That’s what little girls are made of.

When I was four or five, my family went to the zoo. I had the option to have my photograph taken with either a rabbit or a boa constrictor. My choice.

I’m sorry I don’t have a copy of the resulting photograph to share with you, but there is a lovely image of little me with a boa around my shoulders. It has been on display in my parents’ home for years.

The photo you see here is the eel I caught while fishing with my grandmother. (I am five years old, wearing a “Mork and Mindy” bathing suit!) My grandparents used to take me camping, and we would fish. In all the times I’ve gone fishing, I have never caught a fish.

This eel was my first catch. It was a freshwater eel, caught in a lake.

A summer or two later, we were fishing on a pier in the Atlantic Ocean, and I caught another eel. There are no pictures of me holding that guy … he had nasty teeth! He squirmed, anyway, and broke the line.

Then my goofy cousin tried to re-catch it with his fishing pole (of course, it was still attached to my hook).

I wasn’t a tomboy, though. Just not a girly-girl. I guess I just wasn’t afraid of things most little girls are afraid of!