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About ten or eleven years ago, we got hit by a major ice storm here in Kentucky. About three days after the storm, I went over to one of my neighbor's houses to help him clear the three inches of ice off his driveway. He'd just gotten out of the hospital after quadruple bypass surgery and couldn't do it himself.

While I worked, he came out to talk with me and keep me company, and somehow we ended up on the subject of sharks. John informed me that he used to work as a customs official at Port Lavaca, Texas and that he loved to fish in Matagorda Bay. There was one particular place that he loved, because you could wade out several hundred yards and the water was only up to the bottom of his rib cage.

One evening, he was out fishing and he had his catch on a stringer that was on a float that was tied to his waist, when a shark that was "a couple of feet wide, about seven or eight feet between the dorsal and tail, and solid black" came tearing in, snagged the stringer, ripped it and the float off John's belt, and then turned back towards him.

John wasn't sure if the shark was targeting him, or if it was simply heading back out to open waters, but he wasn't going to hang around to find out. Once he saw that fin turn and start back towards him, he commenced a running on the water and managed to get back to shore safely.

That was the last time that John ever set foot in Matagorda Bay. Not that I blame him.