I grew up in Marseilles, Illinois about an hour or so outside of
Chicago. I don't ever remember complaining of being "bored" as many kids do today. My friends and I would walk down the street across a very memorable foot bridge down the embankment of the I&M canal, built in the 1920's, that led to the old lock and dam. We would use sticks and strings and attach a small piece of hot dog or night crawler to the string. Most of the time our catches only consisted of a crawdad clinging tightly with tiny little claws to our bait. After a good Midwest rain, we would gather together in the dark with flashlights in hand. The yard would be illuminating with tiny circles, searching for a little wiggle under the grass. The learning curve for mastering catching such an elusive wiggling creature was fun. The tiny burrowing invertebrate doesn't even have eyes, however the night crawler uses photo receptors to detect light. Once these photo receptors caught our light, this intangible mortal crawler would squirm quickly back into the earth. You had to be quick on the draw to catch one. Our quest to seize these
earthworms usually would only tot up to about a half dozen. We would usually end our evening with a little flashlight tag. In the end, o
ur night adventure of flashlights and
night crawlers would keep us busy for a few more days helping to evade the newly found passage "I'm bored".
Love the simple things, create memories, and keep on
fishin!
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