Growing Up Southern: December 6, 2017

Did I ever tell you about the time the Hester boys and I decided to build a raft and float down Bayou Bartholomew from Jefferson County, Arkansas to New Orleans?

It was like this.

The Bayou ran just south of the city limits of Pine Bluff back then. In places, it was clogged with stumps, logs, and wild growth. But we found a stretch that promised to run fairly clear for a mile or two, then we would take our chances on getting the rest of the way to New Orleans, if our parents gave us permission (and supplies).

We had a nice place to start from, it being a clearing we had used as a hideout and as a defensive position to ward off any invasions from the city boys on the north side. It was an ideal raft-building spot. We had a fair collection of tools by then, including a couple of rusty old axes we had pilfered from a junk pile and a “mill bastard” file I had borrowed from my daddy’s tool box. It was going to take work, but we had all summer.

The Hester boys claimed, or at least their mother did, ancestry with some famous Indian chief or other, so it was naturally assumed that they possessed some genetic understand of raft construction. First thing one Monday morning, we selected our first tree and commenced work.

The idea suggested itself before long that our Indian forefathers didn’t value the art of felling trees very highly. Progress proved slow. We took turns at the effort. Wesley, the oldest Hester boy went first. Then I took my turn. Robert Hester went third. The youngest of that family, Bobby Joe took one turn and jumped ship. We didn’t mind, for we had already decided that three passengers was about all our raft would handle.

Long story short. By Friday, we had felled our first tree and cut it into ten-foot lengths. A glorious life of adventure lay straight ahead. We spend the weekend pilfering every scrap piece of rope we could find and reassembled our band at the port of debarkation Monday morning. The time for initial assembly was upon us. We needed to make room for the next tree.

Did I mention that I can’t remember what kind of tree we chose for our masterpiece? It might have been Pine, for I remember vaguely christening it the “Pride of Pine Bluff,” as we imagined our historic entry into the Crescent City.

We lined the sections so they touched one another, rolled them to the pre-prepared entry point, lined up at third points and rolled the first phase into the brown water of Bayou Bartholomew.

I wish I could remember exactly what species of tree we had chosen, the exact kind that we had spent a week on in assembly, the source of so many blisters and splinters, and the cause of such fatigue. Then I could acquaint you with a fact that might prove useful to you some day.

That species of tree won’t float when it’s green.

Maybe none will. We never knew. As we watched those logs disappear into the brown soup and roll to the bottom of the “longest bayou in America,” our wanderlust sank with it. We decided, after a gang-vote, that our next construction project would be land-based.

We were going to build a tower so high we could see Little Rock from it.

We never did, though.

Stuff that dreams
are made of.