Braving Boys

Bike Week 2010, Daytona Beach, Fla.

Among all of the duties we have as parents, exposing our boys to all sorts of stuff is a priority. That’s why we took them to Bike Week 2010 on Saturday. Danny’s had some “I love motorcycle” moments in his life (one Christmas, all he wanted was a toy dirt bike, and he always picks motorcycle racing when he games at my sister’s house), and Joey is usually up for anything car, boat or bike-related.

Now, don’t get me wrong — I really prefer that my guys don’t ride motorcycles at all, ever. Still, I thought the Daytona Beach event would be exciting. And for moments, it was (The Naked Cowboy and monster-sized snake were hits).

The Naked Cowboy and The Snake Guy

But Danny mostly moped, claiming his legs were too tired to walk up and down Main St., and Joey, well, he just wanted to get to the water to throw his cast net. And when I asked them both at the end of our maybe hour-long tour of this 69th annual extravaganza if they could see themselves as bikers when they grow up, the response was an overwhelming NO. And so we headed to a favorite fishing spot in Ormond Beach, where Joey and John dabbled at the shore and Danny sat with me in the car, playing his Nintendo DS. The game?

Yamaha Supercross.

Eight-year-old Joey said to me today, “I’d go back to all the bad times in my life to get back to some of the good ones.” Pretty profound for a young guy — and exactly how many bad times can the boy have encountered? I didn’t ask, just focused on the good instead.

“Which good times?” I asked.

“Just me and Daddy at Lake Wauburg, all by ourselves,” he said.

Knowing it must be a dad’s dream to hear something like this, I told John. Sure enough, his heart was warmed. And he can’t wait to get Joey back out on the lake, with the favorite cast net and a few fishing poles on a simple little Jon boat.

How about you — would you go back through the bad to get to the good?

We took our last big summer trip this weekend, to Joey’s birthplace — Daytona Beach. And while we stayed in this really nice condo right on the beach, we didn’t really spend much time on the sand or in the water. There was an hour or spent in the waves on Friday and two nighttime visits to the dark ocean, but mostly the boys wanted to fish. So we drove five miles away and spent most of Saturday and Sunday at the river, where Joey and Danny were content, and happy — and way productive. Joey’s favorite cast net delivered them trout, flounder and shrimp. And the shrimp on a hook scored them mullet and catfish (see above). They were in heaven. So were we. And if time permits and tropical storms stay away, my three guys will squeeze in one more fishing trip (this time on an uncle’s new boat) before school starts and vacation ends. I’ll hold down the home fort for this trip — I mean, fishing is great and all, but peace and quiet is quite a catch too.

“Let’s stop catching the fish,” I told Joey on Tuesday as he was throwing his cast net into the ocean at Cedar Key and scoring handfuls of baby fish, whose heads were getting stuck in the holes of the net. For the most part, the fish were surviving — Joey captured them, then he and Danny plucked them from the tangles and plunged them into a bucket of water — but we lost one, and that made me sad.

“Mom,” Joey said, “This is fishing. You catch fish, and some die. There are lots of fish in the world.”

Fair enough, I thought, and so I let Joey continue pulling in fish after fish. Then I saw the sign:

No Fishing or Swimming Allowed.

“Joey, I just noticed this sign,” I said, pointing. My almost third grader turned, read the words we both missed when we first arrived on the dock and said: “Uh-Oh, we better go.”

“Yep, we better.”

And we did.

And after a few minutes of admiring what he’d worked so hard for, Joey set his family of fish free into the waters of the West coast. And that made me feel so much better.