As a middle aged man, approaching minnowpause, a good many folks think I'm mentally eel. My theory though is that I've haddock with life, not unlike Salmon Rushdie or Marlin Brando. Mahi oh mahi. Since I've always marched to a different drummer, you know, or sang like Tuna Turner. I live down on squid roe. and been a shad bit egocentric, people have tried desperately to save my sole. Holy mackerel, if I could count the times. Those bassturds. They just perch up on their high seahorse and talk down to me as if I'm pond scum. So what's it all about, Algae? You may think I'm shellfish and cruel but read between the line, or bass hook, or swivel.

Not long ago, I wore a suit and showed up for work in my big corner office. I played a nice upwardly-mobile guppy. I made a great deal of money but always felt crappie. You may grunter at my story but I don't care. Take your fathead elsewhere. I'm not just another John Dory writer, as you may surmise.

So soon, I was swimming with the sharks and swam back to shore. Nay, I was no angelfish, that is for sure, but I was sturdy as a rockfish. Like othe baby boomer, I was striving to be an upwardly mobile guppy. I am certain a lot of my problems is that I listened to too many rock bands in my youth and don't follow direction well due to my being hard of herring. I do have faith; I'm not one of those agnostic fish-types who PONDers if Cod even exists up way up in the heavens.

More than once, in fact lox of times, I would start a project early in the yearling, and never finish it. This only served to bait the public into calling me a sucker(fish) or even worse!! I can stand the heat. Nobody can lure me unless I let them. I know how to take care of myself. I left home at age 15 and was an urchin ever since. The streets are hard for a fighting fish but I made it after all. Many times I was on the bream of success and blew it just like any blowfish would do. One time I even trout for major league football (no kidding) during the USA league. They laughed me off the field treating me in a clownfish manner. I didn't like it at all.

My Fishlosophy is that anyone who steers clear of me, well, "that's their net loss". It's my own fish philosophy; well I actually plagiarized it from decarp "I swim therefore I am wet." And to them I simply say "Caviar Emptor", and yes, even Carp Diem (as obvious a fish pun as it may be...but I digress into deeper waters).... But in my own way, the world is my oyster and nobody can take that away from me. I continue to have a porpoise in life and really, isn't that what counts? I could have turned out evil like Jack The Flipper but noo. I became an outstanding citizen nevertheless. They will never make me walk the plankton. Some of my story may be sardinonic but that is the way it goes. It helps me cope through the rough seas. A shrimpleton, I'm not.

And so the world evolves. And I will think of a new philosophy as soon as I have time to mullet over. But I will. Because I'm the reel thing more real to my mom than Maggie was to ROD Stewart. You can count on that. I may fail a lot but when I throw a strike, no catfish hunter has a thing on me. So when I change no neon tetra light is going to go off. It will be a gradual thing. And I'm not sea lion either. I am truthful; hook line and thinker. This is no moray-eel issue. It's simply another bottom-feeder situation.

One Final Note: No fish were injured and killed during the writing of this article; at least not porpoisly.