Catfish & Tomatoes

It was in the summer of 1965, a beautiful day in July there was no humidity, just a sweet easy pulse to this summer day.
My brother Jerry and I were picked up by Grandpop early in the morning about 9:00, I suppose it was just to give Mom a break, with five kids and one being an infant, she had no car or even a drivers license, always stuck in the house with her never ending chores.
Dad was a steelworker at the time and he was at work building bridges we were told,
this conjured up images in my mind of a man with the superhuman ability to singlehandedly construct huge massive steel structures that span rivers and valleys just like the one over by grandpops house, as a matter of fact that bridge was the one that dad had built just for grandpop. I suppose that’s why we had called it “grandpops bridge”.


Well as we got on the road with gramps, first he went over to see some fella, a friend of his who had a garage where he worked on cars, gramps steered his big buick up to the front of the garage and tooted the horn out of the garage came a short fat man he greeted grandpop in front of that big blue buick. The man pulled a notepad out of one pocket and a wad of cash out of the other grandpop gave the guy a couple of bucks and the guy wrote something down on the notepad they shared a laugh and shook hands, I was watching this transaction as the Beatles “Yesterday” began to play on the radio grandpop gets back into the car and were on our way down the road. Now grandpop was the quintessential Archie Bunker prototype and at eight years old I knew this, I also knew that grandpop had disliked the Beatles long haired hippies he called them it was a generational thing nothing personal just not his style. So as the song “Yesterday” played with its melancholy undertone enough to move the hardest of hearts I asked “hey Grandpop do you like this song?” “Yeah it’s nice” he replied “This is the Beatles!” I said but what I really was telling him was “hey look grandpop my generation has something to offer the world” here is a song by a group of guys that you don’t care for but their experience is as human as yours! At my young age I was trying to bridge that generation gap and make a connection with a side of him that he rarely showed; he was always so stoic and reserved, not one for displaying too much emotion and when he said “yeah its nice” I knew that my grandpop was made of flesh and blood with a man with a heart.

We went home to grandpops house and grandmom was there she gave us a hug and a kiss, some gingersnaps and a glass of milk, then we went off again with Gramps down to Mill Street in town; now Mill Street was always a semi big deal because that’s where the action was, it was the business district of downtown Bristol there was more hustle and bustle going on there than there was back in lazy ‘ol Levittown we went to the bank and got our lollipops then back home.
Grandpop said in his not so excited voice “ya’s wanna go fishin?” “Yeah grandpop let’s go fishin Jerry and I replied in sync. so we went out to the back yard and dug up some worms and we walked across the street to the river where grandpop baited our hooks and showed us how to cast our lines . Things were kinda mundane and boring there was no excitement waiting to catch a fish so Jerry and I threw stones in the water and we kept asking Grandpop all kinds of silly questions that I’m sure we were getting on his nerves which prompted him to tell us the age old reply “Quit talkin’ so much your scaring the fish away”! “Oh OK grandpop!” Then suddenly a tug on my line and then another even harder this time “ I got one, I got one”! I yelled I don’t think Gramps believed me at first but then he took my pole from me and he began to reel it in as the fish was coming ashore he handed the pole back to me and told me to “bring ‘eem in “which is just what I did this was awesome my first fish and it was a beauty. “You just caught supper” said grandpop as he took the hook out of the fishes mouth and wrapped up our gear, I remember looking at him and thinking “You’ve got to be kidding”“ I’m having this baby stuffed and mounted”
“Lets go show Grandmom” we walked back across the street to the back of the yard and He called Grandmom outside to see my catch .I was feeling really proud of my new found fame as the family’s ace fishermen not giving a second thought to what my brother Jerry must have felt having to watch me gloat.
Grandpop took a yardstick to measure it, the fish was about 18 inches in length and it weighed about a pound and a half or better, He called it a “CHANNEL CAT” this was no ordinary catfish this was a “CHANNEL CAT”a very special kind of catfish, elusive and one that only lives at the very deepest depths of the river; only a masterfully skilled fisherman could possibly make this kind of catch and “I WAS HE”. As I was admiring my spectacular catch Grandpop walked away for a moment and when he returned he had in his hand a hammer, a nail, and a plyers, as I was confounded by this He took the fish and he held it up to a tree in the back yard He then drove that nail straight through the fishes head he might as well have drove it right through my heart. “Grandpop!” “What are you doing?” I screamed.
“I’m going to skin this fish and we’re going to have him for supper!” He replied and then he took the plyers and his pocketknife as he cut back the skin of the fish with the knife he pulled the skin off with the plyers, then he cut open the belly of the fish devoiding it of all it's guts, all of this to my horror as I was expressing my dissatisfaction to what he was doing he began to laugh while doing it; in what I construed at the time to be a laugh of sadistic pleasure at the crucifixion of my prized fish, my masterful catch, my trophy
(Actually I’m sure that he was laughing at my reaction to this murderous act )
I watched him with utter contempt but not ever challenging his authority.
And then to my shock my brother Jerry says “Hey Grandpop can I help you ?” at skinning it that is. “Sure” grandpop told him. Jerry knew I was puffed up gloating and now he wanted to join Grandpop in this crime so as to strip me of my prize. I couldn’t take it anymore as I left the two criminals I brokenheartedly walked out towards the front of the house, and just as I got there a huge truck came barreling down Radcliffe Street with a load of tomatoes from KINGS Farm I presume. The truck was speeding and it hit a bump in the road just in front of the house when three bushel baskets of tomatoes fell off the back of the truck and spilled out onto the road, the truck kept going. “Grandpop, Grandpop I yelled as He and Jerry came running around to see the bounty of delight laying upon the roadway
Grandpop knew just what to do, He walked out into the middle of the road and he held up his hands stopping traffic in both directions, as he had his two second generation Italian tomato pickers gather up the bounty from the road; as I was picking up these tomatoes I remember two simultameous but different thoughts. One was the awesome power of my grandpop that he could stop traffic with his bare hands and he wasn’t even a cop
the other thought or rather emotion was the embarrassment I felt as I was picking up spilled tomatoes while all of these people in their stopped cars had to wait for us to finish.

By now grandmom was out in front of the house in her apron watching us and anxiously waiting for these tomatoes it was about 3:00 in the afternoon and it was time to get supper going When we had finished grandpop took the catfish and washed it down with the garden hose, he brought it inside as grandmom was out back picking out her choice of tomatoes, after she had made her selection she walked over to a small garden and asked me to help her pick some mint and sweet basil that she had growing there.
Grandmom went back into the house with her ingredients , grandpop, brother Jerry and I washed down the rest of those tomatoes, as grandmom was in the kitchen preparing supper. Grandpop took a small saw from the garage and we all went out to the front of the house where he began sawing some branches off of a tree, as Jerry and I watched him a robin began attacking my brother Jerry repeatedly diving and pecking at him sending him running for cover. I thought
“this serves you right for helping grandpop kill my fish and when he’s finished with you it’s going to be grandpops turn, this is instant karma, God is getting you back now you know how it feels to be tortured.". But Grandpop said that the robin didn’t like the red baseball cap that Jerry was wearing, and to this day I have never again seen my brother Jerry wearing a red baseball cap, nor have I seen him in the company of robins.

After some time had passed Aunt Rachel and Aunt Helen came home from work and grandmom called us into the house to eat supper.
Ahh pan fried catfish smotherd in fresh tomatoes sauteed with butter garlic peppermint and basil. Eating it didn’t bother me at all, it was delicious!
My Grandmom was a saint if ever there was one and if she thought it was OK to cook the fish then it must have been the right thing to do. That’s why it didn’t bother me eating it, as a matter of fact I wanted seconds but there wasn’t enough left over.

Moral of this story is this:
“Grandpop had a heart and soul, he had the knowledge and skill to fillet a catfish, no guts,no gills Pick up tomatoes that a farm truck spilled give it all to grandma to make one hell of a meal.
this was just a day in the life of two suburban 2nd generation Italian American kids.
My grandparents and my parents too; they were old school and what a treasured memory..I've been blessed to have them and this experience