I am so bummed! Not a single reader, not even my regulars, asked if that was me in the ‘Happy Birthday, Little Brother’ ad in the past week’s newspaper. I thought for sure everyone would recognize me holding that Northern Pike like I knew what I was doing! Not one word.

I send my brother the newspaper so I thought it would be fun to run one of our typical small town birthday ads just to see if he noticed it. His birthday was Feb. 9. So far I have not heard, but he lives in Wisconsin so maybe he doesn’t even have that issue yet. However, I was pretty certain that a dozen or so local people would stop me to ask if I was the girl with the fish in the birthday ad.

I think I look just like myself. How could all of you have missed it? Sometimes, out of idle curiosity people ask who is pictured in one of those ads. However, not this time. What a let-down.

That is the only fish I ever caught in my life, and I am still pretty proud of it. I think I was 10 or 11 in that snapshot and my brother was two years younger. We were in northern Minnesota for our annual visit to Dad’s parents. They owned a small cottage on a lake near the Canadian border, and we spent a week or so there every summer.

This particular day my father had taken us trolling in the rowboat at dawn — no trolling motor, he did the rowing. I snagged the fish and he talked me through the process of bringing it in as he kept the boat moving. My brother and I both were thrilled. My grandfather filleted it, and we ate it for supper. I expect we had lots of bread and vegetables with the meal because there were seven of us and that fish was nice, but not a monster.

Anyway, since no one made the connection between me and my one and only claim to fishing fame, I am stuck making a confession here on the opinion page. I might have to make a whole new list of regular readers. I think all six of you failed this past week!

— SUSAN MARSHALL