Mexico

As a child I grew up going to Mexico almost every weekend with my family. We were a fishing family, big fish.

What fresh water fishermen call trophies we called bait. My first big fish weighed 70 pounds and was caught on a hand rig line, which is a line that is dropped to the bottom of the sea and held in your hand with a leather glove. I was nine.

I caught the biggest fish of the day after having been slightly sea sick all morning.

My step-sister and I use to sit up on the bow of the boat and sing:

"What shall we do with the drunken sailor?

What shall we do with the drunken sailor?

Put him in the bow with the captain's daughter

early in the mornin'!"

We thought we were so funny sitting up on that bow singing about sailors, looking for dolphins and sea turtles. My Mom and Dad (never called him anything but Dad) would hunt out our spot for the day and then we'd deep sea fish. Unless, of course, we were fishing for Sailfish or Marlin, because then you troll.

Once we were catching shark to use as bait and it was a pregnant female. That memory sticks because of two things, sharks give birth to live sharks and one doesn't know the shark is pregnant until you cut it open and see the babies squiming inside. We let the baby sharks go because, well just because, even though they would have made excellent bait.

A few days ago my Mom posted about Mexico and left some pictures at her blog that oddly enough feel like home to me. Strange, to think of a foreign land as home.

She also called yesterday with sad news about a my "Dad's" eldest son, he has been the black sheep for a long, long time for a variety of reasons. Some of the reasons aren't even worth writing about and others have faded with time.

It seems he had just taken his brand new Harley out for a spin and had pulled over to inspect something on it and an old man mistook him for a barrel. Hit and Run. Torn off most of his leg and left him brain dead, he did not survive.

My fondest memory of him is one that I have never shared because I have always felt so dirty for it. We, my step-sister and I, were about ten and in Mexico with my Dad's best friend's whole family. The adults all went out fishing that day and us kids all stayed on shore, it was the seventies so it was a tad safer then. Scott was about sixteen and the other family had a daughter close to his age, that he had a crush on. All of us were suppose to be on the beach swimming, which is where Scott and this girl thought Tracey and I were too. They said they had to run back to the cabin to get more soda and Tracey and I followed, like any good little sisters, who were both ten, would do.

They went in the cabin and it plays out in my memory like a scene from the movies, but sweeter. They put on Neil Diamond and slow danced for what seemed like forever, starring deep into each other's souls. We hide and watched them without them ever knowing, they never did anything more than kiss and dance.

The dancing seemed so romantic.

Hopefully Scott had a good ride on his new Harley before he stopped.