Summer is officially over. Reflect with me. (Hazy dream sequence ensues.)

The beachfront was blurry, as it should have been at 6 a.m. My contact lenses were dry and flat, but thank goodness my father's vision was clear--he had already been navigating the highway for an hour-and-a-half from Houston down to the less-than-picturesque "beach" of Freeport, Texas.

I, on the other hand, had been sleeping, drooling and dreaming my way to the last hurrah of summer vacation. The assortment of poles, hooks and old tennis shoes in the backseat heralded the obvious--we were going fishing. (Note to the Harvard community at-large: this was no "hug-a-tree," catch-and-release, greeting-card-commercial fishing jaunt. We were playing for keeps. And, yes, fishing is still a sport. And this is the Sports page.)

I had with me a piece of paper with a saltwater stamp from the State of Texas that said I was allowed to physically remove fish from the water. Empowering? Yes it was. I was equipped with a closet-dusty rod and reel and a fast-fading knowledge of fishing technique. The past two years at Harvard had mostly been spent writing papers and launching my body at other guys in helmets and pads--two things that don't bode well for memory retention.

When we traded asphalt for sand in our four-wheel drive Jeep, the ride seemed more like a Six Flags stomach-churner than a scenic nature drive. My sleepy head jostled back and forth like a pinball. The trip seemed a sacrifice for both father and son, each for the other's sake--my father from his busy work schedule and his son from his last days with his beguiling girlfriend. But for a few brief hours, my father and I were spending time--life's most precious commodity--together.

I slithered out of the Jeep and into my beaten-up tennis shoes and grabbed my gear that my father had meticulously arranged during my date the previous night. My red-and-pink shrimptail lure had been enlisted for battle with everything from speckled trout to eel-like ribbonfish. The assortment of friendly people half-submerged in the water reminded me that I was not in Boston.

I waded out into water that almost perfectly matched my body temperature and was remarkably clear for the Mississippi River-catching Gulf Coast. My father reminded me to pop the rod tip, making the lure look less like lifeless rubber and more like food, something a fellow beachgoer must have known as he yanked a four-foot hammerhead shark out of the water.

We fished the shoreline's natural gutters where the fish ran on their breakfast binge. The first hour went by without a nibble. Then I spotted something in the water.

A seemingly harmless, softball-sized jellyfish propelled itself past me as I watched its movements carefully. Moments later, Dad hauled in his first prize of the day--a smallish sand trout. As he attached the fish to the stringer, I noticed that a few more jellyfish had begun to appear, of no consequence to me, to be sure.