Fish stories teach valuable lessons about life

As I watched my daughters pulling up walleye like they used to snag Cheerios off the trays of their highchairs with their chubby toddler thumbs and index fingers, a Chinese proverb came to mind: Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.

It’s rather comforting to know that if all the grocery stores, restaurants, big box stores and gas stations were shut down immediately without warning, I’ll never have to worry about my daughters as long as they have access to some fishing line and a hook.

(It’s not that I have doomsday daydreams about store closings on a regular basis, but when you’re the only person in the boat going through a fishing dry spell, one is obliged to allow the brain to entertain itself.)

I have to give credit to my beloved, Dr. Mangas, also known as Poppy, after the girls watched the 1995 movie “The Little Princess.” He carried the “fishing in Canada is a family tradition” handed to him from his father and grandfather.

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