We were stationed at Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico from 1957 to 1960. I turned 11 in Sept. 1957.
Someone made a comment on Facebook recently, “As kids, we had the ‘run of the base,’ and no one seemed to care.” Oh, how true! And I ranged that base, far and wide, day and night!
One of the things I really enjoyed was playing on the beach just below the Officer’s Club. I think it was called “Survivor Beach.” (If not, I’ll change this when I find out different.) At any rate, the road behind the O’Club to the beach was a very steep road. Paved, but steep. No way would I ever even attempt to ride my bicycle down that road! But, how many times did I walk down there?
One of the things I enjoyed down there was fishing. I spent hours upon hours on a big rock that I could get out to fishing only with a Coke can, some (fishing) line, a sinker and hook. Quite an ingenious set up – and simple. One of the ‘locals’ showed us how to do it.
All you have to do is, take some fishing line and tie it to one end of the the can. I don’t know if today’s cans would work – they don’t have the medal seams on the ends that the old cans did. Anyway, when you get what you think might be enough line on your can, then you just add your weight and hook. For bait we would look for hermit crabs. Simple, plentiful.
Then once you are set up, you just swing the line around, then “fling it” to the area where you want to fish. You can control the distance the line travels with your thumb as it unreels. Simple!
I would spend hours out on that rock, returning to the beach only to refresh the bait. Imagine my delight the other day when I saw that rock in a picture on Facebook!
“My” rock is in the lower right of this picture, the one closest to the beach. I could get to it without getting wet, then work my way around to the seaward side… Just pure fun for a kid!