Fishing - “Markers in the Channel”

I have copied this from my personal history because I can't find an original copy that I had made elsewhere. It is about some things from my past, but it also hints at a positive attitude for the future. So I don't feel like I am being unfaithful to the theme of this blog site.

My Dad was a car salesman. When he sold a car in a given month we ate. When he sold two we celebrated with steak. When he sold three he bought a boat and we would spend weekends at the lake together. Being a teenager, I could have thought of nothing more important than spending time with my Dad. We claimed we went fishing, but mostly we just fed the fish with tiny hooks and ate Doritos and drank Dr. Pepper.

One February, my Dad and my uncle took the family to the Gulf Coast to fish in the salt water. There is a place south of Corpus Christi called Baffin Bay. It is relatively long and shallow. We launched our boats at the tip of water farthest from the Gulf of Mexico. Then we had to travel the length of the Bay till we reached the Intercoastal Canal.

The Intercoastal Canal is a waterway wide enough to let huge barges pass each other and deep enough to allow fairly deep draft vessels to navigate freely. It connects all of the coast from Brownsville, Texas around to Florida. This particular section of the Canal was dug behind the long strip of land called Padre Island in a shallow strip of water which separated Padre Island from the Texas mainland. We found a place to fish in the shallows next to the Canal and in the most dismal February weather we would fish and eat Doritos. We would catch these fish called Drum and they had a bladder inside that they would thump like a little drum. When the tugs would pass pushing these huge barges their propellers would throw so much water that the shallows near the canal would temporarily drain leaving crabs to march around and protect their small pieces of territory.

We had a great time, but when it came time to return we had to again return through Baffin Bay. The distance must have been about forty miles and at 20 m.p.h. it was a long ordeal. On the way back my Dad turned from the Intercoastal Canal into Baffin Bay. The spot he chose to turn was next to a marker buoy in the channel. I asked how he knew where to turn and he said it had a number. Then I noticed another buoy coming up with a number one less than the previous. This continued the length of the bay. On the way out I had noticed only some of the buoys and there never seemed to be an order to them. It was only when we were retracing our course that I saw the regularity of the spacing between the buoys and noticed that they went down the middle of the bay with equal amounts of water on either side. On the way to fish we had taken the same course, but because the water was rough I would spend most of the two hours staring at the deck of the boat. It would rise and fall as we hit each new wave and only occasionally did I look up in time to see a buoy pass.

I think that life is this way. Mostly, it’s a bumpy ride with dismal weather. But there are moments when we notice that there are “markers in the channel”. These markers are when we are confirmed a member of the true Church, or when we are touched by a good talk in sacrament meeting, or when someone close to us finds a way to say “I love you” so that we sit up and take notice. The buoy that we notice most is the one where we gain our testimony of the Gospel and it is drawn close as we pass. This is burned in our memory with clear vision of the rusty bell and the tired paint. We recognize only some of the buoys and if we are not paying attention it can be a long time between them.

Never assume that you have run out of buoys or that they are just your imagination. The Lord has ways to make sure that we see them when we need to. And they are our reassurance that we are in the channel, the safe path.