Thread: Being thankful: A fish story

I was making a comment about worms in fish guts in the topic about redfish, and it reminded me of something that happened a quarter of a century ago, but I doubt if the conditions have changed drastically since then.

Back in '87 I was fortunate to be invited on a marlin fishing trip to Ecuador and the fishing was so good I don't talk about it much for fear of being called a liar, but aside from that, it was evident that we weren't in the U.S. any more. The poverty of the general population was most evident.

At the end of one fishing day, we were standing around waiting for our marlin to be brought up on the beach (no docks) and one of the boats had caught at 450-500 lb. black marlin. It was hauled up onto the sand and weighed, then laid out with the rest of the boat's catch. A bunch of little kids, six to ten years old, ran up and started throwing sand into the marlin's mouth. This was puzzling, so I asked the head man of the fishing operation who spoke English, what they were doing. He said, "Oh they're throwing sand in there so they can get a better grip on the stomach. They're going to pull it out and take it home to eat it for supper."


Now, what was it I was complaining about this morning?

There are tons of people in the world who are happy with less than what I have. I'm not rich by any means but I do realize that I am blessed beyond belief. There are billions of people on this earth that would give their left arm to have a safe comfortable place to sleep, food whenever they get hungry, and basic human rights.

God bless America. Hug a vet.

We define poverty in the US that doesn't match in the rest of the world. Taught history for 35 years and couldn't get the students , much less the PARENTS to understand. We do not understand what it is to be POOR in the UNITED? STATES OF AMERICA!!!!! We are soft.......

Husker I have been in some poor ass countries I'm not sure soft is correct but most folks don't know just how damn good we have it. Our poor are well off compared it some. IMHO. God bless America