefully began to open my pants and look inside. "Hold on bud, I am going to grab it", he whispered. With tears running down my cheeks, I simply nodded, as I was no longer capable of speaking. He lunged his hand down my pant leg and grabbed a hold of the beast. One of us screamed; I can't remember who. Then dad looked up at me with the biggest smile on his face, as he pulled a cold, slimy, green frog out of my pants.
After we were done laughing about the whole thing and after someone got a clean pair of undies, we continued onward to the pond for a wonderful day of fishing. For the rest of my childhood, one of dad's favorite phrases to me was, "If it were a snake, it would have bitten you". Although he used that phrase when he found something that I had been looking for, it sure takes on a new significance here.
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