FISH STORIES

The picture of my grandson Barend telling OMA his first fish story reminded me of the fishing adventures I had with my father in the years around the beginning of World War II, between the ages of 6 and 10.
After that time, the gruesome possibility of having to unhook a fish with a hook piercing its eye made me too sensitive or tender-hearted to continue this sport. By the way, the size of a fish is measured between the ends of your thumbs, not the longest distance your fingers can stretch. [consult: Oostdam, 1940, disregard this]

but do have a look at THIS!!

Dad caught the largest snook ever and it took the combined efforts of the two of us to drag it aboard our rowing boat. I then spent half an hour beating the monster over its head with my wooden shoe, carefully avoiding its wide open beak which was big enough to hold my head.

eel ["paling"]
snook ("snoek")

In Amsterdam, we rented a rowing boat at the Oranjesluizen and rowed as near to the Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant as we could get. There we fished for eel ("paling") and as soon as we filled a bucket we would row to the nearest smokery where we swapped it for a parcel of smoked eel. Next, we would row back and savor the freshly smoked eel, dropping the skins over the side. The life eels around and below us would rise to the surface to swallow the skins, thus making a very short cycle of recycling.
Strangely, Americans do not eat eel. That's why a smart Dutchman became a millionnair in VA around 1975.
Once we had an unprecedented case of catching nothing at all, but since Dad hated to come home empty-handed, he bought a bucket of fish from a little boy. He told me that this had to remain a secret between the two of us which I should never tell anyone. Years later, he said he could not tell me a secret because I might tell. Indignantly I countered that I had never told our other secret.
"Which one?" he asked, while my mother and his wife looked up attentively.
"The one about you buying a bucket of fish and pretending we caught it ourselves!" I blurted out.
In Friesland once, Dad and I skipped Sunday church to go fishing. After the service, the pastor rode on his bike along the dike and stopped to berate Dad.
To the pastor's chagrin, Dad quoted the exact verse in the Bible stating that Jesus went fishing on a Sunday [but not on a Sabbath].
I could go on for hours, but I have to go now and do some work.

BLO fecit 20041110 ? - Tiberias - stories


note: cf KORAN:
The fourth passage mentioning the Sabbath is in chapter 7:163. :
"Ask them (O Muhammad) of the township that was by the sea, how they did break the sabbath, how their big fish came unto them visibly upon their sabbath day and on a day when they did not keep sabbath came they not unto them. Thus did We try them for that they were evil-livers."
The Sabbath-breaking event is described in more detail here. According to tradition, this took place in a sea-side Jewish community during the time of David. Because of their injustice, God gave them a trial. He caused fish to appear in their weirs on the Sabbath, but not on other days. If they had not set out their weirs on the Sabbath, this could not have occurred. In so doing, they dared God to punish them. At the same time, God tested their Sabbath observance by bringing fish only on that day. He would not have done so, had they been obedient.