The last fishing trip with my dad

My dad is 81 years old and he’s been battling Alzheimer’s disease for quite awhile.

We aren’t sure how long, it kind of sneaks up on a person. I think it was about five years ago was when we began to get suspicious something was wrong.

My dad has always worked on his automobiles, lawn mowers and tractors. For the majority of my life he’s been pretty good at fixing stuff. The last few years, though, his skills have diminished significantly. That’s when I began to suspect he had a problem.

He’s hard-headed as can be and is still convinced he can fix anything. These last few years, whenever he’s tried to work on something, it ended up being taken to a professional mechanic. We didn’t argue with him too much, even though it would have been cheaper to just take it straight to the mechanic. Sometimes he’d fix something, but most of the time here lately he’s messed it up.

Dad loves to bass fish. He also loves to drive his bass boat, as fast as it can go, too. Last fall, my son and I, and dad went fishing. Dad insisted on driving the boat and, when we backed it in to unload it, he had to back it off the trailer. He didn’t offer to let one of us drive. We were a bit worried, because his boat pulls to the left pretty hard and the steering is hard to turn.

We got it unloaded and he headed up the river. It wasn’t long and he drove the boat out of the river channel and in some shallow water filled with stumps. It took a bit to get him to shut it down, but luckily we didn’t hit a stump. We dropped the trolling motor and started fishing. He didn’t try to stand up in the boat. He just fished from the driver’s seat. About mid-morning, he was getting sun burned and kind of hot. After a little coaxing, he scooted over and let my son drive, we were both relieved.

We only caught a couple of small fish. When the sun got high in the sky, it got hot and we decided to call it a day. My son drove to the boat landing. I backed the truck down to water. My son had a hard time getting the boat lined up, so dad got behind the wheel of the boat again. He ran the boat up on some rocks and even off the side of the trailer. It took half hour to load the boat.

Dad stayed sitting in the boat until we pulled it up out of the water and started strapping it down. He was barely able to swing his leg over the side of the boat and step down. He held the side of the boat and then the bed of the truck as he slowly walked to the passenger seat of the truck.

As we drove out of the lake area, we decided to eat at a favorite sea food restaurant near the lake. Dad likes the clam chowder. We had a really good meal that was kind of expensive, dad insisted on paying for it. As we ate, I silently wondered if this would be the last time we took the boat out. Deep down inside I had a gut feeling we were not going to be fishing much longer.

When I was a kid, my dad would let me skip school every now and then if my grades were good. We usually went fishing in the river down past our house. Dad would try to stick the throttle through the floor when we left the boat ramp. I thought the rooster tail from boat’s prop was the nearest thing ever. Most of the time we didn’t catch many fish, but we made up for it hot rodding the boat.

This week mom and dad were in a car wreck. They weren’t hurt too bad, just banged up.

Dad broke a couple of ribs, but mostly they are just sore.

The worst part of it is, since the wreck, dad’s mental condition has rapidly declined. He’s went downhill a lot just in a few days. As I sat by him in the hospital and then at their house, I’ve thought about that last fishing trip a lot. I was hoping for one more when school lets out in May, but I’m afraid it’s not going to happen.

A long time ago dad said every animal comes and goes, even people die. As many horses and cows that I’ve seen get old and die you’d think I’d be used to it. I’m not, it’s different when it’s a parent. I’ll always remember the good times though, especially dad and his boat. Sometimes, when I really get to thinking about it, I can almost smell the river … .