All of the boys at the Brownsville school were well acquainted with the frogs, toads, snakes, hawks, owls, fish, and a whole host of other creatures that inhabited our environment. Our town lay by the banks of the Mississippi River at the end of a long valley whose upper reaches were known by names such as Cork Hollow, German Ridge and Irish Hill. Wildcat Creek flowed lazily by on the outskirts on its way to merging with the big river having wound itself through woods and fields to arrive there. Framing everything were the towering limestone bluffs, carved out by ancient rivers, and on whose rock faces could be found fossils of sea creatures deposited there by the lapping waves of an even more ancient sea.
This is a story about fish. Not abut bullheads, catfish, trout, bass and others common to the river and creek, but it is about exotic fish, fish found in an aquarium. Gaudy fish that were colored gold or were gold and white spotted. Fish that had delicate tails and fins that rippled and undulated in the water as they swam about. Their home was in a fish tank placed in a prominent position in the upper room of our school. The room was occupied by grades four through eight. The girls loved those fish. The boys, as a group, were more or less disinterested, seeing nothing much to get very excited about. The problem was the aquarium. By some accounts it was neat, I suppose, with little stone formations on the bottom that resembled miniature coral reefs and statues with large holes through which the fish swam. There were snails that crawled about the bottom and sides cleaning up debris like vacuum cleaners. Unfortunately the snails could not keep up and the tank had to be cleaned with regularity. This task, of course, fell to the boys who rotated through the job in pairs. Why didnít the girls have to do their share, we wondered. One could say that over time our disinterest in the fish turned into a hearty dislike and resentment. The seven or eight gallon tank would have to be carried out into the hall by the wash basin, the water drained and carried outside (we had no running water), and fresh water carried upstairs in a pail. No doubt about it, this was, in our minds, a gross injustice. Something had to be done. It was Dick Fitzpatrickís and my turn to clean the tank. We carried it outside the classroom as usual and placed it on the stand. After carrying the water both ways on the stairs on a hot day we hatched our plan. We would make sure our hands were wet, and as we opened the classroom door and passed through we dropped the tank. The glass shattered and seven gallons of water burst out onto the floor carrying with it the unfortunate fish. Momentarily there was a stunned silence broken only by the sound of tiny tails desperately flapping the water pooled on the floor. Suddenly as if on cue, the girls screamed, the boys smirked, and the teacher shrieked. Gathering her senses she yelled for everyone to get a cup or glass, fill it with water and save the fish. Ninety nine percent were saved by the girls. That was the end of the school aquarium and the beginning of a proliferation of small fish tanks throughout the town, the legacy of the unfortunate accident.

John Winslow grew up in Brownsville. He now lives in South St. Paul.

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