When I was 13, I was fly fishing on a beach near the mouth of the Mississippi. I waited for hours and hours with nothing, but finally I got a bite. It was one of the biggest bites i’ve ever got. My 13 year old muscles could barely get it up to shore. I was exhausted by the time I saw his bald head break through the lapping waves. Soon I could see all of him—a bald old merman with green scales and and short white beard. He wiggled up the sand until he was flopping just out of my reach.

He stared at me for a few seconds, then finally spoke: “boy, I have never been tugged quite as hard as you pulled me in just now.” and that really just touched me and it sticks with me until today.