Artifact essay

Artifact Assignment The core of all families is comprised of just a few simple things: love created through shared experience, blood consisting of almost identical DNA sequences, and tradition that guides and creates rigidity from which the family is built around. While love and blood are unquestionably important one thing is certain. Families thrive through tradition. Traditions that shape and mold the individuals that make up a family unit are passed down from generation to generation. Some of these traditions change and adapt to the current era while others see little change if any at all. Whether they are story-telling, going to grandma’s on Christmas, or that annual fishing trip, traditions serve as the glue that holds a family together. My artifact choice actually stems from two family traditions, our family’s summer fishing outings, and my father’s storytelling. It was a balmy July afternoon on Lake Huron when I first heard the story of my grandfather’s fishing reel. My dad explained how my grandpa’s Penn 940 Levelmatic (with ball bearings!) was top of the line back in 1979. The reel cost my grandfather a cool hundred dollars which is a substantial amount of money now let alone for the time! The irony here is that my dad referred to my grandpa as “the cheapest bastard you never met”. My dad exclaimed “that guy would squeeze a nickel ‘til he heard the buffalo fart!”. At the sporting goods store my dad challenged his soon to be father-in-law to a fish-off. All jokes aside on another balmy July afternoon almost thirty years prior my grandpa bought his finest fishing reel and immediately drove up north with my father in the passenger side of his Oldsmobile Cutlass. They fished for three days and typical for these fishing trips my dad caught buckets of fish while my grandpa caught not one damn fish, though he managed to hook his favorite shirt. They hadn’t told anyone where they went or how long they would be gone, a true spur of the moment adventure