How to Become a Legendand
About 50 years ago, my best friend, Ronnie, and I wanted to go fishing. We fished a lot, because the river passed by at the end of the block we both lived on. Unfortunately, it had rained a lot that week, and my grandparents wouldn't let me go to the river while it was up, no matter how much I begged . , While we were feeling sorry for ourselves, we decided, for reasons I never understood, to pry off the manhole cover in the street. There seemed tnd wanted to show off.o be water down there, so we grabbed our poles and dropped our lines down the hole. One of our older neibors saw us, and immediately came over to explain to us that there weren't any fish there. We realized shortly that several of the neighbors were peeking at us and talking quietly. We didnt get many cars on our dead end street, but a few minutes later I saw a car approaching with my 2 teenage cousins in it. One had just got his drivers license , and wanted to show off.
They left, but came back about an hour later. We had replaced the manhole cover and were sitting next to the road. They were excited, 'Look what we got, one said, and showed us a bucket with a small carp in it. We found a old man fishing by the bridge, and we bought it from him for a quarter.
They left, laughing. Ronnie and I werent too bright, but we soon figured it out.
We found the old neighbor, showed him our fish and went merrily on our way to look at our fish. A few minutes later, we saw 3 old men looking down the manhole, discussing how the hell did they catch a fish down there?
We made a pact to never tell. For the next few years, everytime we were seen going to the river, the old men were curious. Very curious.
We loved it.
