Share Your Story with River Tales!

This article was featured in the April 2025 Bartram’s Garden collaboration with the Southwest Globe Times newspaper.

The Bartram’s Garden River Program has partnered with Our Fishing Log to build an oral and written collective history archive of our community members’ stories about their connection to the Delaware River Watershed. Come talk about your memories on the water, your family traditions around the water, how it makes you feel, what it brings up in your spirit or imagination.  We’ll be recording oral testimony at our free weekly public fishing and boating programs.

To share your written testimony visit bartramsgarden.org/river-story-form Participants will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win $25.

Excerpts from Feini Yin of Our Fishing Log’s Interviews with Community Members Tara Reyes Morales  and Russell D. Miller

Tara Reyes Morales (TRM): My name is Tara Reyes Morales. I’m 54 years old. I am from North Philly in the Hunting Park section of Philadelphia…. I’m Puerto Rican…we came here for the Indigenous festival today — giving them a little bit of lessons of who we are, the Taínos from Puerto Rico, coming through Arawak with a Brazilian Tribe, so, it’s always a learning day when we come out.

OFL: Does your family have any familial or cultural traditions related to water?

TRM: I would say the most prevalent in our lives would be just being baptized in the name of Jesus. That would be their biggest thing with water.

And just family outings, the ocean, going down the shore. I grew up on the Jersey Shore. I was a Wildwood kid…And the lakes! There was Holiday Lake, Thompson Lake, Lake Worth, French Creek, all of that. My boyfriend has family over there, so when we go over there, we do the kayaking and canoeing and hang out by the river. He does a lot of fishing.

OFL: I love it.

TRM: Me too. I do. My uncle used to be, I guess, a party host, and he used to bring bands from Puerto Rico and New York, and they used to call them jiras, they would have these big jiras, and they would rent out the lakes. And then the bands would come and play all night. And I just remember, again, the water, and running in and out the water, with the band playing in the background, and just the food. You know, there’s some pig being roasted somewhere. Yeah, yeah. Just good memories. Good memories with water…Water in general to me is just, it’s absolutely mandatory in my life to reset and rejuvenate and cleanse. Just cleanse the old, and start new.

Russell Miller (RM): My name is Russell Miller. I am 42 years old. I currently am in Southwest Philadelphia. I’ve been there for the past 13, 14 years. Originally, I am from Detroit, Michigan..My current relationship to the water is one of therapy, relaxation, and I don’t know, just being grounded and in touch with nature.

I recently reconnected with fishing during the pandemic. Like most of us, being stuck in a house, needing something to do, with the whole world basically outside at your fingertips. I picked up a fishing pole that I hadn’t picked up in quite some time…And caught my first fish in Philadelphia in the Schuylkill River. That was quite exciting. Fishing turned into boating, boating turned into all types of other outdoor activities, bird watching, hiking, things of that nature…

Once I reconnected, I never let it go. Never let it go. I travel to Virginia Beach once every other month just to hit the ocean. It was either go to Atlantic City and do this or come down here. And when I got down here and saw everybody with the fishing rods out and saw all the kids and everybody having a good time, I was like, “Oh no, I would’ve had much more of a better time at home in my own backyard than going to Atlantic City to fish.”

…when you’re at home in your own backyard and you’re doing this, it’s that sense of community. Even if I don’t catch a fish today, you know, kicking it with you, speaking to the people down here, seeing the kids having a good time, that’s what it’s all about.

Here, inside the Schuylkill River, I have caught several types of bass, several types of catfish. I’ve caught blue crab..drum bass..turtles…water moccasins. There are so many different types of species in this body of water it’s amazing. And when you look online and do the research to see exactly what lives in here, the list is endless.

OFL: What do you like about fishing?

RM: The therapeutic aspect, the relaxational aspect of it. The sense of community. When I first came out, I didn’t know what I was doing and somebody noticed that I didn’t know what I was doing, and they ended up — a total stranger — showing me how to line my rod, bait my rod, cast out, reel in, and within minutes I caught my first fish. That was something special. So it’s that sense of community. You can come out to the water without tackle. You can come out without lunch. You can come out without water. And if you have good people skills, somebody will say, “Hey, are you hungry? Would you like something to drink? You got enough bait? Do you need anything?” And that’s really what it’s about. That’s thoroughly one of the things that I enjoy about this. For some reason, the water brings it out. I’ve never seen an angry person while I’m out fishing.

These interviews have been edited for length.

SAVE THE DATES! Weekly Free Fishing and Boating Programs at Bartram’s Garden Return in May 2025. Visit bartramsgarden.org/boathouse for more details