What other explanation could there be for my silence?

“Gone fishin'” is the grown-up equivalent of playing hooky.

It’s the middle of the week! This man should be sitting at his desk in his ill-lit recycled-air-conditioned office reading philosophy papers. But is that what he’s doing?

No. He is on a boat cruising into the Gulf of Mexico– or if you prefer, The Gulf of Mississippi.

Flipper/ette says, “Hey.”

I never allowed The Girls to play hooky. Education is important! And “hooky” is such a vulgar word. (All those days The Girls weren’t in school? We called them “Mental Health Days.”)

This is the lighthouse just off Dauphin Island, Alabama. It was built in 1871 on what was an island in its own right. It’s now just the place I caught the biggest sting-ray known to man or women or child or beast.

At least that’s what my fellow fisher-people, hooky-makers, mental-health seekers told me. (I was getting a bit qU..e.E.zzzzzz….Yy at this point. Focusing on bringing that Big Red Fish onto the boat made me concentrate and I was ever so excited to … F*ing skates/stingrays. It was big. But who cares?)

That’s some serious hooky-playing right there.

More tow-the-line birds would be off reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

~~

Mr. Big Food and I are now back on The Farm and I have to tell you, my desk is still rollling rolling rolling in front of me as I look at the photos I took. The vestibular system is amazing, isn’t it?

More stories tomorrow.