Algonac Pickerel Tournament Goldfish

by Mike Pitzer, 2018

Every 4th of July, families from Anchor Bay up to Marine City would head to downtown Algonac for the Pickerel Tournament and a chance to fill up on cotton candy, ferris wheel rides, carney games, and watch our small town parade. The carnival games were things like the Ball and Bucket Toss, Balloon & Darts, Basketball, B-B Gun Balloon Burst, Coin Toss on Dishes, and my specialty — the Bottle Stand. All you had to do was get 1, 2, or 3 rings on any of 50+ Coke bottles, just four feet away from you and you’d win a prize. Sometimes the prizes were blue, green or yellow parakeets. Sometimes they were goldfish… which is exactly what I won when I was about 13. I remember it because we were all wearing our Little League uniforms so we could march in the parade. I think the goldfish lasted about a week at our house. I’m still not sure if it died and Dad flushed it, or if our cat (Alley) did a little fishing on her own and ate it.

This drawing was how you were handed your prize. It was also my first attempt at color after starting to draw again and when I discovered that Gamsol could be used with a blending stick to basically melt color pencil to create beautiful, subtle mixes of color and texture.

Credits: