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~Trout Face Soup~

Bob Withabey liked to fish Rock Creek in Twin Falls, Idaho for trout. The water was a tad warm, so the trout weren't as tasty as those caught in cold, mountain streams, but the creek was close to his house, and he liked the look on the trout's faces, so that's where he usually fished.  The fish always seemed to be smiling and happy, even as they expired in his kreel.

Bob thought he had a way of improving the flavor of Rock Creek trout. He did this by making soup of the fish. He left the heads on, which provided eye-juice  seasoning, and whenever he checked the pot, trout faces smiled up at him from simmering broth and quartered onions.

Bob snagged a crawdad in Rock Creek once, and chose to add it to his trout face soup. The crawdad never smiled when alive, nor did it crack even the slightest grin as it cooked. Bob came to the conclusion that the crawdad has no sense of humor.

He didn't want his trout face soup tainted with the spice of sadness or curmudgeonery, so he pulled the now red crustacean from the pot and placed it in a small sauce pan and covered it with a lid so he wouldn't have to look at it. The trout face soup was all smiles again.

After dinner, Bob removed the crawdad from the sauce pan and took it outside, set it on a fence post in his back yard, then went indoors and sat in his rocking chair where he could watch through a window. Bob was confident a cranky crow would come along to investigate, and sure enough, just a few moments later, one arrived.

The crow, feathered black as its disposition, cocked its head to the right, studied the creature a bit, then grabbed it in its beak and flew off with it.

"My home is happy again," Bob said to himself, then took his shovel and an empty soup can to the compost area of his yard to dig for worms, and if he happened to unearth a grub, he would toss it away, because Bob Withaby believed grubs are much too grumpy to take fishing.

D. B. Tompsett