Short Story

On an ordinary Monday of a new summer, I woke up from the ringing of my alarm clock and found out that summer break has just started. I reached for the bulky, black digital clock to turn off the noisy tone of the alarm. I was accustomed to hearing this ringing, for it meant that a new school day was starting. It had become a natural habit to wake up at 6:30 every weekday as I dragged myself to school. For two whole months, I did not have to worry about my schoolwork and studies.

Attempting to go back to sleep, I snuggled back into my cozy, soft blanket in bed. However, the bright sunshine from the shaded window penetrated into my eye lids. I struggled to fall back to sleep for several minutes and finally, decided to pull myself off of the bed. Strolling into the washroom, I decided to brush my teeth quickly and quietly. When I was picking up the Crest toothpaste and turning on the stainless faucet, I heard a loud bark from my neighbor's dog through the tilted windows of the washroom. I knew that the dog was trying to get his owner's attention to let him back inside.

My next-door neighbor, Mr. Rossi, would usually let his large dog into his red brick, paved backyard when the dog needed to take out his business. There were times where he would let the dog out in the middle of the nights and during the dawn of mornings. He usually do not follow his dog outside, especially during sleeping hours. Thus, most of the time, the dog would get stranded outside in the dark for many minutes, and he would continuously yelp until Mr. Rossi lets him back inside. Because of our window being next to the porch of Mr. Rossi's side door, our whole family would definitely hear all the dog's barking quite loudly and clearly.

As I heard my dad's minor cough from his bedroom, I knew that he was awaken by Mr. Rossi's dog and my hassle in the washroom when I dropped the toothpaste. Whenever my dad would walk into the house, or wakes up from bed, he would have a minor, throat-clearing cough as he adjusts to the air pressure. I soon realized that today was Monday and it was a day-off day for my dad. My mom had already left the house early that the morning for work at a mattress factory.

After I finished my brushing my teeth and washing my face, I walked out into the kitchen in search for breakfast. I opened the refrigerator and rambled for milk and something to eat. My dad walked into the washroom to brush his teeth and told me to wake up my younger brother. With a mouth of toothpaste, he asked if we wanted to go fishing with him at the 31st Street harbor. I agreed to fishing and strolled in my bedroom trying to wake up my brother. I exclaimed to him that we were going to go fishing. I went back to consuming my breakfast in the kitchen. After we finished our breakfast of milk and toast, we moved on to the garage to assemble all the fishing gear into the rear of our silver van.

As we drove out of our alley, I saw kids running about across the sidewalk and enjoying the life of the summer weather. Some rode bikes, and others played Frisbee. In order to reach the shore, we had to drive to the end of 31st street. The shoreline is surrounded by concrete layers of stones and cement. We took some time to find a open spot in the parking lot. A lot of people would come here to enjoy the shoreline breeze and the nice, nature scenery within a busy city. A lot of runners and bikers also like to exercise on the Lake Shore Trail where it is surrounded by trees and nature itself. My dad, my younger brother, and I went down the cement layers to reach the water. Assembling the rod and tying the hook with bait was a painstaking process which I disliked. However, dropping the bait and hook into the water is a fun part that I enjoy. We all wait patiently until there is tugging from the bait. Fishing is not as simple as it seems at that 31st Street harbor. The shore is surrounded by large pieces of rocks. If the reeling is not timed correctly, there is a chance that the fish would drag the bait and hook into the edge of a rock, or a chance that the hook have not caught onto the fish's mouth. When a fish gets hooked by eating the bait on the hook, it will usually get scared by the pain in their mouths and scatter into the bottom of rocks. Thus, this occurrence will result in hook being trapped under rocks. We will have to cut the fishing line from the trapped hook and tie a new hook to it. We needed to time the reeling just right after the fish gets hooked on and before they swim into the bottom of rocks. The feeling of catching a fish is always very satisfying, regardless of the size of the fishes. Every few minutes, we would reel in a fish but we only keep those that are of large size. We would feed the small fishes to seagulls flying above our heads. The seagulls would communicate with other seagulls and tell them about our fish feeding. Our presence would always attract large amounts of seagulls surrounding us. Feeding the seagulls with our unwanted fish and watching them fight over it was just as entertaining as reeling in a fish. As a result, our unwanted fishes do not go to waste and we are not harming environment by littering. Fishing is proven to be a very entertaining, fun, and educational activity. It is a great way to explore the natural life of the wilderness and spending some quality time with my family. Fishing has taught me to be very patient if I wanted futile results. Also, this has taught me how hard work and determination would always led to success in life and fishing.