Therapeutic Cast and Retrieve or I Write a Self Help Book To Excise the Demons of Modern Life Before They Take Over the Boat...

I admit that I am a power boat guy. I'm not all drunk on horsepower but a modest outboard motor sings a melodious song on it's way across the lake as a day with the promise of fun and fishing dawns. Even looking at pictures of antique motors and boats brings to my mind the memories that were made in times gone past, my own and those of some embedded group mind. As they say these days, if you know, you know. 

After a childhood spent in small boats my dad bought an early bass boat model, a Raycraft when I was a young man. When I became able to afford my own boat I went with the pontoon party boat and have adapted my fishing as well as lots of days spent, well, partying on the big lake to this type of boat. I always had the idea of a canoe and small water fishing as different thing to try so several years ago I decided to buy one while I was still young enough to load and unload from the back of the truck. Lately one of my favorite places is the Walnut Slough paddle trail in Martin Dies Jr. State Park.       

On my big boat I use a depth finder. It's a modern down image type. I can see fish but mostly I use it to find drop offs and depth changes where I know fish will be. In the above photo I watched a guy with one of those livescope depth finders picking crappie off the pilings of the footbridge. Apparently with electronics of this type you see the fish in real time and present the lure right in front of his nose. That's important in crappie fishing as they suspend in a particular spot and don't chase a lure like other species might. He was very efficient with his gadget. 

From the something for everyone department there will always be something new and something better. It will probably involve more technology. It will require study and practice. After a life I've spent in fast paced production and health care environments where quick thinking and faster learning was the coin of the realm I don't think I want to even be near the instruction manual for a livescope. There is something gently therapeutic in the monotonous casting and retrieving of a spinner bait.          

I talked to the electronic fisherman a bit and he was friendly but never took his eyes off the screen. I thought about fishing the pilings he had already passed but there were a couple parties on foot fishing from the bridge so I skipped it as crowding is not my thing.    

I think I caught four fish, two bream and two crappie. No size so they all got CPR, catch photo and release. There were a lot of short strikes, which as I was mostly using a one inch long crappie slider is a bit hard to imagine. I think they were very small male bluegill in the shallows before the spawn or even small gar that are hard to hook because of their boney, toothy mouths. 

A canoe is a great way to cut down on screen times in these modern days. I was not very efficient though. I logged about five hours sitting in the canoe and uncounted paddle strokes and casts or at least that's what the muscles of my back and shoulders tell me this morning. Not really a lot of water covered. Just slow and simple fishing.   

Great colors on this crappie but he's a bit shy of the 10" limit. 

Saturday in the State Park and it was a bit crowded as canoe rentals have resumed after a pause due to COVID concerns. I was there early and got to fish my favorite spots so they did not bother me. Good to see folks out on the water but I'll try to keep my trips to the week days in the future and give special attention to those bridge pilings even if I can't see if there are any fish there. .    

 

A How We Met Story or I Don't Know What Love Is or the Last Lady I Cleaned Fish For...

 I see cute little questionnaires on the internet you can fill out so people know how you met your significant other. It has places to document who gets the most traffic tickets and which one of you has the most tattoos. I have never filled out one of those. Once we traded big Chey 350 cubic engines for compact Toyotas and Ford Hybrid technology we tied at zero for citations. We've lost count on the tattoos. I do have a story on how we met.

I think we had really made acquaintance earlier but were not quite operating in the same circles. Cathy was married to someone else. I was a single guy working a good blue collar job. It was a job that required weekend and shift work and Cathy mentioned to me that she had noted we were at some of the same parties and on a Saturday night as the party was getting good she would see me, usually playing in a backyard band, load up my gear and leave. She asked about that and someone said, "oh he goes to work." She had never met anyone who would leave a good party. Somehow all those graveyard shifts I worked back then is related to the $28 Social Security raise I recently received but that might be another blog post. 

One day, it was maybe 1984 or 85 I was at a friend's old house out on Press Road in Nacogdoches County, a cosmic place located half way between Lufkin and the flying saucer landing pads Red Eagle built out in the Shawnee bottoms. Cathy comes in with her husband of the time with a string of big bass she had caught out of a pond. I happen to have a photo from that day. She was pretty excited and as they prepared to clean the fish I could tell they were fixing to make a hash of it. They don't call me Catfish Carl for nothing. I can catch fish but that's only half the story. I know how to prepare them also. 

So to advert what I would consider a disaster and a possibly ill cooked meal I volunteered to clean the fish. I filleted the bass as efficiently as I could and then also saved the backbones to be fried up nice and crisp, a technique I had learned from old timers like my parents who enjoyed their meat on the bone. It made a nice mess that would be a good dinner. I did not eat any of that fish but I'm sure it turned out to be a fine meal. 

It was about three yeas later when we encountered each other again. She was divorced, I was still single and we started dating. We married in 1989. This year will mark 32 years I have been cleaning her fish. Last year we caught 532 catfish. We don't catch that many ever year and Cathy does help me clean fish but I think over the years we are talking about a substantial amount of fish skinning invested in this relationship. 

I don't know how you and yours may have met and I surely don't profess to know what love is but the last lady I cleaned fish for wants me to do it again.    

   

            

The Shallow Water Catfish Bite is On or I Only Saw One Cuss Fight at the Lake on a Crowded Saturday...

The details. Slip corks, punch bait fished around willows and cypress trees in four feet of water will produce a mess of catfish. Yesterday we caught the most part of 26 real fat channel cats between 1:30 and 3:00 with a nice south wind pointing the boat right up in an opening in the flooded bushes and trees they seemed to like. When the wind shifted a bit more easterly they slacked up and we fished a couple of more spots coming back here at the end of the trip to catch a few more. The wind picked up till it was hard to keep a hat on and I think the fish were still there but the roll of the waves made it hard to detect a bite.   

While I was working I often had days off in the week when I fished and the lake would  be empty. Now retired I occasionally find myself out on the lake with the weekend warrior crowd. Yesterday I witnessed two boats of bass fishermen exchange harsh words as one or the other perceived a territorial infringement.

I was tied up next to the brush slip corking catfish. One boat approached down the bank with two men casting to similar areas as I was fishing. The other boat with a man and two teens approached from the opposite direction but a bit off the shore. Both were fishing quietly powered by trolling motors. They passed briefly a medium distance cast apart. 

To me, I've fished this area since the late 70s, they were fishing two different structures, one the bushy shoreline, the other a bit deeper drain edge. I don't know if one cast near the others boat, smarted off, perhaps used bad language but I overheard one guy began to berate the others with "hey guys, this is an eight grade girl, watch what you say and the example you set." There were a few other words exchanged and the male teen caught a bass from the water the other boat fished through. I caught a couple of catfish, which the perceived offending boat saw and as they passed close to me I said, "hey could you guys stick around, you are good luck." No response to that. 

Both boats passed about as close to me as they did to each other but as a cork fisherman putting a solid 10 pounds of fillets in the boat I was invisible. No one infringed on the water I was fishing and besides I believe that most fish in the lake have heard a boat go by and unless it passes so close the hair is blown off their heads they react just about like you and I do.  

Unless there was some passive aggressive cast close to the boat or a verbal insult I did not see a reason to fuss. Myself thinks there is plenty of water to fish without crowding each other.   

       

I Have fished this area many times since the late 70s. Once while lure fishing and just letting the boat drift with the wind through this pass we caught seven different kinds of fish. There are 5 or 6 boats in the photo. There were at least 4 boats that passed me fishing the same water the guys fussed over. I often saw boats passing through this area throwing a rooster tail. I recall lots of stumps just under the water we used to float topwater baits over while fishing with my dad and sudden depth changes. I know guys use gps map chips and mark clear paths to follow and stuff like that but I'll be careful. 

Smoke in the photo is a prescribed burn in the Angelina National Forest.     

Here's how you find a fishing spot with a lesson courtesy of the pelicans and water turkeys. In this photo you have cypress standing in shallow water. Note the water rippled by the wind and then the line of sheltered calm water. There is also a drop off to the old Angelina River channel. The birds to the far right are probably over 40 feet of water. I'll bet your ass there is plenty of fish right there. Most of the time I find that if you look at miles of lake features that all kind of look the same it's the one little difference that can sometimes be hard to pick out that holds the fish.  

By sundown the wind picked up and while there was still a bit of a bite it was getting chilly and we headed home. 

26 fat channels. Cleaning this many is not too bad a chore. Start getting over 30 it turns to work. These fish will swim in my belly today. 

 

Mid March Catfish Report...

It was a March day with the cypress trees that stand in the water like silent southern guards just beginning to bud. You would have thought it was February, not like last February but like a normal East Texas February with cloudy skies and a light north wind. Fishing was a bit slow, at least for us, but we managed 15 nice cats, some we ate last night after arriving home and some we put back for another fish fry.   

We are kind of used to setting up in a spot, tossing out a little maize for chum and catching a fish on the first cast. The cats are there and the chum just concentrates them. Lately it seems like they are not there yet. Water is 59 degrees. I'd like to see 62 and rising. Lake level is also a bit lower than last year. Places that are 4 feet deep were probably 8 feet deep last year and maybe that skinny water is making them a bit more cautious. 

Here's the set up. Notice the slip cork rig, not unlike a popping cork rig for speckled trout or redfish on the Texas coast. Note the buckets of punch bait, maize the marker buoy (toss it out and mark the edge of the drop off) and the yellow catfish rag for hand wiping. I think that's a self cleaning rag.  

Cathy is casting to the creek channel edge. This is usually the spot I fish while she casts to the cypress bushes. It's finesse fishing at it's best. You have to accurately cast to the area of the buoy, usually a long cast and have the depth set right. She took my spot over without asking. That's kind of how it is with pontoon boat fishing. Get out of your seat, someone else gets it.        

The osprey nest was blown away over the winter but they have built it back since our last lake trip. Osprey always a good sign in the area.  

Fifteen fat channel cats. We had a dinner of fried fish and hushpuppy. probably go fishing again today. I better do my daily exercise to afford fried fish swimming in my belly again. 

 

I've Got a Bad Case of the OLD Today...

 I've got a bad case of the old man today. Maybe I've had it for several days. 

I think it started when we played at church for the Feast Day Mass of St. Patrick. I knew Cathy had practiced the songs a bit on her own but somehow we had not managed (or so I thought) to coordinate a group effort on preparing the music. I knew what we were playing and the tunes were basically old Irish folk melodies. Oh yeah there was that one that she capoed to change the key to F#. That's not a real good key for an old tuba player playing bass guitar. 

I mentioned later that I would have like to written that part out. Maye even done it in a different key. They key of the people, C Major, would have been good. Cathy says, "well you did not say anything when we practiced it." I think I would have remembered practicing a song in F#. Maybe not though.  

Then there is the case of the missing big bass photo. I often look through old photo albums for material to fill this space. There was a photo of Cathy with a big largemouth bass. I thought to myself, there is a good story. Only problem I can't find that photo again. I have looked through 17 photo albums 10 times. That's 170 man photo albums. I have not seen the photo again. 

Now that song the grandkids sing about the baby shark is stuck in my head. 

Does anyone know those people in the photo? 

Worn and Frayed...

We have a Quinceanera Mass to play for this weekend. After a couple of decades of being on a regular schedule to play every Sunday at church we have been retired from that for a couple of years and now only play when bilingual English/Spanish music is required. We play funerals, weddings, quinceaneras and special Holy Day Masses like St. Patrick's Day this week. Without a constant hand on my music gear I got it out, Cathy and I practiced a bit and with Cathy doing the job of picking and preparing music I made sure all equipment was going to operate without catastrophic failure. I snapped this photo of my acoustic bass neck. 

I received this Fender Acoustic Bass as a Christmas gift from my mother and brother in 2006. I have a Fender Precision electric bass but this is my main instrument for accompanying acoustic guitars. With the overhead choir mics we use I have been using a 5 watt Blackstar bass amp. That amp will fit inside a salad bowl and while it's ridiculously small checking back on some of the live streams of Masses I have been satisfied with the sound. It's kind of the way I do things. I'm different but the amp picks up well with the mics and sure beats hauling a Fender Bassman in to back one acoustic guitar. 

I recall reading an article a few years ago about how with the advent of hi-def TV musicians were going to have to polish their instruments to look good or every smudge would show. Looking at this bass neck I have not worried about that. You can see the dirt accumulated and though it does not show in the photo in person you can see on the strings the notes I play all the time. I change Cathy's strings pretty often but I'm not a big string changer myself. 

Now people call me and ask me about how to play instruments. I don't really know what to tell them because I don't consider myself a player. I have a couple of strong riffs for several instruments I play and I get a good bit of mileage out of those without exposing my weakness. You will never find me out playing the hits. 

So take this bass. Put your fingers in the worn, dirty spots. Steal my riffs. Play for the events of life. In about 15 years of steady playing snap a photo and send it to me. 

          

 

Crappie Fishing...

Spring is starting to sprung if that makes any sense and on my drive over to Martin Dies Jr. State Park and the Walnut Slough Paddling Trail through the more southern reaches of the county I saw redbuds in bloom. After the big freeze that's just barely starting to happen at my house. Glad the weather is looking up. I wore shorts and sandals but you know that business we go through every year where we say, " we did not have a winter so the bugs will be bad." That's horse poo. We had a winter.  The mosquitoes were out yesterday. Covid is dangerous and West Nile Virus can change your life as well.  

The white perch were also out and I managed 3 big ones, one Kentucky Spotted bass and a few small throw back bass. The go to lure was the 1" Charlie Brewer Crappie Slider and I think it was on a 1/32 ounce jig head. I hung the bait up and lost it and the next head I tied on was a wee bit heavier and sunk faster. I have used the slider lure, it's a do nothing lure, cast it out, reel it in, in various sizes for 35 years. Last couple of years it's really been my go to for panfish. I recently bought the largemouth bass slider kit so we will see how that goes.  

I caught a few of the small bass on a beetle spin. It had the same color, red, yellow and white tube tail that the white bass were liking at the river awhile back. 

You would think with all the cypress trees and shady overhanging branches that there would be fish everywhere along the paddling trail. I have really only found about three places they seem to like. Last April through June I caught large bream here and these fish were in the same places. When the water warms up a bit more those breams will move up. They say bluesman Howlin' Wolf could eat 50 bream at a sitting. Look for me to give that a try soon. 

Those Crappie are swimming in our bellies. Cathy, a dedicated catfish eater proclaimed them good.   

 

The Boat Load of Grandkids Fishing Report...

We loaded up Warren, Coraline, Parker and several adults to make a lake trip. Hopes were high for producing a Sunday fish fry but the catfish did not exactly cooperate but I think great fun was had by all.  

Water temperature is still about 55 degrees. I know bass fisherman are reporting good shallow water catches but the cats don't seem to be on point yet. The fishing log for past years show good catches in February but things really seem to turn on after March 10th. We ended the day with 6 cats, good fish and enough to feed me, Cathy, Warren and Coraline.   

Warren catches his supper. 

Coraline might be more of a watcher than a fisher. 

Parker is up for everything and likes to help Morgan. 

Hey, I get my photo with a catfish. I know everyone asks when the next big Wallace fish fry is. That's not been a good idea with the pandemic but I assure you Wallaces are frying fish. This one is swimming in my belly. 

 

The Pines Should Do This All the Time...

It felt good. About this time last year we had tickets and plans for three big live music events. All were canceled due to Covid-19 precautions. Last night we finally got to see a live music show. The group Ranky Tanky, who had this date cancelled several times over pandemic concerns the past year played an outdoor socially distanced show on a downtown Lufkin Street on a stage set up between the old Lufkin National Bank Building and the older Angelina Hotel.  

The show was scheduled to be in the old The Pines Theater. The theater was built in 1925 and has been refurbished and is owned by the city as a concert venue. Events are scheduled under the leadership of the Angelina Arts Alliance. Even though the historical atmosphere inside is a great setting for a show I think moving the show outdoors on a pleasant evening was a great idea.  

Ranky Tanky is a Charleston, South Carolina band creating music that reflects the Gullah culture of the South Sea Islands that run along the south eastern coast of the United States. Ranky Tanky, the name of the band is also a children's game played by the people of this area whose roots spring from the slaves imported to this area from West Africa. Gullah culture is a creole culture that preserves many elements of African life, language and customs. The people were brought in as rice farmers. I would imagine visiting South Carolina in 1708 you would have thought you were in a African country. The Gullah people were the majority. This and the geographic isolation of the islands is the reason why the culture has not been lost to other influences.       

Ranky Tanky won the 2020 Grammy Award for best roots music album. 

Great singers with superior instrumental skills played many solos to show off their virtuosity on their instruments. 

This was even a little dancing. 

Check out Ranky Tanky. I bought a CD. Cathy got a great, soft material t shirt like she likes. We all got exposed to some culture that makes this old melting pot of the USA great. It's stood the test of time and looks stronger than ever. 

 

First Lake Trip for Luca...

When our son, Morgan was just beginning to speak well and he would see a vehicle pulling a boat, you see a lot of those living near one of the best fishing lakes in the nation, he would blurt, "him go lake." As his vocabulary and sentence construction developed he changed that to, "he's got a boat." Yesterday Mary asked us to baby sit Luca, AKA Buttermilk Short Stack since she had worked nights and needed to sleep. I was hooking up the boat when she called. We just went on and hooked Luca up with his first trip to the lake.   

Luca is eight months old. We resorted to the old tried and true put them in the walker for a boat seat. Here's Morgan sitting in his walker in our old boat way back in the day. Goes to show how little my fishing technology has changed. 

 Luca was a little fussy which is understandable because what he could do was limited in the walker and his preferred method is crawling and trying to bear walk. We ended up holding him because even though it's carpet and pretty clean I did sit down in the bottom of the boat yesterday and got a loose treble hook hung in my ass.  We took turns holding and fishing.

Fish started a bit slow. Bluebird skies and pretty calm winds combined with 57 degrees water temps meant that the cats were not too active in the shallow water. Here you see Cathy and Luca with the spot we call the horseshoe in the background. Usually the cats are against the cypress bushes. The lake is below pool but rising and that combined with the sunny skies, fish don't have eyelids or sunglasses, kept them out of the area. 

 

As the sun went down though the cats began to cruise the creek edge behind the boat in 5-6 feet of water. Luca studies the first catch and begins to put many mysterious things he has seen us do together to understand our purpose in the universe. 

We caught these 7 channel cats and left them biting at about 5 o'clock. I suspect as the sun set there would have been more added to the tub but we got hungry and called Mary, Miguel and Ezra to come eat. Whole catfish, farm raised, are selling for $5.12 at HEB. I'd say at least $40 worth of fish right there. We fried them up and they swim in our bellies. Well they don't swim for Luca quite yet. He does not have the choppers to chew yet.  

The big grandkids, Coraline and Warren come for spring break this weekend. They will wield fishing poles and there won't be walkers. With their help we plan on putting the hurt on the cats. 

 

My Favorite Catfish Bait...

I'm off on the catfish count so far this year. There's several reasons. One is me and Cathy had Covid right after Christmas and while it was mild it did knock us back a bit and keep us from usual activity. Then came the great Texas ice storm. I was not interested in a 5 degree day on the lake or pulling a pontoon boat up an ice slick ramp. There have been a couple of fishing trips. We went over to the Sabine River for that dirty, guilty, secret pleasure of white bass fishing. With the rains that increased river flows I bet the white bass action has taken a break but rising lake levels should put catfish in the bushes for shallow water slip cork action. I am excited because I have my favorite catfish bait on hand.   

I use a punch bait. It's usually a thick mix of cheese, shad and shredded cattails or cotton fibers that you punch a treble hook down in with paint stirrer, pull it up and you have a baited hook, all without handling the stinking mess. The stink is not so bad you cannot enjoy catfishing and it stays on the hook so if you get a bite it's not immediately stolen if you miss the set. About a year ago the man who made the bait I like, J. Piggs, Jerry Martin passed away. Sales were temporarily suspended. Just at a whim last week I checked the old website and it was revamped. There was no online ordering but I called, they said send a check. I did and on Monday I received a text that bait was shipped. I got it on Tuesday. Note in the photo packaging was sturdy and the up arrow is important. Don't want to ship a bucket of catfish bait upside down.      

 All those punch baits will catch fish. I have used Danny King's, Lewis King's, and C.J.'s. I hear the tackle store in Zavalla carries Sureshot bait which has a good reputation and rumor claims it does not stink. Something about J.Piggs though makes it seem the best to me. The company has good service, it stays on the hook well and puts meat in the boat. 

You may well remember the old Catfish Charlie bait. It came in a tub and you rolled in into balls to place on your hook. It worked but it was messy. I recall one camping trip as a child when we took the old dog with us. We thought it would be great to give the dog a ride in the boat. We invited him in and to his delight he discovered that the bottom of the vessel was coated in the Charlie we had been balling up for trotlines. That dog was so busy licking the tasty stinking mess from the bottom of the boat he never knew he was on the water. 

Get some J Piggs. The catfish will be delighted and want to ride in your boat.   

 

What Were You Doing the Day John Belushi Died?...

Every year when November 22nd rolls around lots of people commemorate a day so shocking that they forever recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when President John F. Kennedy was assasainated. I was in the first grade. I don't really recall what I was doing but I suspect it was first grade type stuff. Seems as if I remember a TV broadcast of the funeral procession. That's probably a real memory because it's in black in white. We did not have color television. On March the 5, 1982 comedian, actor and singer John Belushi died. I still did not have a color TV but I remember what I was doing.

It really was probably March the 6th when me and my old buddies GW and Tim piled into my 1978 monkey poo brown GMC pickup truck and pulling a semi V aluminum boat headed out on a fishing trip below the Lake Livingston Dam. This was the age before club cabs and four doors and all that stuff that makes a truck into a limousine so we sat shoulder to shoulder like ducks in a row. It was well before daylight and switching on an AM radio broadcast we heard the news about Belushi's death. Details were scant but heroin and cocaine were mentioned. Even three old boys headed for the river knew that was a bad idea and indicated there were larger problems in his life that he never would get a chance to resolve. 

Not deterred by this early morning news we arrived to fish behind the lake dam in the Trinity River. I had fished here before and first business was to get a large rock from the bank riprap and tie it to a long rope for an anchor. Now I was expecting white bass fishing to be good and knew as you can see in this photo of GW that when all the dam gates were open the fishing was frequently poor. Even with the swift current our anchor held firm. I don't think I have fished below the dam like this since this trip but these days I often drive past on my way to my mother in law's. My wife and I bet on how many dam gates will be open. I've won a lot of money off her on these bets because a little internet research, like a lot of people do these days will reveal river flows and strategic information that can be used to best advantage.     

Behind the dam can be a crowded spot and it was on this day. You see GW with a fish and we were having fair luck. A catfish here, a gaspergou, and now and then a white bass we were doing ok but as we watched the boats around us we could see people pulling in catfish, their silvery skin flashing over the sides of the boats one after another. Pretty soon due to the closeness of boats GW hung another fisherman's line, reeled it in and the guy had on a spoon for a lure. Now a spoon is a good bait. It will catch most anything but I would not call it a high percentage possibility for catfish. Then it occurred to us that the other fishermen were snagging.      

Snagging is an illegal technique. It's done by casting out a hook and hooking the fish in the tail, back or belly, wherever and reeling him in. Now apparently these fish were stacked like cord wood on the bottom because as you can see my friend Tim doing we rigged with spoons, a heavy lure with a big treble hook and begun casting. The weight carried the lure right to the bottom and when lifted with a sharp snap of the wrist a catfish was hooked.  

I have not often broken game laws but seeing everyone around us reeling in fish was too much to bear and we started snagging also. We were very successful. We sponsored a big fish fry the next day. I have never snagged catfish again. 

John Belushi was a funny guy. He was also a fine singer and the group he formed with Dan Ackroyd, The Blues Brothers made records and movies. As a die hard blues fan and a music snob I always turned my nose up his music. I once sat with some friends who had an extensive record collection, plenty of time and lots of old cheap beer and we would play a Blues Brothers cover of a classic R&B tune and then play the original. The Blues Brothers version always sounded fast and frantic, possibly because drugs were involved while the original sounded laid back and groovy. There were also probably drugs involved in that music. It was just different ones.

I do give Belushi credit for introducing listeners to the blues at a time when popular interest in that type of music was waning. He help revive the scene, making money for the old guys that had been around awhile and giving a lift to the up and coming talent.    

     Kennedy died 58 years ago. They say that 245 World War Two Vets die each day due to the inevitable process of aging. That war ended 76 years ago. I suspect in about 18 years we will start to get some figures on how fast people that recall the events of Nov. 22nd are heading on to Eternal Rest.  

 Maybe they will keep count of the number of people who remember what they were doing the day Belushi died. He did not leave the same mark on the world that a global war or a President does. My friend Tim that I fished with that day behind the dam passed in 2005 and he left hardly a mark in the world at all. I guess I recall this date, write about what I was doing and mention the names of people gone on so it can be set apart as a colorful, real memory.