The Goldfish Swim
It's common knowledge that goldfish aren't the best survivors in the world. We peddle them around in bags when we're taking them home from carnivals taking no greater care than we do our bag of cotton candy. When taken home from the pet store, many don't make it through the 30 minute drive in the family car, especially if the AC is broken and it's 90 degrees outside. I'm sure in my years I've buried at least a half dozen goldfish while humming Taps as the bowl flushes. I remember having only one fish that lasted a substantial time despite problems with its swim bladder. That fish was a fighter.
When you think of getting free summer goldfish the obvious thing to come to mind is the carnival. Typically you can win a fish by chucking a ping pong ball into a small glass bowl, much to the dismay of many parents who aren't equipped with fish habitats. As kids, we don't think that far. As far as we're concerned, Mr. Fishy can live in a small vase on our nightstand and we can teach him to rollover and do flips out of the water.
I grew up in a small town, and small towns can sometimes get away with some crazy tricks. One of those tricks was the Goldfish Swim. One night every summer during the special nights where the community pool was open late, dozens of neighborhood children would stand anxiously at the edge of the pool awaiting our cue. It was a moment we pissed ourselves over all summer -- the moment they dumped bags full of goldish into the pool. Swimming in a pool of freerange goldfish is absolute summer magic. We all swam to and fro as fast as possible to be assured all goldfish were caught, taken ashore, and placed into a plastic bag of fresh water. This sounds only a fraction of how much fun it was. On one particular summer my eldest brother got sick during the Goldfish Swim and of course rumors circulated that he, in fact, swallowed a goldfish.
I'm sure this practice has been canned before PETA heard tale and grabbed the town by the balls. I'm just glad I got to live the stuff summer childhood dreams are made of.
When you think of getting free summer goldfish the obvious thing to come to mind is the carnival. Typically you can win a fish by chucking a ping pong ball into a small glass bowl, much to the dismay of many parents who aren't equipped with fish habitats. As kids, we don't think that far. As far as we're concerned, Mr. Fishy can live in a small vase on our nightstand and we can teach him to rollover and do flips out of the water.
I grew up in a small town, and small towns can sometimes get away with some crazy tricks. One of those tricks was the Goldfish Swim. One night every summer during the special nights where the community pool was open late, dozens of neighborhood children would stand anxiously at the edge of the pool awaiting our cue. It was a moment we pissed ourselves over all summer -- the moment they dumped bags full of goldish into the pool. Swimming in a pool of freerange goldfish is absolute summer magic. We all swam to and fro as fast as possible to be assured all goldfish were caught, taken ashore, and placed into a plastic bag of fresh water. This sounds only a fraction of how much fun it was. On one particular summer my eldest brother got sick during the Goldfish Swim and of course rumors circulated that he, in fact, swallowed a goldfish.
I'm sure this practice has been canned before PETA heard tale and grabbed the town by the balls. I'm just glad I got to live the stuff summer childhood dreams are made of.
I never had a goldfish growing up, I once had a bunch of pretty tropical fish, but they never seemed as awesome as those bug eyed goldfish I always saw when buying fish food.
The goldfish swim sounds like the stuff of childhood memory legends, Just once I'd like to swim in a pool of goldfish.
If I ever win the lottery I know what my first purchase will be.
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I remeber a gold fish toss, I don't remeber them dumping them into a pool, lol. I only ever won one of them and I think it died at the end of the week. Speaking of quick-dying animals, I loved them Betas, the really flashy looking fish that's color ranged from blue to yellow to red to pink. That and they also loved to rend and tear each other up.
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I used to have a bunch of all different kinds of fish when I was a kid and tried to keep them up as much as possible but they all just turned into cannibals and ate each other. It was like some kind of post-apocalyptic aquatic cage match. Sometimes you'd just see half a fish floating around and one of the others would come up and nibble on its trailing innards.
Oh my god, I just figured it out. I had zombie fish.
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I have killed many gold fish. They just don't seem to live very long at all. They don't do much when they live, though.
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Makes me wonder if whether or not the goldfish were affected by the chlorine in the pool. Either the chemicals would kill them or they be poisoned when you caught them. I don't know, do you remember there being chlorine in the pool when you were catching goldfish? I never owned goldfish but my brother had a few. I think I remember killing one because I fed it too much fish food in one serving. Small animals never lived long in my house, either goldfish or guinea pigs. The longest living animals we ever had were our dogs and the two we have now have been with us since March of 1993 and October of 1994 (one is the mother of the other who had a litter of seven puppies a year or so after we got her). Surprised they are still living. I call them our "miracle dogs." Anyway, I'm babbling on again. Time to stop.
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My dad had a big tank with tons of tropical fish for many years in my youth. As pretty as it was, tropical fish are HUGE maintainence, and I will probably never have any. I am a fan of Bettas, though...lubberly weetle feeshies. Easy to take care of... and o pretty...
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I had some goldfish I won at a little Catholic School fair thingy in Fresno when I was a kid. We put them in a bucket and took them home in the car the next day. Fresno is like almost 5 hours from my house. They some how survived that and then lived with us another 8 years and we finally gave them away to someone who put them in their pond. They were just the plain kind, two golds one brown one and I thought they were fun to watch and loved to turn on the tank light at night and watch them swim around. They are easy to care for but they shit too much.... so you have to clean their bowls waaaaay too much. I had mine in a 10 gallon tank and they just thrived for years until we got sick of cleaning it and gave them away. I love bettas but I kill them too easily
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We had a goldfish that lived for ten years! No fancy tanks for ol' Duncan, either... just a plastic bowl that rarely got cleaned. He was a trooper.
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