We all have that story from childhood. For my sister-in-law, it was about penny loafers. Despite begging, she was never allowed to wear them until high school because her mother considered them “too fast.” But her younger sister got to wear them in sixth grade. Oh, the injustice!
My story, the minnow incident, happened 43 years ago. I’m almost over it.
The sunshine glittered across the calm skin of Lake Temagami, Ontario, that July morning as my cousins Greg and Ronnie, my sister Lisa, and I sat fishing. Unsuccessfully. Not one to sit quietly, I hung over the steel boat dangling my fingers as the ripples drifted away in ever-widening arcs.
Greg piped up. “Bet you can’t eat a minnow.”
“Yuck. No way,” I said. “Minnows have scales. And look how big they are.” I peered into the bucket of flashing minnows.
“I’ll give you 10 bucks to eat one, but you have to chew it up and let me pick it out.”
Now he was speaking my language. Ten dollars was a fortune. I was in.
It was disgusting. No matter how much water I scooped from the lake, I could not wash all the scales from my cheeks.
As soon as we got back to Memmem’s cabin, I demanded payment. As usual, all of us cousins had been sent to Canada to spend the entire summer with our grandmother, “Memmem.” She lived with us spring and fall, so, growing up, I spent more time with her than any other adult.
Hearing the commotion, she pattered in from the kitchen to witness the payoff. She gathered her 5-foot-1 frame into her signature arms-akimbo power stance. Not a good sign. Her voice, perpetually gravelly from a tonsillectomy gone wrong, scratched, “What’s this?”
I was born naïve and maintained hope. “Greg bet me 10 bucks I wouldn’t eat a minnow, but I did.”
Her face clouded. “Oh no. No, no, no.” Like a velociraptor, she swiveled, locking eyes with me. “Give that money back this instant. I do not allow gambling in my camp.”
I gripped the bill. “It wasn’t gambling. I earned this eating the minnow.”
She jabbed a finger under my chin. “Give it back. Now.”
I threw the bill at a smirking Greg and ran, crying, to my room. We all knew this was about Memmem’s Totem Pole. Any casual observer could discern each grandkid’s rank. Greg was the adored prince, far above the rest. I sat next-to-last above Ronnie, whom she detested.
Memmem stopped at nothing to cosset Greg, even bribing a judge to avoid jail time for his first robbery. His life has been a cycle of prison, rehab, crime. It seems he feels entitled to grab what he never earned, while I’ve spent my life trying to do the right thing, struggling with self-worth.
Last week, I heard Greg, newly released from the latest halfway house, was dying of drug-related kidney disease. Though we all make choices, I can’t help but think he was the true victim in my minnow story. And I can’t help but mourn that bright little boy I once knew.
Kimberly Laustsen of Carrollton is a freelance editor and blogger and a Community Voices volunteer columnist. Her email address is kimberly.laustsen @gmail.com.
