ST. Pat's Parade and lots of Fishin (290)

I may be having "borderline" too much fun here in Southwest Florida, Naples/Marco Island area to be more specific. First off my buddy Ernie Maier has been keeping me almost fully employed as "first mate" on his pontoon boat. I think we went out the day after I got here and we did real well catching 5 nice Sheep Head plus on top of that George and Gladis Thompson were out there and gave us 2 additional fish that they did not want to clean...Which by the way is my other boat I am sometimes employed on as "first mate"...Looking forward to that trip out with them soon also...You see for years down here I just fished off the banks or off the fishing pier down at the Marco Island bridge..Well they closed the pier after the hurricane for political reasons is my guess, but anyway My fishing boat owner buddies came along here just in the last 3 years maybe....It is much much better going to the fish instead of hoping the fish come to you..I have learned to "read the roots" on the mangrove islands...when they have the right amount of crustations of shells hanging on them, it is a good bet that sheephead and other species will be in the area, working these nibling on these shells or oysters whatever they are.

Well sandwiched between my fishing trips I marched again with the Marine Corps League in the St. Patrick's day Parade. Gosh I love doing that, and was especially anxious to this year with my new stainless steel knee that was installed in June, to see how it would perform under the two mile march leading the parade. I was a little worried about it and spent some days prior walking 2 miles and hurting just a bit now and then...But you add bagpipes behind you and a recording of a Marching songs and the Marine Hymn and there a no stopping you...Your chest kind of swells a bit to be with your comrades again and listening to the cadance caller to keep in step...I guess you have to be there but let me tell you, things went well and we never missed a beat...Well truthfully I did have to "skip" a couple times to get back into step but that was mostly caused by the real Marine recruiters leading us not listening to the drill master's words...We had about a dozen marching League members maybe including our own Randy Kington in his motorized wheel chair...I am proud to be a member of this Naples League, as they do a lot of civil service things around town from picking up trash along the highways to mentoring disadvantaged kids in the school system here...A program they call "new horizons". That I have to admit I am not involved in because of my short stays here, but they surely are and I am proud of them for it and allowing me to be a small part and at least set my left foot down on the 1's and the 3's on St. Patricks day when the Marines lead the parade here as they have for over 30 years....It is truly exhilerating....The top picture is me and a nice sheep head fish...my favorite catch here..but the lower picture is a weird fish I caught yesterday on my second trip out in Ernie's boat...This dude had 3 legs on each side and two wings that it could spread out...and then all the regular stuff a fish has for swiming...I don't know what it was...I guess if you were a evolutionist you could make a "weak" case for this thing being a forerunner of life crawling up from the ocean and even becoming a bird maybe...But I don't buy any of that nonsence even for a new york minute...My eyes and the brain God gave me tells me without a doubt that life on this planet is way to complicated to have started with algae, it had to be the handy work of a creator...I will thump my Bible and know this is how it all came about....