Enemy In Camp!

[BasicPatrick]

Larry,

Being a recovering addict my advice to you is to be very very stern with the boy. I know, I know, you have a big heart and you aren't that old so it was only just a few years ago you were high school and college age and probably experimented just like your son. Your good natured, "I wanna be a friend to my son," side must not win out. Stop it now when the only problem is plugs made by the competition.

I am warning you. If you play friend instead of Dad, "A box of flies" will be the least of your worries. Let this minor issue go unpunished and some night one of your close friends will run into "your son" going through the drive through at Dunks with a 9 inch sluggo dripping with smelly jelly hanging from the rod in the rack.

Another year or so and yep, the inevitable will happen. He will be away at school and will e-mail you (they don't call anymore) a picture of a huge fish. You will call him so very excited and then in the middle of the conversation it will hit you. He went on a charter with those friends you know are no good for him. He will come home on summer break and will be asking if you have any friends that own a boat.

Less than a year later you will be helping him unload the trunk of the car and you will see what are obviously much used "Tubes & Parachute Jigs."

In the end it will all be out in the open and he will not even try to hide the "Cast net & a box of mustad treble hooks". It will be much toooooo late for you to stop it.

At this point you will have to let go and let God take care of him. You will stand at work yelling at one of your 10 non english speaking employees turning wood in the latest version of the man cave located at some suburban office park and you will be so ashamed when you recall the time you made the wrong decision.

You will be haunted by the repreated thought, "If I had only stopped it at that one plug, my son might have turned out a surfcaster". You will wake up in the middle of many a cold winters night seeing his name on a "commercial license with a Striped Bass endorsement." You will consider yourself a failure and you my friend, deserve better.

Now go beat the sheet out of him like the Dad you should be.