Grandfather and Thomas are a family of two, "semi-poor" and dependent on food that they catch of produce themselves, plus their cat, Ringo. They begin the day by fishing for trout, and finish it with a game of cards (Go fish, of course) and a story. The before-you-were-born hurricane, the grandfather as a small boy himself listening to the stories of his own grandfather, the line of ancestors leading back to ancient African cities, the fossils preserved in the limestone of long dried-up seas--all these are the elements of a single summer day.