One of the good days of 2009 involved a Finch and a fish

Originally, I intended to start this column with the following: "Here we are, two days into 2010 and nothing bad has happened."

The problem with that is the column was submitted at 2 p.m. on New Year's Day. That leaves about 17 hours in which something bad could happen (based on the assumption that, like me, people start reading their newspaper at 7 a.m.).

If, God forbid, something bad did happen it would make me look like a fool (or more of a fool if you listen to the guy who thought writing about a couple of Pearl Harbor survivors on December 8 was a sin against nature). If 2010 continues the trend set by 2009, the likelihood is pretty good that something bad will happen in that many hours.

So let us hope for the best for 2010 and look back at 2009. Instead of trying to sum up an entire year in less than 600 words I decided to focus on a single day when something good happened.

For me, it was a day in August, (or it could have been July, I can't remember) when I went fishing with Mayor Bill Finch of Bridgeport. Finch is an avid and skilled freshwater fisherman, so he is used to wading in tree-shaded, bubbling streams in pursuit of such killers of the deep as trout and largemouth and smallmouth bass. (For the non-angler readers, I should explain that the latter two fish are called that because one has an exceptionally large mouth and the other has a smaller, but by no means insignificant mouth. I will allow the reader to guess which is which.)

Finch had been after me for a while to take him fishing in saltwater (called that because it is quite salty), where the really big fish swim, and where it is technically possible to be eaten by a shark. The worse thing that can happen to someone fishing in a bubbling stream is slipping on a rock, being rendered unconscious and possibly drowning.

The saltwater we aimed to fish is called Long Island Sound, which, as I have said in the past, was once slandered as "the barnyard of the Atlantic" by none other than the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald in "The Great Gatsby." Just why Fitzgerald held Long Island Sound in such contempt is not clear. It may have been that he viewed the creatures inhabiting it to be quasi-domesticated things that come when you hold out a carrot. Were he still alive, I would e-mail Fitzgerald telling him that, in fact, the creatures in Long Island Sound are quite wild, and while it is true that the likelihood of a shark attack is low, the likelihood of a really bad jellyfish sting is quite high.

So one hot morning Finch and I donned waders and set out for Milford to catch bluefish and striped bass (the latter, ironically, has a smaller mouth than a smallmouth bass.) Finch wore his old freshwater hip waders, which are called that because they only come to the tops of the thighs. They are held up by garters, which, in my opinion, give them a slightly kinky look. Hip waders are OK for bubbling streams, but in a wavy environment can lead to wet legs. Fortunately, the tide was so far out that day we could have walked halfway to Port Jefferson and still not have gotten deeper than our knees.

Finch made the first cast. Nothing. Oh God, I thought, I've got the mayor of a medium-sized Northeastern city out here in dangerous waders and he's going to get skunked. (Again for the non-anglers, skunked is what they say when, at the end of a first trip you have caught zero fish. Just why they call it that when skunks hate water, I do not know.)

Finch made a second cast. Something. It's a nice fat bluefish of maybe eight pounds. (Unfortunately a flock of marauding seagulls later pecked its eyes out as it lay on a sandbar.)

Yes, there may have been better days on 2009, but any day you fish with a mayor and don't get eaten by a shark is a good day in my book.

Readers can contact Charles Walsh by e-mail at cwalsh@ctpost.com.