Better than Bingo

For some strange reason I've had pretty slow days lately. I don't know why I'm not getting a lot of news assignments, well I do, but that's another post...

This afternoon my assignment was canceled. I just got back into the office when the phone rang. A woman called informing my boss a group from one of the local nursing homes was out fishing on a boat with a non-profit dedicated to providing the elderly and disabled fishing experiences. We recently ran a story on the formation of this group, but it being a slow day I offered to go check it out. And this is where I met Evelyn Littlejohn, who is 90 years young.

After an hour or so of sitting on the boat, watching the six of them fish, unsuccessfully I should add, I struck up a conversation with her. I bent down and said: "Evelyn, I can feel it, you're going to catch a fish." Two seconds later her bobber sank. She started reeling in the small bass with all of her strength.

"It was a real thrill, let me tell ya," she later recalled.

Kathy Crier, whose mother Marjorie Horn, 91, was on the boat approached both the non-profit and the activities director with the idea. "(My mom) has fished all of her life," Crier said. "It brings back a lot of good memories."

Another woman with the group told me a lot of folks didn't come out because it was interfering with their Bingo games. Bingo happens all the time, I suspect. Fishing, however, doesn't. And a bad day of fishing has to be better than a good day at bingo.