The Shrimp Lady
Weekends in my early childhood were spent strapped into a life jacket and parked on the middle bench of my dad’s tiny jon boat, floating through Tampa Bay, squinting up at the Florida sun. Because I wasn’t exactly capable of (or perhaps interested in) operating a fishing pole of my own, I became the official bait bucket manager. Fishing isn’t for the faint-hearted, and my dad put my stomach and dedication to the test early on by assigning me to bait duty. Would I squirm and beg to stay home next time or fulfill my destiny as the sharpest bait plucker in the Bay? On Saturdays in the jon boat, we used live bait — not squiggling worms or grubs, but the cockroach of ocean — the shrimp. My small, clumsy hands grasped blindly at the scurrying shrimp, punctuated by piercing shrieks and getting poked by shrimp tails and beaks. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but dad knew I’d get bored within 12 seconds of sitting on that boat, and that I’d also throw a fit if I got left at home. And wouldn’t that have been easier? Son goes fishing with dad and daughter stays home with mom. But that’s not how my dad played the parenting game. If I showed even the slightest interest in something, he included me, tried to teach me, did his best to foster my interest in whatever it was.
To keep the grind exciting, I got an affectionate and appropriate title: The Shrimp Lady. Every 20 minutes or so, when the bait got picked off the hook or a fish got caught, an enthusiastic “Shrimp Lady! Shrimp Lady! I need a shrimp!” would ring out among the waves lapping at the side of the boat and the low hum of the bucket’s air pump. Duty called, and I obliged. The Shrimp Lady never disappoints.
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