Bacon

From a lower cabinet I lift my cast iron skillet. A goodly weight, gently I set it down on the glass top burner. For one slice of thick cut bacon. Into a blistering heat, I drape the slice. 

Hear it. Smell it.

When I was a young lad, my maternal grandfather would carry me--his phrasing--along with him to Lake Tarpon north of Tampa. The sun would still be below the treeline and the air cottony as we set up along a small creek that wound out to the big lake. 

We were after bream, enough to fill a small wash tub. We fished with cane poles and tiny red and white bobbers and worms. Plentiful strikes came fast usually, but the standard was a fish larger than my grandfather's hand. 

The creek had a sandy bottom and in the amber water the fish could be sighted 4 to 5 feet out from the bank. I would hold the hooked worm so the tip of the rod bent a bit and then launch the bait out in a flat arc. Plop. Rarely was there much of a wait before the bobber started moving, and I would set the hook back into the fish.

They came up struggling. I remember the surprise of their fight for such small creatures. Into the tub half-filled with creek water, we tossed keepers.  

When we had a dozen or so, my grandfather would set down his pole and open a brown grocery sack that held 2 cans of Campbell's pork & beans. He opened one for me with an all-metal can opener and handed it over along with a plastic spoon. He had a small plastic jug for water that we drank from plastic cups.

Back to fishing and soon we had more than 2 dozen big fat bream. A few of the smaller ones would be tossed back before we packed the fish in a cooler of ice, and then we headed for home.

Around 10:30 or so, my grandfather would be in his kitchen, bacon in one skillet and fish in another, and grits warming in a pot. When the bacon was done, eggs would go in to be fried hard. If any cornbread was left over from the day before, then that would be served up too. 

A grand feast, eggs and bacon, grits and cornbread, and bream caught that morning. 

I turn my slice over. Hear it. Smell it.