Fishing

You'll wonder why I haven't posted of late. I just finished a 3-week academy where I taught computer programming to junior high students. That pretty much meant I was busy from sunrise to sunset with work. In fact, I'm still writing their evaluation letters which have to be done by Monday.

That reminds me of an idiom, burning the candle at both ends. I've looked this idiom up, and people have all kinds of wacky theories about what the heck its literal meaning must be. There's speculation that it refers to physically lighting a candle on both ends. You get twice as much light (work) from the candle but it gets used up quick.

Personally, I wonder if there isn't a more sensible explanation for that idiom. Burning the candle at both ends means getting up early and staying up late. So until modern electric lighting was invented that meant you were burning the candle at both ends of the day. Getting up when it was dark, and staying up after dark. Doesn't that seem much more plausable?

My dad always used to say, You know what you get when you burn the candle at both ends: a short wick! That of course is a reference to dynamite (it originally was a short fuse).

So, what does all this have to do with fishing? Nothing, but it's my blog. Actually, though, I do have a fishing tale. I took Ellie fishing last night with a friend. Actually, to be completely honest, Ellie has been asking to go fishing, so I talked a friend who has more experience to take us.

So Steve and I and Ellie and Steve's daughter Hallie all piled in a boat on a nearby lake and fished last night. I didn't catch anything, but not for lack of trying. The most exciting part, of course, was that Ellie caught her first fish. It was a small bass, which we reeled in and let go. She was very pleased.