Fishing for goodness and finding it
The scream broke the quiet of the lake.
One recent Sunday morning, I was walking around the Lower Shaker Lake that straddles Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights with my sister when we stopped to chat with two young men who were fishing.
They had caught a large carp, the kind that looks great in a fishing trophy photo but doesn’t taste so good on a dinner plate.
The men looked like college students out on an adventure. The carp was growing weary as they held it up for a photo shoot. They told us it was too big to keep. They had stepped away from the bridge briefly and walked down to the water’s edge to release the fish.
We were grateful they were sending it safely on its way.
Suddenly, a perky little pooch came bouncing along the bridge where they had propped their fishing poles. The pooch was dragging one rod behind it.
The puppy’s owner screamed. A fish hook was caught in her puppy’s mouth. Yes, it’s as terrible as it sounds.
She grabbed her dog and two people rushed in to help. As she held the dog, they struggled to free the barbs of the fish hook that had punctured the dog’s mouth. The poor dog struggled and wriggled to get free. My sister, a former ICU nurse and eternal dog lover, stepped in to help.
I was more worried about everyone sharing COVID-19, being nearly face to face, so I stood 6-feet away and calmly reminded all to keep their masks on.
They couldn’t get the hook out so I called home to see if we had any wire cutters. No such luck. After some struggle to keep the dog calm, the hook came out.
Then the owner screamed. The fish hook had popped out of the dog’s mouth and slid into her thumb. The barbs punctured her thumb and the hook was deeply embedded in it.
She held her bleeding thumb high, fishing wire still attached.
Yes, it’s as terrible as it sounds.
I used to be an EMT, so I stepped in and did my best to calm her. I called 9-1-1, as I feared she might go into shock from the trauma of it all. She had turned white, her knees were buckling and her shoulders were shaking.
We stayed with her until the police and an ambulance arrived. I tried to comfort her by telling her, as horrible as it felt, it would soon be over. The paramedics or ER doctors would remove the fish hook, give her antibiotics and most likely a tetanus shot. In a few hours, it would be a great fish story to tell one day.
A paramedic gently led her to the ambulance while the two shaken fishermen offered apology after apology.
We continued our walk, grateful that so much help had arrived so fast.
Later that week, my husband showed me an account of the event on Nextdoor, a social app that lets you communicate with your closest neighbors.
The dog owner posted an account of what happened and reported she spent two hours in the ER. She suggested fishing be prohibited. Someone suggested she keep her dog away from the poles. There was a comment about fish hooks not be left unattended and a suggestion to have a designated fishing area.
I was tempted to defend both fishermen and dog owner, since they all seemed to be good people in person, but decided not to enter the fray. What I had witnessed was a circle of kindness around the woman and the dog, that included everyone but the fish, who I hope got away.
Ever since, I’ve skimmed Nextdoor just to see what things people choose to let eat away their serenity. I’ve read tirades about runners not social distancing and debates about who should move over, walkers or runners. One writer objected to “stealth runners who come from behind and spew droplets.”
Josh Cochran in The Atlantic wrote, “If Twitter is where you fight with strangers, and Facebook is where you vie with friends, then Nextdoor is where you get annoyed with neighbors.”
I’m all for connecting, but let’s keep it kind and keep doing it in person, too, where it’s a little harder to be mean to someone you can see.
And that mask?
It’s important to wear one so you can get close enough to help a neighbor in need, because in person or online, that’s what we all ultimately are.
Neighbors.