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This is what happens when you volunteer for a civic event.
Something Fishy
Every year our local Chamber of Commerce holds a bass fishing tournament. Since I do not fish, I had never paid much attention to it. This year the director of the COC asked if I would volunteer to help with it. She has always been good to help out the library with publicity, so she has the right to ask an occasional favor from the librarian.
The event was held at a public river access area a few miles out of town. The place consists of a fair-sized picnic shelter, restrooms, a bait shop, a large boat ramp, and a parking area. When I arrived there early Saturday afternoon dozens of vehicles with empty boat trailers filled most of the parking area. The contestants were spread out over the river for miles. The weather could hardly have been better.
Most of the people around the picnic shelter were Chamber volunteers working with the event. Some had been there since four in the morning. I was unusual in getting to spend the morning riding my bicycle and doing as I pleased. My job easily made up for that privilege.
The tournament operates on a catch-and-release basis. Contestants check in their fish, have them measured and weighed, and then put them in a holding tank. There the fish get a chance to catch their breath before being returned to the river. I had the job of returning them. This meant that I would personally handle virtually all of the hundreds of fish caught during the day.
When I arrived a volunteer had just wheeled a tank of oxygen such as welders use up to the hundred-gallon Rubbermaid holding tank. A line from the tank would feed oxygen into the water to keep it breathable for the fish. Someone had already put a recently-deceased fish in the tank. The bubbling gas agitated the water of the tank enough to send the fish circulating around it in a grotesque semblance of life.
Behind the tank stood about a hundred feet of pipe that ran down the bank into the river. A hose in the upstream end of the pipe fed water down it to make it into a kind of water slide. Any fish that survived the day would have the experience of its life.
For a time I had little to do but hang out with the other volunteers. The Chamber director, an energetic lady about my age, bustled about fiddling with her laptop, giving instructions, answering questions, and cheerfully regaling everyone with stories about various unexpected difficulties she had had in setting up this year’s tournament. She had put in a late night the evening before and had then had to come in before dawn to set up the tournament. One couldn’t help admiring the fact that she could still show such energy and cheerfulness after all that.
After a time the contestants began to check in and dump their catches into the holding tank. The first couple of fish were dead. Their catcher took a penalty while the catch joined the zombie fish making the rounds in the tank. Soon more or less alive fish began arriving at an increasing rate. I had all I could do to dip them up, make sure they were still alive, and send them on their way.
Getting the fish out of the tank proved awkward. I had to catch them two or three at a time with a net in one hand and put them down the pipe with the other. They were slick and hard to hold, especially when they flipped and flopped. Not all of them were so lively. I held each fish for a moment to check for movement of the gills or fins. I had been told not to throw back dead fish, so any that did not move I dropped back into the tank. If I caught them again and they had revived by then, so much the better. A couple of dead fish kept turning up in the net like bad pennies.
Some fish got tangled in the net and had to be untangled. Some of the bigger fish were too large to lift easily with one hand. I had to place the net close to the release pipe and bit by bit try to maneuver the fish into the pipe. Now and then after several moments of this the fish would drop into the water and have to be netted again.
I soon learned to try to steer clear of the fins. They made little wounds in my hands very much like paper cuts. For a good while I was so busy that I did not notice too much. Later I wished that I had brought or been supplied with a good pair of stout rubber gloves.
The equipment posed problems. The oxygen line kept getting in the way of the net. Sometimes it would manage to get knocked out of the tank and I would have to put it back in. The hose in the release pipe also kept coming out and had to be re-positioned. It usually landed in the tank and caused it to overflow. I soon had enough water standing around the base of the tank to start a migration of small beetles out of the grass onto higher ground under the picnic shelter. This upset a lady sitting in their path.
Some especially energetic fish took advantage of the overflow to make a break for freedom. Whenever one flopped out onto the ground I would drop whatever I was trying to do and pick it up and get it down the pipe before it suffocated. To reach them I sometimes had to step over the release pipe. Fortunately my legs were long enough to do this.
Naturally any children present tended to gather around the tank. They watched my work, commented on whether this or that fish looked alive, and screeched whenever a fish shook water on them or flopped out of the tank. I was told that I had been selected for this duty because it involved working with children. I began to wonder instead whether it was some sort of initiation for unwary first-time volunteers.
The deadline for checking in arrived. Within fifteen minutes I had sent my last fish down the pipe. Three dead ones remained. I suspect that I probably sent at least a couple more back to the river by mistake.
I hosed myself down with fresh water to clean some of the film of fishy stuff from my arms. Someone offered hand sanitizer. It burned my little cuts. Feeling the need for something to drink, I went over to the nearby tubs of free soft drinks in ice water and found them apparently full of unwanted diet Cokes. I dipped a fishy hand into the ice water and found an orange soda on the bottom. On the few occasions I drink soft drinks I want them to have real sugar.
The contest was not yet done. It took some time to process the teams that had a shot at the high scores. They had to take polygraph tests in an improvised test center in a nearby camper truck to state that they had not substituted a fish caught elsewhere for what they claimed to have caught at the tournament. With prizes running into the thousands of dollars, tournament organizers can’t be too careful.
Eventually the prizes were ready to award. A local DJ first drew for door prizes—boat batteries, gift certificates, and a rod and reel. By now many contestants who did not figure they had a chance at the higher places had left. He had to draw three or four names for each door prize awarded. The contestants for the main prizes were all there, though. The winning team got several thousand dollars and a photograph of themselves holding a giant “check.”
Then it was time to put everything away and go home. Only a relative handful of us took part in the loading of signs, tote boards, the unwanted diet Cokes (the COC director literally could not give them away), and assorted paraphernalia. We disposed of the three dead fish, drained the tank, and dismantled the release pipe. The long sections of plastic tubing of which it was made were light enough for any two people to carry. The lower sections were a problem to move, as they were located on a treacherous section of steep, rocky bank. I added a small nick from a pipe section to the collection of fish nicks on my hands.
Most of the goods went onto a truck and trailer belonging to the Chamber director’s husband. A couple of us followed her into town to help her unload. We drove under beautiful early evening skies. I was glad to be driving a convertible, as this gave me a chance to air out a bit. We had a bit of excitement when a plastic trash barrel fell out of the truck onto the road. After we had recovered that I kept a close eye on the truck in front of me in case anything else looked about to take off.
By the time we had the last of the goods unloaded at the Chamber building we were all pretty tired, the Chamber director most of all. I went home, rested a bit, and then felt like going for an evening convertible ride. The evening skies and breezes were fantastic. The day could not have ended better.
I went to church the next morning with all of the fish smell washed off and a couple of Band-Aids on my fingers. It just so happened that I had thought to get a box of them a couple of days before. I had not anticipated needing them so soon and was glad I had them.
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The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls who, when he found an especially costly one, sold everything he had to buy it.
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