My first recollection of fishing was with my dad. The first thing we did was start the night before. Prior to supper, Daddy took the garden hose in the backyard and literally saturated the patch of the lawn where the grass didn’t grow well.

Later, just before bedtime, we went back out there with a flashlight and a Maxwell House coffee can partially filled with dirt. Though it was pitch black, I smelled them. I still recognize that scent today after a rain. When the flashlight came on, it seemed as if a million worms squirmed all over the wet patch.

Working quickly, we began to harvest them, tossing them into the coffee can. Let’s be realistic. One can’t expect to catch lots of fish without lots of bait.

Some of them slipped through my fingers and back into the ground before I could secure my grip on them. When Daddy determined that we had enough, we went to the kitchen, where we covered the top of the can with aluminum foil. Daddy carefully punched holes in the foil so they could breathe. Then, to Mom’s chagrin, the whole mess went into the refrigerator (or icebox, more correctly) to preserve them until we left the next morning.

What seemed to me to be ridiculously early — it wasn’t even daylight yet — Daddy woke me in whispered tones so that we could get a good start.

Slipping on my clothes and rubbing my eyes, I quickly obeyed. He loaded up the rest of the fishing gear, grabbed the coffee can of worms and some stuff for making sandwiches and headed for the car.

It seemed awfully big and roomy with just the two of us in the old Buick. Having no clue where we were going, but now being bright eyed and alert, I eagerly watched out the window as dawn began to peek over the horizon.

When we arrived, Daddy unloaded the car, with my insignificant help, and we sat up our fishing zone on the dew-damp grass next to the river. By then I was anxious to get started and excited, too.

My little stomach growled, so we both had a bologna sandwich with mustard and a cup of cold water from the Thermos jug before we went into action. Patiently, at least at first, Daddy baited my hook, adjusted my line and bobber and showed me how to cast it out into the water.

Making a few practice runs, he told me I was ready after snagging the sleeve of his jacket; mortified as I watched him peel off his garment to free himself from the hook.

He then went to work to ready his own equipment. He had barely sat down when he heard me yelp, “I’ve got one!”

Laying down his own pole, he filled a large bucket with river water, removed my whopper — yeah, right — from the hook and dropped it into the bucket.

I’m pretty sure my jaw hung open in awe and wonder. The only fish I’d seen up close before were the minnows we caught in Dixie cups in the little creek bed that ran in front of our house in the holler.

This was a whole new experience — especially when one of the spines in his fins poked my tender fingers.

This scene was repeated multiple times. The bucket was nearly half full, and Daddy had yet to get his own hook wet.

Daddy was always short on patience, especially with a lucky 5-year-old who kept him so busy baiting the hook and taking my fish off my line that he barely got his own bobber wet.

It seems that I’ve always had good luck fishing and usually out-fish any and all companions. No one disliked that more than my Daddy. He loved competition — as long as he won.

Unaffected, however, I continued to fish. Finally, he declared, “Lou, if you catch one more fish before I do, we’re done! Now sit over by that tree and let me have a turn!”

Disappointment reflected on my face, but the obedient child I was did as told. Waiting, much more patiently than he, was sheer torture.

Finally he allowed me to try again, and it was a repeat of my success. He ordered me to switch places with him, for obviously I was fishing at a lucky spot.

He continued to remove my catches and bait my hook yet again. He never did catch a thing that day. It soon became obvious that he wasn’t about to catch anything either; except maybe a cold.

Perhaps he did, and that may have been the origin of the phrase, “Man Cold.”