During my dad’s career, he wrote thousands of columns on every subject imaginable – from the mundane to the lofty. He wrote about anything that interested him, and everything interested him.
BOB HOLT REPORTING
A Midnight Mission
I had said I would never do it, but I did – I went grunion hunting.
How many times, I wonder, have I written the little item for the paper: “Grunion will run on local beaches for the next four nights,” it begins, and goes on to say they will be an hour later each night, that adults must have a fishing license, that the fish are to be taken only by hand, etc. etc.
I always worked in a reference to “silvery, little fish” because newspapers always call grunion “silvery, little fish.” As far as my personal knowledge goes, they could be speckled and as big as hammerhead sharks.
I always work in a disclaimer that the grunion are supposed to run. This is to cover us if they don’t, and prevent maddened, empty-handed grunion hunters from sacking and burning the newspaper office.
The determination to make a family foray against the fish last Friday night was a command decision in which I had little part because I was asleep on the couch. I always say “Yes, dear” when I am asleep on the couch and somebody speaks to me. This time it cost me, because I had just voted to hunt grunion.
Shortly before 11 p.m., I was aroused from slumber and pointed in the direction of the garage to get out the car. The first thing I did was load the beach umbrella because I always do that when we are going to the beach. Then I went back to the house for my sunglasses – bad glare at the beach, you know.
At Dodger Stadium recently, I complained about the bad lighting for four innings, until somebody pointed out that I still had my Snap-on dark glasses on.
This time my wife intercepted me. She took away my dark glasses. She removed the umbrella from the car. “Wake up,” she said. I did wake up. Then the enormity of our folly struck me. Going to the beach in the middle of the night! I went back and got two sweaters and my overcoat.
Traffic to the beach was light, which surprised me. I had thought grunion hunters clogged every artery. When we got there, we built a fire, using some wood I had brought back from Yosemite National Park. Ours was the beach fire nearest the beach. A little later, I learned why the others had built theirs on the dunes. The tide came in, and only some fast trenching kept the blaze from being put out.
The grunion were not due yet, but the children were out looking all the same, apparently on the theory that some grunion can’t tell time either.
As I did not have a license, I couldn’t fish. However, I was permitted to hold the pail and flashlight. Holding these, while pulling up one’s trouser legs to keep dry cuffs, presents problems.
“Over here!” they would shout. I shifted the light, slipped, dropped the flashlight, and caught it just before it hit the water. In doing so, I dropped the pail. The tide took it away, then brought it back again. When I grappled for it, I lost my grip on my trouser leg and my cuff got wet.
I thrust the equipment at the children, mumbling that I had to get more firewood. Hunting driftwood in the dark, I kept stumbling and bumping into others also looking for driftwood. Once I nearly stepped on some people who weren’t looking for driftwood, or grunion either.
Amazingly, it was warmer at the beach at midnight than it sometimes is at noon. I discarded my coat and two sweaters. Up and down the beach fires winked. Our High Sierra wood burned fine at sea level, I observed.
It was almost midnight. Time for the fish to assault the beach, according to the timetable. Tension on our side ran high. The thought occurred to me that somewhere out there in the breakers, the grunion were synchronizing their watches and girding themselves for the run in.
“Why do the grunion run,” my daughter Betsey asked.
“To lay their eggs,” I replied, “the lady grunion corkscrews her tail into the sand.” Betsey and I were thinking the same thing – that a grunion who corkscrews into our rock-strewn beach is likely to end up with a sore tail.
Minutes ticked away, but no grunion. A rumor swept the beach that that they were landing a quarter-mile down the beach, and the children were off. This rumor turned out to be false.
By 1 a.m., the children were getting sleepy. Betsey wondered if they were running on standard time, but I pointed out that in that case, they would have been there by 11.
Some late-arriving cars shot up our hopes. Were these old-hand grunioneers who knew something we didn’t? But their luck was no better.
So, we went home empty-handed. But not, unfortunately, empty-cuffed, or empty-pocketed. The amount of sand children can carry away from the beach always astonishes me.
Although their mother made them remove their shoes and socks before entering the car, they still managed to smuggle home enough sand to make quite a respectable pile on the living room rug.
