SHAD FISHING IS THE ERRONEOUS TOPIC

80. SHAD FISHING IS THE ERRONEOUS TOPIC:

Most often you don't find people in the city talking about fish or fishing - as sport that is - not that they don't for sure jabber on and on at Citarella or Balducci's or wherever about this or that fish to eat or cook or prepare or enjoy : Fulton Fish Market itself be damned : it having left the East River like the Dodgers left the streets of Brooklyn back in '57 or '58 whichever it was but so what who cares everything else has left and the only battering ram left is some rotten Brooklyn Ale or Junior's Cheesecake or some such crap the stuff that people talk about the legends of food the doyennes of flavor and aroma the slob-fed fist-fighting food of all New York and FISH like the Bible mentions is nowhere to be found - other than simply FOOD it's not anything else and said without saying it's eaten without thought and the people milling around Barry's Canisteo Fish Hut were talking Shad and how they're running and where the Narrowsburg waters meet the best spot along the Delaware for frothing the schools as they come by and then it's all trucked on ice we're told for the trip quick into Manhattan to be sold like gold or any other slimy minion of the watery way and God Himself were he to stop here along the way to look back (just once) would utter something like 'what have I done' were he to see the rotten mess that's been made of things : and Hammurabi would also most certainly be ready to talk and eat reed-fish or whatever the catch is in the dreary dens and swamps of old lower eastside waterways ('didja' know he lived here once ? had a shack by 9th Street along the oldest waterway in town and spent many a day sucking for porgies at the old Collect Pond - back in the days when it was really big before the blocks and city streets came in') and anyway I once saw twelve men fishing at that very same spot and they were fishing for soles but came up with nothing but shoes and later they each became fishers of men and we all know that story - voracious with appetite and sorry of state too and then they tried to walk on water but wound up drowning and the fire brigade had to fish them out of the very sorry waters before they were washed into the East River and then to all oblivion too but we saved them by word and by right and they're now are enshrined somewhere up in the high Bronx at the Hall of Fame - really just a walkway with about a hundred busts of once-famous NY people but that's how things go and that's how they are: and everywhere too.
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(Some guy who killed a pumpkin pie - and he had broad shoulders too - was running from the scene and people were running after him yelling 'he's a murderer!' and as they ran they were throwing piles of carnations and flower petals leaving a wreckish wake of color and scent behind and all the while heading right for him was a large truck which ran right into him and ran him down and he simply then got up and began reciting - mantra like - 'I will never do that again I will never do that again I will never do that again...' and the crowd cheered wildly).
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"They'd never lasso Sue like that or leave such things in doubt either for really who WAS that masked man who said he was a doctor and took the ropes away and I never really have liked the circus anyway nor clowns but they never bothered me either way - neither scary nor sad is the best way to put it - and I remember a guy once named 'Dr. Freshman' too he played at being a clown at kid's events and parties and stuff but he ALWAYS smelled badly of garlic and I could never figure out why but if someone like that could get close to kids than think what an impression he might have made on hundreds of little lives but when you're a doting mother or parent you never think of that stuff for your kids - you just want the entertainment but none of that stuff ever works out anyway - think of the killers and weirdos you've known" and of course someone had to say "I've never known any so what's that say about me?" and the speaker nodded gracefully and said "you're just lucky I guess".
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'This is way too fast for me.'