Chapter 6

The last father and son memory I had with Daddy was of us fishing together. It was a June Sunday morning that we ventured to Town Creek on Guntersville Lake. I was thirteen years old, and my passion for fishing was growing; I was eager to try out my bait-casting reel for the first time. After reading about bass fishing in Bassmaster magazine, practicing my casting from our back patio, and polishing the gears on my new round bait-caster, I was ready for the real thing.

That summer day many years ago exemplified every fishing trip with my dad. We hooked up the boat and motor to the car the night before. We awoke at dark thirty, ate breakfast, and headed out the driveway before sunrise. In the morning darkness, I looked back from the passenger seat to watch the boat motor pivot as we turned onto the street.

Two-lane roads took us from Huntsville toward Guntersville. The streets were empty as sunrise brightened the sky. The air smelled crisp with a mix of river water and wafts of bacon being cooked inside nearby kitchens.

We traveled through a tunnel of trees carpeting the short, stubby mountains of North Alabama as ripples of sunlight danced through the windshield. We rounded a curve and broke into the open sky as we crossed the Town Creek Bridge to our beloved Guntersville Lake, Town Creek, and launch ramp.

Many times before, Daddy and I made this same journey, and it was always special. The boat and motor spent more time in the yard and garage than on the lake. We only went fishing in the boat about three times a year. The more I read Bassmaster magazine, the more I wanted to fish and be in a fishing tournament. You can’t catch fish if you don’t have a hook in the water. In my backyard, I was catching twigs, leaves, and crabgrass—but no fish. On this day, at a lake instead of the yard, I had the opportunity to catch fish.

We launched the boat for one last fishing adventure together. Daddy cranked the Evinrude, belching out a cloud of blue smoke that emitted a scent of burned oil and gasoline. This scent comforted me because I have an admiration for the internal combustion engine. I had played in the garage around the gas cans, quarts of oil, and grease guns. My nose associated this as a pleasant aroma.

We were off on our magic carpet, zooming across the glassy water. Mist blew across my face like soft, tiny water needles splashing my skin. Three feet vertical, circular columns of fog rose from the water like ghostly shaped silver traffic cones awaking to meet the sun’s warmth.

We went under the bridge at idle speed and then throttled to full power—not much for a motor with less than ten horses but faster and more direct than we could walk there. We motored into a cove, and Daddy turned off the engine.

“Well, let’s see what we can catch,” said Daddy. “I see some willow flies beginning to hatch. I believe I’ll try a popping bug on-the-fly rod.”

“Okay,” I said. “’I’ll try a spinner bait.”

Daddy cast the fly line and caught bluegill, pumpkinseed, and shell cracker—part of the whole bream fish family.

At the front of the boat, I cast and reeled, then cast and reeled with not a single bite. Bait-casting reels take practice learning how to slow the revolving spool with your thumb. The spool spins, rolling out the line through rod guides with the weight of the lure. If the spool spins too fast, the line may roll back onto the spool, creating a tangle of line on the spool that looks like a bird’s nest. I call it a backlash. Feeling the line with your thumb, you apply pressure on the spool of the line to slow it down or feather the spool. I wanted to get better at my feathering the spool skill.

“You sure you don’t want to try some crickets and catch some bream?” asked Daddy. “They’re all around us.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’m happy with my bait-caster.”

Daddy was smiling as he caught fish, and for the first time in years, I saw a glimmer in him that was missing. He was enjoying fishing again.

Depression had fallen over him over the past six years and stolen his enjoyment of life. At thirteen, I didn’t know if it was me he didn’t enjoy being with or if it was me getting older and learning more about life than that of an innocent boy who saw the world with endless optimism. At that moment, my daddy was back.

With each fish caught, the wider Daddy smiled and the louder he laughed. His joy was contagious, a relief.

“You happy, Dalton?” asked Daddy.

“I am, Daddy,” I answered, eyes gleaming as I reeled in my chartreuse spinner bait.

“That’s all that matters,” he replied.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, the shade of the trees diminished; the heat rose; and the fish catching slowed down.

“Well, I guess we should move. Maybe some deeper water,” said Daddy, and I agreed.

Daddy turned around, pulled on the starter rope on the Evinrude. Daddy put it into forward gear, and we idled out of the cove.

“Sounds different,” said Daddy. The engine pitch was higher than before, but not as loud. He turned the throttle to full power, but we weren’t moving much faster.

Being the mechanical engineer, Daddy said, “She’s running on only one cylinder instead of two.” He shut off the motor, popped open the engine cowling, and checked the spark plug wires.

“They are snug. Not sure what’s wrong,” he said. While he did that, I cast some more to maximize my time to fish the lake.

Daddy closed the cowling. “Let’s see how she runs now.”

He started the motor, put it into gear, and throttled up no faster than before.

I saw his face, and the despondent look had returned.

Throttling back to idle speed, he said, “I think we may have a bad electrical coil. I fixed them about eight years ago. I coated them with epoxy to seal the cracks. Guess they have run their course. Those are the original coils from ‘56.”

“Dalton, I don’t think we will get around the lake too fast. It’s getting hot, and lunchtime is coming. I think we should head home.”

I was disappointed. I could stay out there all day. However, 4:30 in the morning was two hours before my usual wake time, and I was feeling drowsy.

We secured the boat to the trailer and drove home from Guntersville Lake. Daddy was quieter on the trip home; I wished he would talk more.

On the ride home, Daddy said, “Dalton, I want you to know that I love you very, very much. I want what is best for you, and it’s all because I truly love you.”

“I know,” I said in quiet, teenage-boy fashion. “I love you very much, Daddy.” I stared straight ahead at the road, uncomfortable with the emotional talk between father and son. I appreciated him saying it, as a comfort blanket fell over sensing the meaning in Daddy’s words.

“Dalton, I don’t know how much longer your mother and I will be together,” he said. “I guess you can tell we have been fighting a good bit.”

Hearing this, my emotions fell flat, and I stared straight ahead. “Yeah, I have,” I said. “Y’all still talking about divorce?”

“Yeah, we are.” Daddy sighed. “I don’t know that your mother can keep putting up with me, but it may be for the best.”

“Will you still take me fishing?” Tears welled up behind the lenses of my black polarized sunglasses. I didn’t want him to know I was crying.

“Of course, I will,” he said. “Spending time with you and your sister will always be important to me. I love you.”

This was not the first time this topic came up. I could truly feel that Daddy loved me and that he wanted what was best for me.

When we got home, we unhooked the boat, put the motor back on its stand in the garage, stored our tackle, and went inside to tell Mother of our day’s adventure.

Within the next week, Daddy began to unravel, and he and Mother argued constantly. It got ugly. I don’t even want to think about it, much less write about it.

One week after our fishing trip, he left this earth. After a six-year battle with depression and suicide threats, the depression won.

I can still smell the exhaust surrounding the car in the woods where he had taken his life. A piece of garden hose stretched from the exhaust pipe to a crack in the front driver’s side window. Daddy’s body had already been removed from the car when I arrived there with my mother. To this day, when I smell that exhaust from any other car, I am instantly taken back to that moment staring at the car—the same car we took to the lake a week ago—where my daddy’s final moments were on this earth. I didn’t like the smell of this exhaust and the memory that it emitted.

My life was never the same after that. In some ways, 180 degrees for the good, and in some ways, 180 degrees for the bad. Every child needs both of their parents to raise them. I missed my dad. When a parent dies before his child hits adulthood, the child’s life is radically disrupted. Some growth will always be missing.

God would bring into my life many more dads to help fill the gap of the one I missed.