Call Me Ishmael

The American author, Herman Mellville, penned these memorable words to begin one of the great literary classics of all time, Moby Dick. Or so I hear. You see, I’ve never actually read it. It fills one of the major voids in my knowledge base in reading the all-time classic works. Well, that plus about 95% of the other classics that have somehow evaded me as I have busied myself reading other great works, such as Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dawn. Unrecognized classics, they are.

As the story goes, the narrator, Ishmael, is a wandering sailor who finds himself on a whaleship commanded by the eccentric and obsessive Captain Ahab. On a previous fishing adventure, Ahab encountered the great white whale, Moby Dick, and subsequently lost his leg, confined to walk the rest of his life on a prosthetic limb carved out of whale bone. He had devoted his life to exacting revenge on his nemesis, wanting nothing more than to find and kill his rival, the whale. 

This past summer, our family took a week-long camping trip to the Northern California coast near Crescent City. We stayed at a camp called Mill Creek Campground. It is set about 2 miles inland from the ocean, so its about 20 degrees warmer than the colder, damper campgrounds nearer to the water. There is also very little fog. It is one of the best kept secrets of the far-Northern California coastline.

We went with some of our close friends and had an amazing time. Our week was filled with hiking, biking, lounging, reading, eating, playing, and marshmallow roasting.

There was one other thing that we did during our trip - crabbing. No one in either family had done any crabbing before, but we didn’t let our lack of experience get in our way of trying something new.

So we went to a local fishing bait shop that was located on the public pier to rent some crab pots. We also bought some fish heads to use as bait for our pots. After a brief tutorial by the local crabbing experts, we set off for the end of the pier to go catch our dinner.

The process is pretty simple - you set up the crab pot, you put bait inside an enclosed plastic container, you throw the whole thing over the edge of the pier and then you wait. As this was our first time trying it, we weren’t sure where exactly to throw the contraptions or how long to leave them underwater. The first few times that we threw them in we likely pulled them out too quickly, as there was nothing inside but maybe an old shopping bag when we pulled it up.

Our friend, Dan, made the first catch of the day, hauling in a beautiful crab that was close to 6 inches in diameter. My kids and I then got into the act, pulling in a couple of nice, if slightly, smaller crabs.

Tyler, his buddy and I then moved to the other side of the pier to try our luck. And here is where the earlier Moby Dick reference will hopefully make a little sense.

As we dropped our crab pot into this new spot, several minutes passed before we tried to pull it in. As we did, I noticed that it felt quite a bit heavier than the last several attempts. As the pot broke the surface of the water, we peered over the edge to see what we were hauling in. As we did, we caught a glimpse of something else clinging onto the edge of the trap. It was difficult to tell exactly what it was, but the best guess of an aging 36 year old man with ailing eyesight was that we had just caught a giant octopus! Or maybe it was a squid. I couldn't really tell, as it fell off the edge of the pot when it was just a few feet above the water.

The two boys and I were going crazy. While we may have have only had about 2 seconds to inspect it from over 20 feet away, we still couldn’t believe what we had just seen.

“You should have seen it - IT WAS HUGE!!! It was 8 feet long if it was an inch!!!”

Everyone ran over to our crabbing spot to try and catch a glimpse of what we had seen. But, of course, by now it was much too late. The giant octopus (or squid) was now likely slowly floating back down to the ocean floor, covered by 20 feet of murky seawater.

As the excitement settled, we returned to our respective crabbing locations, wanting to try the same spot again after our brush with the sea monster. Moments later, as I began to haul the crab pot up once again, the weight of the load seemed eerily similar to the last attempt. As it broke the water surface into our view, what should we see, but the giant sea animal was once again attached to our crab pot.

I hurriedly pulled it up the remaining 20 feet to the edge of the pier. But this time something was different. Instead of the 8 foot long monster that we had caught the previous drop, now the creature attached was much, much smaller. Did I mention that it was much smaller this time?

As we pulled it onto the pier for a closer look, the octopus was a mere 18 inches from one tentacle tip to the other. And this estimate may even be fairly liberal, depending on who you ask. And it wasn’t even a vicious octopus. Or a man-eating giant squid. It looked more like a squishy 10-legged starfish.

The kids were gaga upon seeing this creature, despite its less than impressive size. We took several moments to look at it and take pictures before returning it to its watery home.

Fast forward 6 months later to the present day, and all I have to prove the existence of the 8 foot long sea monster on that cold, windy day in Cresent City is the image burned into my mind and the creative, corroborating imaginations of two 9 year old boy witnesses. The second boneless creature that we had captured couldn’t possibly have been the same one that we had caught just moments earlier. No, our sea monster was likely miles out to sea, leaving only his undersized and underwhelming step-cousin, the squishy, slimy starfish, as a prize to some unsuspecting vacationing crab fishermen. No, he’s probably still laughing at us to this day as he thinks about the old bait-and-switch (pun intended) that he pulled on us in that faraway port.

The legend of the elusive Moby Dick of cephalopods  will continue to live on in the lore of Goss and Bickmore family vacations. So until our next crabbing adventure when I am able to once again capture my nemesis, please don’t call me a liar or a big-fish storyteller. Call me Ishmael. Or, more accurately, call me Captain Ahab.

The Search For The Holy Butterchew

We had a coming of age experience at our house this past weekend.

No, we didn’t have “The Talk” with the kids. It was something much more meaningful and impactful on the kids’ future happiness and development.

I introduced my girls to Brown Sugar See’s Candies.

More specifically - Milk Butterchews, Milk Bordeaux and Butterscotch Squares. You might know them as the Fruit of the Gods.  I’ve known for a long time that these were the greatest candies ever made. My girls, Abbie and Emma, made that discovery for themselves this past weekend.

A friend recently gave us a box of mixed Milk Chocolate Candies from Sees. I am eternally grateful and now indebted for life to this person for this gift. After all, the greatest birthday gift that I have ever received was a pound of Milk Butterchews from Jaylynn a few years ago, so this random act of kindness certainly qualifies him a place right between Mother Theresa and Saint Peter.

In this most recent box, knowing what candy that I was looking for from the outset, my family and I proceeded to take small corner-bites out of each piece in the box searching for our favorite flavor. It was on my 5th attempt that I finally found what I thought I was looking for. It turned out to be a Butterscotch Square - the second best flavor that Sees makes.

Thinking that Sees could not possibly be gracious enough to gift me with TWO of my favorite flavors in one box, imagine my surprise when my 6th candy turned out to be the greatest chocolatey morsel known to man - a Milk Butterchew. I was in heaven. With my benevolence knowing no bounds, I offered a small (very small) bite to my 3 kids. Tyler has never been a real chocolate kind of guy, so he was somewhat ambivalent about it. But the girls, on the other hand, being the chocoholics that they are, reacted appropriately. They absolutely loved it.

Abbie’s best friend, Natalie, had a birthday this past weekend. Her party is not scheduled until the following weekend, but Abbie and Emma wanted to give her a pre-party gift on the actual big day. The gift that they wanted to give her was a box of Sees Candies. When I told them that Sees now allows you to hand-select your box, they asked if they can put all Brown Sugar ones in the box. A tear came to my eye as I told them, yes, yes you can. So off to Sees we went.

On my recommendation they decided to diversify the box just a tad, adding some Bordeaux and Butterscotch squares in with the Butterchews. After selecting the 12 pieces that we were told would make up the half pound box, we were thrilled when the counter worker told that there was room for 3 more pieces. A distant second to chocolate as a favorite treat for Abbie is peanut butter. So, for her three additional pieces, she selected 2 peanut butter disks and one peanut chunk piece. Fine choices in and of themselves, but nowhere near the quality of “The Big 3”.

The only problem is that the Peanut Butter piece looks fairly similar to the Butterchews. Eerily similar. The only difference being in geometry - with the Buttercream being a square and the Peanut Butter candy being a slightly larger rectangle. Not realizing that this could be a future problem, we completed the box with these peanut-y morsels.

Fast forward to Natalie’s house last night. After dinner and after the girls had their go at the box, her dad offered the leftovers to the adults. Not wanting to appear a glutton, I agreed to take just one piece. As I opened the box, horror entered my person, as I realized that of the two remaining possible Butterchew options, one was most certainly the Peanut chunk piece. One piece was a smallish square piece, while the other was a slightly larger, rectangular piece. Aside from their size difference, the two pieces were indistinguishable. I could not for the life of me remember which piece was my fave, and which one was “the other”.

Here is where my mind then turns to a classic scene from a childhood favorite movie of mine - Indiana Jones and Last Crusade.  The scene to which I am referring is the pentultimate scene in which Dr. Jones enters the chamber that is full of dozens of chalices, one of which is the sought-after Holy Grail. If he selects incorrectly, it means certain death for him. He scours the room, thinking aloud  of what the Grail would look like. Ultimately, he correctly decides that the holy cup would not be the largest or most ornate container, but would be the smallest, most humble, plain and ordinary cup in the room.

If only I had the same wisdom that Indiana had. Instead of choosing the smallest, most ordinary remaining piece, I chose the biggest chocolate in the box, reasoning that if a little piece of Butterchew would be a good thing, then a larger piece of Butterchew would be a better thing.

I could not have been more disappointed as my teeth penetrating that deceitful outer layer of milk chocolate, revealing a crunchy, nougat-y, peanut-y center. This was my only shot at getting a Butterchew and I had chosen incorrectly. Now, that creamy, delicious Butterchew sat in loneliness in the box full of discarded paper wrappers, laughing, mocking me for my greediness, knowing that now someone else, who could not possibly appreciate it as I would, would be devouring it shortly.

It was a lesson that will remain with me the rest of my days. One that I hope to pass on to my children before they suffer the same fate that I have suffered.

Good things come in small, simple packages. And remember the Holy Grail.

Early Signs Of My Failings As A Parent

What is the matter with kids these days?

Okay, now I am starting to really sound like the grumpy old man that lives down the street, who, if he is not yelling at the kids to get off his lawn, is complaining about how easy kids have it these days. “Why, in my day, we didn’t have all these new-fangled electronical tv boxes. If we wanted some entertainment in a box, we would go outside and catch a badger and a raccoon, throw them in a crate and see which one came out alive.”

Well, in my day, we didn’t have all of these fancy, hi-tech gadgets that kids have today. If you wanted to play with pretend guns, picking up a Wii or XBox controller wasn’t an option.  Video games were just starting to make an appearance. The animation was slightly more sophisticated than a pixelated puppet on strings. A totally awesome puppet on strings that looked like PacMan and Frogger, that is, but I digress...

No, you scoured the back yard for just the right tree branch and broke it off piece by piece until it was just right. If you wanted your pretend gun battle to be at all realistic, any sound effects for your gun or sword or trebuchet (Didn’t every kid build their own trebuchet at one point or another?) came straight out our mouths. From the rat-a-tat of a machine gun to the booming sound of an explosion, realistic toy weapon sound effects were an artform to most kids that I played with.

The early indicators of my failings as a parent began about 7 years ago when Tyler’s creative play really began to become more animated. I remember one such instance in particular - the time that he had finally discovered the cardboard roll found inside a roll of wrapping paper. 

Tyler did what God intend for little boys to do with those cardboard rolls - he started playing swords with it. It started with some light side-to-side swooshing motions as he was getting a good feel for his new weapon. The speed of the hacking movements increased until he was inflicting real damage on my back and arm. Okay, maybe not real damage, but it would smart a little if he got me just right.

There was only one problem - the poor kid didn’t know how to make a sword sound effect. Instead, with each swoosh of the sword, he shouted out “Sword! Sword! Sword!”. This continued as he played with pretend guns - “Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”. You want to chop something with your Samarai Sword, you say? “Chop! Chop! Chop!”.

I was aghast. How could I have allowed my first-born son to reach his fourth year of life and not teach him to make a totally RAD sword, gun or explosion sound effect? Maybe there is something wrong with him. “Honey, should we take him to the doctor and have him checked out?” Every normal little boy knows how to make a real gun sound, don’t they?

Now, he is 10 years old and things have gotten slightly better. He can make a decent explosion sound, thanks to some intense tutoring from his buddy, Jason. His airplane engine and his walkie-talkie static sounds aren’t too bad, and he is working feverishly on perfecting his machine gun rapid-fire.

However, our story has taken an interesting turn over the past several weeks. He hasn’t had much occasion to display his sword sound effects lately, but now he is communicating his grammar, punctuation and many emotions as if he were reading about it in a book. “This is so awesome, Exclamation Point!”.  “You want me to do what, Question mark?”  “Read my sisters a story tonight, Question Mark? Grooooannn.”

Trying to rationalize this as something other than more signs of my failings as a parent, instead I am looking at it this way - this is just a sign of how advanced and literate he is. He is a reading machine, after all. I would put the number of pages he turns in a year against any adult that I know. As a result, life has become a book in his mind. He’s simply a brilliant author in the making, likely already working on his opus magnum. Move over Steinbeck, comma, Goss is the next great American author and he’s coming after you, Exclamation Point! Period.