Childhood is a time when one's personality develops, as you explore the world, and attend school, and by doing so engage in all sorts of different activities.

Well, I did all of that. However, I am somewhat odd in the area of the personality development. As a child and a teenager I was constantly jumping back and forth between being riddled with anxiety, and being the one who had no fear, disobeyed, and incessantly tried breaking barriers, and it is still the same to this day. Of course now I can conclude that the latter aspect of my personality caused the former! If I would be told not to do something, that was the challenge to do it. And I cannot stop! While working as an Operating Room nurse, the nurses were told they ‘HAD TO WEAR’ scrub dresses, only the doctors could wear the pants. Well, that changed after six months when I got disgusted of the double standard. A female surgeon joined our staff and scrub pants and shirts were delivered for her, so I wore them too. Nobody said a word. The nurses before me told me they would never dream of doing that, but the barrier was broken and everybody was into pants and tops. They were easier to work in, and life went on. It was such a simple thing, and the boss well knew I would do it, and I did. They also knew they couldn’t get rid of a skilled Operating Room nurse over such a ridiculous action, so-another win for me!

Breaking barriers, disobedience, and being, as my family has been known to call me ‘HEADSTRONG AND FOOLISH’, is not always that simple. I do not know why I intentionally disobey. I just do–and it brings me pain, physical pain, and sometimes emotional pain, and I just keep walking into it.

Let me tell you about my experience with the huge cod hooks. My husband and I had our boat docked in Popes’ Harbor. We were the only people there, when usually there was always another boat or two. So we went fishing early, in our little open boat, leaving the bigger one docked. We came back with our cod, and my husband proceeded to clean them.

Now, for two days I had been watching some type of fish breaching across the harbour, within walking distance of our boat. I really had to know what they were. They thrashed and swirled the water around from time to time, and I just could not stop myself from investigating the whole phenomena. I took the handline and still with my rubber gear on, I started out for the little pond. My husband glanced up, shook his head, and later said he expected trouble right then and there, but didn’t want to waste his breath on lecturing me, knowing it was futile.

I reached the little pool, there were no fish to be seen, so I sat on a rock, still holding my handline and hooks. The hooks were large, and each had a ‘cod candy’ attached. For those who do not know, the ‘cod candy’ are small rubber fluorescent squid, and the cod love them. They come in different colors, and mine were sort of a pale green. Lovely little candies for the fish they were. I had caught a thirty-pound cod with the cod candy, making me like them even more.

Then I saw a fish, just a little one, but figured the school would be soon coming into the pool. And some did. I picked up the handline, tossed the lead weight into the pool of fish, and then I felt pain, bad, awful, wretched pain in my hand. And the line was not unraveling to follow the lead weight. So, following the pain to my middle finger I saw what I had done, and I knew I had trouble, big trouble! Sticking out of my finger was a large hook, it had pulled with the lead weight, and because of the way I was holding it, the hook could not move and had totally imbedded itself in my finger, in one side and out the other. So here I was, bleeding, in pain, with a fluorescent squid sticking out of my finger. And I felt the anxiety, big anxiety, which was worse than the pain. I gathered the line up, and made it back to the wharf.

My husband took one look and said "I knew it, I knew it! When I saw you going with that I knew it!"

So, OK, now what do we do? I was in tears by then. A few tears might lessen his anger I figured. So he cut the line, leaving just the squid and hook sticking out of my finger. He gathered the first aid kit, and decided the four fingers had to be immobilized, and thank heavens he knows first aid. He saved the lecture, had to untie the boat, and get us out of there without his first mate. He gave me something for pain, made up a bed in the wheelhouse, and we headed for Petley, Random Island. The pain was incredible, but I did OK. And the good captain got the boat to her berth, docked and secured, and I was helped into our vehicle and taken to the hospital.

Saying I felt foolish lying on a stretcher in Emergency with a squid sticking out of a bandaged hand is an understatement. I knew the lecture on disobedience would come, but for now the doctor had to work on freezing the finger and dislodging the huge ‘cod candy’. My husband watched the procedure, which was great because I thought that might make my talking to even less harsh, and it did!

I had a week of not doing dishes, three days of miserable pain, two new packs of cod candy not opened, and a month left to fish. I had to talk myself out of this one. And somehow I did, got allowed back aboard the boat, and was instructed in no uncertain terms to ‘do as you are told’! I did manage it somehow.

Now I don’t know how I got hooked on ‘cod candy’, other than that I have an addictive personality, addicted to disobedience. And I thought I may as well come clean and tell the story because I know if I don’t he will, every time we board our boat this summer. But this summer I won’t have my cod candy, or my cod, but those fish are still in Popes Harbor, and I have a fishing rod now. I despise trouting, but I love to fish so I have to like it. If I have to turn away from my cod candy and go to bobbers and bait, then I will.

So, I truly was ‘hooked on cod candy’, the same as I am addicted to peppermint knobs. And the Cod Candy made great tree ornaments at Christmastime. My finger healed, and I was told to look for a place that teaches ‘Obedience Classes’ to adults. Now, I don’t think I am going to obey that one at all!

Yesterday I found a whole new package of cod candy, unopened. I hid them because I am still hooked on them, and if he finds them, he will take them, and I hate withdrawal from anything.

Now, did you ever hear the like of that? And it is an absolutely true story, written by someone who cannot seem to obey –and is unlikely to change at this point in her life.

Now, where is the fishin’ rod? I can rig that up in some unique way and maybe catch a whale with it at some time.

You never know! The last time I went trouting I caught a small trout, a tire, and a juniper tree!!

Hope reigns eternal!!

Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe
  Submitted By: Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe