CLASS NOTES

Under the shelter of trees along the edge of Noxontown Pond,I watched as my two oldest children,Lucy and Teddy,and Calvin Bates,son of faculty members Brad and Lisa Bates,fished the waters and chatted away a warm spring Sunday afternoon.There was a pile of bait, no flies to pester us,and only the occasional sounds of students enjoying the sailboats and canoes across the waterfront.

Calvin and Lucy picked a sunny spot and were getting repeated tugs and nibbles from the sunfish and crappie,but hadn’t yet landed anything.Teddy was further along the shore, fishing from the shade but also with no results.The afternoon’s prey seemed exceedingly talented at bait theft, so I found myself on call whenever the worms and grubs wouldn’t easily attach to the hooks.

When Lucy called me to attend to her bait,I hadn’t taken more than three steps when Teddy screamed,“I got one—I got a fish!”Before I could turn around, there was a huge splash.I looked along the shore. No Teddy.No fishing rod.Just a foaming point of entry on Noxontown’s surface.

Words cannot adequately describe how intensely the following seconds passed,but I’m fairly certain I approached the speed of light as I darted over, reached into the pond,and extracted in one sweeping motion my soaked child from the muddy waters.

He stared back at the water, bewildered.“A fish pulled me in,” he said,shaking his hands in a state of semi-shock.Sure enough,the rod continued to jerk and swim around briefly before abruptly falling still,marking the escape of the scaly culprit.

I fully expected that to be the end of the afternoon,figuring that most four-year-olds,especially those just learning how to swim,would not react positively after such an experience.To my surprise, Teddy just smiled and said,“He got away!”

He wanted to keep fishing,so I netted his wayward Mickey Mouse rod and set him back up. Almost immediately,he turned the tables and landed the first official catch of the afternoon—a nice yellow perch.His Noxontown christening must have been good luck,because Teddy brought in most of the fish over the next hour.Lucy and Calvin could barely keep up, and I don’t recall having more than two free minutes to ply the waters with my own line.

The day definitely belonged to Teddy—with ten fish in the bucket and the story of the one that reeled him in.He was the star and he reveled in the spotlight.When you’re a middle child,those moments can be hard to come by.

After we released the fish to catch again another day, I walked my damp and smiling boy up the hill to the dining hall.He bounded through the main common room and rushed to tell my wife about all the fish he caught.Mom’s radar quickly detected the wet clothes and she asked him what happened, smiling at me but somehow still giving the look we fathers dread in such hapless situations.

“A fish pulled me in,”he explained.

“Really?” Mamie asked.

“Yeah, it was a shark,”he shot back.“But it got away. ”

A star,you see,is fleeting.It’s the legend that lives on.Apparently,even a four-year-old knows that.