I’ve always loved to fish -- my mother must have been frightened by Aquaman when she was carrying me! I don’t remember the first time I went fishing -- all I know is that by the time I had my first bicycle I had a fishing pole and was headed to the Mississippi to angle for carp and sheephead. Sunday was my best day for fishing -- from sunup to sundown I’d be on a river or lake somewhere in Minnesota engaged in piscine cajolery.
But as I was contemplating joining the LDS Church down at the Ringling Winter Quarters in Venice, Florida,, there was a sudden hitch in my gitalong, as far as fishing was concerned. It was during rehearsals, and it came about this way --
I went in to the see the Bishop for a pre-baptism interview. We covered all the basic beliefs and tenets that I was expected to follow --
“Do you keep the World of Wisdom? No coffee, tea, tobacco, or alcohol?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you understand the Law of Chastity completely, Brother Torkildson? No sex of any kind before marriage. No sex outside of your marriage partner.”
“Got it, Bishop.”
“You intend to pay an honest tithe on your income?”
“Yes I will!”
The Bishop leaned back in his chair, obviously pleased with my earnest and brief answers. He asked one more, casually -- just as a formality.
“And you will keep the Sabbath holy?”
“You know I have to work Sundays with the circus, right?” I replied anxiously.
“Oh, well -- that’s not a problem. When you have no choice in the matter it can’t be considered disobedience. What I mean is that you will consider your activities outside of your work hours on Sunday, to keep Sunday a holy day.”
“Of course I -- “ I suddenly choked. Wait a minute! What about fishing on Sunday? Those canals in Venice were chock-a-block with channel catfish, just waiting for me to drop a ball of stinkbait down in the ooze with a hook embedded in it. They put up a good fight, and never weighed less than two or three pounds. There was nothing I loved better on a Sunday, when we didn’t rehearse our clown routines for the show, than to amble over to the canal behind the Venice Villas Motel to see if I could pull in the catfish faster than the gators could bite them off my line. It was always a close race.
“Um, what about fishing, Bishop?” I asked gingerly, hoping against hope he was as dedicated an angler as I was. “Is it appropriate to fish on Sundays?”
He pulled at his chin. I could see he was anxious not to ‘lower the boom’ on a prospective member, but at the same time he knew his duty as Bishop and had to lay it out for me plain and simple.
“Well, Brother Torkildson” he began. “I think that decision lays between you and the Lord. I personally would not fish on Sunday -- but I wouldn’t condemn anyone else who did it, if they had a godly reason for doing it.”
We left it at that. He signed the slip authorizing me to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I was dunked a few days later.
As always in a spiritual crisis, I went to my old pal Tim Holst and put the question to him.
“How can I give up fishing on Sundays? I think it’ll kill me!”
Holst and I were First of Mays together on the Ringling Blue Unit. He had just returned from a two year mission in Sweden when a Ringling talent agent spotted him and hustled him into the Clown College. He was five years older than me, and I thought he knew everything.
Holst rubbed his chin (Mormons do a lot of chin rubbing, I’ve since learned) before replying.
“You gonna start missing church just to go fishing?”
“No. Never!”
“Can you maybe bring along the Book of Mormon to read while you’re waiting for the fish to bite?” he asked.
“No time for that” I told him smugly. “The fish are all over my special stinkbait and I don’t have a moment’s rest.” That was not actually a lie -- not for a fisherman, anyways. Besides, I didn’t want to ruin my scriptures by smearing them with sticky fish scales and bait residue.
“Are you helping anybody by fishing in the canal on Sundays?” he asked me, a shrewd twinkle in his eye.
“Huh, what?” I replied like a dullard, not catching on.
“I mean, couldn’t you maybe catch a fish or two and give ‘em to some of the old widows over in the trailer court who probably don’t get much fresh food to eat? Some of ‘em probably are eating cat food right now.”
The light came on.
“Oh, sure!” I exulted. “I’ll scale ‘em and fillet ‘em and take ‘em over every Sunday afternoon. That would be a heck of a good deed, wouldn’t it?”
Holst just grinned and nodded back at me like a bobble-head owl.
And were those old widows at the trailer park grateful for my fishy gift? No, they were not. Several of them chased me away with their brooms. Those old bats were suspicious of my offer, thinking I was a fiend out to poison them. So I started bringing my catch to my fellow clowns, who appreciated my kindly intentions. Chico, Roofus T. Goofus, and especially Holst relished grilling the fillets on their cheap Hibachis by the side of the Iron Lung train car, where we all lived.
And that, ladies and germs, is how this Mormon kept the Sabbath during those long-ago days with Ringling.
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Project title: “What I Saw at the Circus”
Work in all mediums accepted.
Deadline: December 29, 2017
There is no entry fee
All submissions become the property of the Provo Museum of Mail Art
All submissions will be on display at the Provo Museum of Mail Art for
approximately eight weeks after being received.
Please mail submissions to:
The Provo Museum of Mail Art
℅ Tim Torkildson
650 West 100 North #115
Provo Utah 84601 USA
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