(The following is an excerpt from the book, Hacking Normal by John Stevenot available on Amazon.com)
It’s a hot day.
As I stare across the shoreline of Seabrook Island, South Carolina, all I can think is, “I hope I don’t get a sunburn.”
When I burn, it’s not pretty. Ask anyone in my family about it. They’ll all tell you that when I burn, everybody burns.
I quickly make my way over to my backpack, where I have a few extra bottles of sprayable sunscreen stored away. I proceed to shower myself in lotion when, suddenly, I hear a shout from behind me.
“Woah, John! Fish on.”
It’s my father. I drop the bottle and sprint toward the bending fishing rod. By the time I reach the pole, the rod is ready to snap. I grab ahold and yank.
Whatever monstrosity is on the other end now has a hook firmly set in its jaw.
Fish on. Hell, yeah!
The fish is incredibly strong and fights hard. The reel is quickly letting out line, but that’s okay; there’s plenty more. I let the fish take as much as it wants. If I keep the line taut, the fish will eventually wear itself out.
My father walks over, cigar in hand. “What do you think it is?”
He blows out a cloud of billowy smoke.
“I don’t know, but it feels big.”
My father quietly watches while I continue my dance with the fish. I can’t help but imagine I am Santiago, fighting the massive Marlin that dragged him out to sea, in Ernest Hemingway’s classic, The Old Man and The Sea.
Several moments go by and finally, the fish starts to succumb to its own exhaustive efforts. I begin the arduous task of reeling in the fish, making sure not to break the line in the process.
As the fish gets closer to the shore, we get a brief glimpse at what it is. With sweat pouring down my face, muscles aching, and raw hands, I turn to my father with a huge smile on my face and say, “It’s a shark.”
I take several massive steps backward and pull the shark out of the water and up onto the shore. I get the shark into place where my father can grab it around the gills and straddle it. He does this to prevent the shark from thrashing around as he removes the hook from its mouth.
As my father is relieving the shark of its superficial impalement, I am scrambling back to our gear to grab my phone in order to take some pictures.
As I open my phone, I notice I have a few emails and app notifications waiting for me, but I ignore them. Instead, I swipe open my camera. I proceed to snap a few pictures of the shark as the tidal waves softly lap around its shimmering, muscular body.
It’s a beautiful blacktip shark, around three to four feet in length. My father asks, “Got enough pictures?” “Yep. We’re good.”
My father drags the shark back to the water. As the water deepens and the swells become stronger, the shark begins to turn unruly. The shark strikes left then right, its head swinging around, attempting to mar its captor with its razor-sharp teeth. It wants to escape, to be free.
I can relate to that.
Finally, the shark is fully submerged and, in the blink of an eye, disappears amid a cloud of sand and salty foam.
That’s shark number three for the day and it’s not even noon.
We reset our bait and hurl the line back into the rolling waves. My father relights his cigar, and I fetch us a couple of beers as a reward.
On my way back to the cooler, I open my phone to check those pending notifications. One is a work order to add a blog article and brochure to the company website, and the other is a request to set up billing for a new account.
I grab the beers and make my way back.
I hand my dad his beer and set mine on the ground. I ask him if he could give me five minutes to handle a few things. He nods and says that he can handle the rods for a moment without me.
I jog to my backpack, pull out my Chromebook, fire up my hotspot, and quickly complete the tasks that were sent to me. I send a couple other emails to make sure everything else is running smoothly back at the office and then put everything away.
I grab the sunscreen that I dropped earlier and walk back to the rods. I finish spraying myself, crack open my beer, readjust my sunglasses, and begin to watch for any sudden jerk of the rods.
The sun is shining and there’s not a cloud in the sky. The water is warm, and the smell of salt is heavy in the air. The seagulls are cawing while hovering over our heads (trying to steal our bait, bastards). There’s no one within half of a mile of us in either direction.
We are quietly enjoying the moment and each other’s company.
Serenity.
It’s just another ordinary Wednesday in the middle of June. As good a day as any to spend some time fishing on the beach. We should do this more often.
Why not?
Back home, the world is churning as it usually does.
My father’s company is making money and running smoothly, while the companies I work for are benefiting from the information and automation systems I set up a few months back.
We are free to do what we want with our time.