Bones of Contention
by
Rick Brown

July, 2017

Yvonne made her famous basil pesto pasta with asparagus and I grilled cedar plank salmon tonight! Our favorite summer meal! The fish was the flatter ... back fillets ... and had a few bones.
    
So … I flashed back to the "good old days" of the 1950s and 60s … when hardly anyone ate fish. Growing up by Lake Erie we would sometimes have perch or walleye for summer supper … or at a local mom and pop eatery ... almost always deep fried. And before every fish dinner our parents would warn us to "WATCH … OUT … for … the … BONES! They can lodge in your THROAT and you'll DIE!"
    
Even suspicion that a fishbone had snuck down one’s throat would result in emergency “white bread” therapy requiring the swallower to consume 2 or 3 slices of white bread … almost exclusively Wonder Bread … to move said bone to the stomach … where it could be safely digested.
    
I never knew anyone who died from a walleye bone. Never knew anyone who ever knew anyone who died from a fish bone. None of my friends did either.

Except for that older teenage boy at our church. He went blind from masturbating. Then he choked on some walleye bones at a Friday Night Fish Fry at the local Catholic Church.

And they made an example of him.

I'm reminded of such "truths" every day these days.

I'm not going back to those "good old days".

And I hope you aren't either.