Skillmans Don't Fish! ...right??

Growing up, Mark and his brothers spent most of their days out of the house and as far away from a summer chore list as they could get. They'd climb trees, scour the beach for sharks teeth, and hang out with the neighbor kid who later grew up and became a serial killer
(no kidding there, just ask "Snapper"--that's the nickname our little serial killer called Mark) but for most of the summer you could find the brothers out fishing.

Fast forward a few decades and everyone's still fishing except Mark. For him, it was just something to do to in the summer, but for his step-brothers it became their passion. And when I dated him and first met his family I met them on a family campout. When we first arrived at the campsite the tents were all abandoned because they were all out casting lines at the waterfront. And my first glimpse of my soon-to-be niece Dominica was of her smashing a fish on a rock and asking me if I knew how to gut one.

Now when you picture the family I married into, don't be picturing a bunch of red-necks with mullets and hats with fishing lures hooked to the brim. These boys all grew up to be very successful businessmen who travel the world. In fact, if you ever sat next to one of them on an airplane, you'd never guess that under their professional exteriors, lies a bunch of guys who pine at the smell of fish bate.

Recently, the brothers all came out for a visit. And while they were here, one of our kids let the brothers in on our dirty little family secret: We don't fish. They were horrified to hear that Mark lived right next to a lake but that he'd never ever taken his kids fishing there. Silly us, we thought the lake was for wake boarding!

When Uncle Don heard the offending facts, he came marching in to the house and said, "What do you mean you've never taken your children fishing?? Then he raised his hand high above his head and bent his hand to show a level threshold and then added, "That is just one step below child abuse."

He then quizzed the kids who led him out to the barn to scrounge up fishing poles, lures, and tackle boxes that had never been opened since the day they were mistakenly inherited.

It was a sad little scene as I watched my little band of wake boarders cast off the family speed boat for a day on the shore just to hold a stick. With a jumble of fishery stuff they all headed off for the lake. I grabbed my camera and walked up to the lake to take a peek at the messy business of fishing my innocent children had been so easily seduced into. I crest the dam and what do I see? A bunch of turncoats happy to be on the mucky shore.

Uncle Don setting things right.

My progeny of Benedict Arnolds...

Then to my horror, ol' "snapper" caught the fishing bug.

I kid you not, this boat here, it's full of our friends

who normally see us out skiing on the lake.

They stopped to see if their eyes were fooling them,
they thought they saw The Skillmans
 ON THE SHORE

They fished till it got too dark to find their way back down the trail to the house. And get this: They never caught a fish! But they came home all hopped up on stories of the fish that got away.

I thought that was the end of that until late in the evening I looked outside and saw strange lights on my lawn. Uncle Don had them all out hunting by flashlight for night crawlers...

What's worse, is that they woke the next morning and when we asked who wanted to go out for a morning ski, they all snubbed their noses and then asked "Can we go fishing instead??"

We haven't used the boat all week. Mark's scallywag brothers are now all officially banned from my house! I'm totally up for posh vacations with them, but they just aren't allowed to come over here anymore.