Saratoga News

We'll have a fisherman at our Christmas table

By Dale Bryant

For years, our Christmas table was bursting with a wild and lovely assortment of relatives: a crazy uncle who told bad jokes and yukked until, one by one, we all joined in; a teetotaling great-aunt whose 60-year-old daughter used to sneak into the back bedroom for a swig of vodka and a cigarette; estranged parents who came together uncomfortably to keep old holiday traditions alive for the sake of the family. And there were assorted cousins, including the surfer-artist who talked of factory farms and hormone-injected poultry as he passed the turkey platter down the table. There were grandparents. And then one grandparent. And then, inevitably, no grandparent. There were children in various and assorted sizes. We haven't had a Christmas like that in years, though. What with the passage of time, one and another of that cast of characters has moved on or passed on.

The one person who has seldom shared a Christmas with us in my adult years is my brother, but this year, perhaps because his children have grown and scattered, my brother and his wife have announced they are coming for Christmas. If someone had told me when I was a child that I would be looking forward to a visit from my brother, I would have laughed.

My mother once told me that my brother was the most like me of anyone else in the world--genetically speaking, at least. What's more, she said, we would have a common history we could share as adults and that was something very special. I'm sure the subject came up when she was trying to make peace between her warring children. All these years later, I'm willing to admit that she may have been right, although I thought it was one of her nuttier notions at the time.

After all, no one ever accused my brother and me of being two peas in a pod.

My brother lives in Oregon, having emigrated from California nearly 25 years ago, soon after his first child was born. This was no place to bring up children, he announced, looking pointedly, I thought, at my little suburban family. He doesn't visit often; he thinks Californians are strange creatures and no longer counts himself one, although he is a Native Son of the Golden West in fact, if not affiliation.

He can't imagine why anyone would live in a metropolitan area unless they absolutely had no choice. No fast lanes for him; he prefers to spend his days on the job and his early evenings with a fishing pole dangling over a deep, dark spot on a river. His idea of a good time is dragging an elk carcass out of the woods. My idea of a good time is jostling with the crowds on Union Square in San Francisco during the holiday season. He once won a weekend in San Francisco for his whole family. I was terribly jealous; he couldn't wait to get home.

For him, hunting and fishing are not mere recreational pastimes. He lives by the law of the woods: If you kill it, you eat it. And he follows the law religiously. If he has no fish or game in his freezer, he doesn't eat meat.

He's not the only one in his family with that pioneering spirit; his wife and his two children are all hunters and fishers. When my son moved to San Diego to go to school a few years back, I made sure he had a coffee-maker and a microwave; when my brother's son and daughter went off to school, he made sure their freezers were packed with salmon and sturgeon and venison and elk.

On Christmas, we serve Mrs. Smith's pumpkin pie; my brother and his wife bake their Christmas pies using bear fat rendered from the prizes of successful hunting expeditions. Once my sister-in-law shot a bear in their back yard. They sent my mother a photograph of my sister-in-law crouched next to her quarry, her rifle across her knee. My brother was very proud of her. For a week after it arrived, my mother and I could only look at each other and say: "Eeeyooou!"

My brother didn't start hunting until he was 12; I always think of him as a fisherman.

When he was 3 years old, he used to drop his fishing line down grates over sewer drains--and he caught fish. At least according to family legend. I seriously believe there are few people on the face of the Earth who know more about catching fish than my brother. The most exciting thing I've done fish-wise in a very long time is to set up my computer so that the screen-saver becomes a fish bowl across which brightly colored tropical fish wiggle. I love these fish.

My brother and I have always gone our separate ways. As children, it was nearly impossible for us to occupy the same room without bloodshed. That's no exaggeration. Kicking and fistfights were common events. He had a knack for pushing my buttons, and my tolerance for annoying little brats was exceedingly low. As adults, we don't see much of each other, and we often go for a year at a time without talking on the phone. That doesn't mean we don't like each other. It's just how it is. On the rare occasion that we talk on the phone, we seldom spend more than five minutes. Words are my stock and trade, but my brother considers words a poor substitute for action. He responds to most queries with "yep" and "nope."

I don't expect we'll have any heavy discussions during his visit, but I know we'll laugh a lot. There's something about a shared childhood that puts a funny spin on dinner conversation.

My brother won't stay around long enough to taste my turkey soup. There's not much to do on a visit but talk, and the sights of the San Francisco Bay Area don't hold much attraction for him. But just in case he has a little more time than anticipated, I thought we might mosey on down to my office. He can bring his fishing pole along and try his legendary luck on my computer screen.

Dale Bryant is the editor of the Saratoga News.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]