Magic Saturdays

As I may have said before, Saturdays were always special with us kids about this time of year. I would give my brother the “secret” nod after we finished breakfast. Then we would slip out the kitchen door while he and Sainted Mother attended the early morning rush in our little country grocery. They “waited on” folks headed to work at the farms, the Cotton Belt shops, Ben Pearson’s bow and arrow factory, or at a wartime facility we just called “The Arsenal.” Those workers would return that evening with hands yellowed from some chemical, unknown to them or the general public. I guess they used it for making bombs.

Meantime, we were “outa there,” as long as our sister didn’t notice and tell on us. As soon as the rush cleared, Daddy could think up all sorts of things for us to do, especially if we aggravated him by asking for a Coke or candy bar. There was grass to be mowed, a garden to be watered, and truck loads of sawed-up slab wood to be unloaded. Come fall, Roedock Tiggins and I would haul it to Pine Bluff for five dollars a pickup load, him driving and me finding the way to customers that had been buying from us for years.

But back to Saturdays. Having escaped, brother and I would grab fishing equipment and head for our stock pond. The Hester boys, Robert and Bobby Joe, might already be there. If not, it wouldn’t be long. They had no interfering father, just a 52 year-old mother who, at the time, was keeping company with an 18 year-old boy in the neighborhood who had a car. That’s a different story for another day, though.

We kept a bucket of minnows tied to a tree at the edge of the pond. We dug worms in a shallow flat where the cows drank. On good days, we had part of a package of “ready-mades” stashed away in our secret place. On other days, we resorted to Bull Durham or Prince Albert. A stand of willows provided a shield from our parents for when we needed a smoke. That wasn’t too often, as smoking tended to make us sick. We couldn’t quite understand what the grownups saw in the practice, but if it was good enough for John Wayne, it was good enough for us.

And don’t ask me about the time we found a third of a bottle of Old Yellowstone and decided really to play cowboys. Yuck!

That little pond … that little pond. On a square-foot basis, it surely provided more pure entertainment than any Disney project ever built. At least we thought so.

On Saturdays when the fish were biting, one of the neighbors provided an ice chest, and Daddy left us to our own adventures, we would save fish all day. Come evening, Fred Flynn’s wife would haul out a homemade fish fryer. Other women would bring things for a little party on the banks of our little body of water.

 This was before the day that Mr. Flynn’s wife ran off, left him with their boys, and hung out at a bar on Harding Avenue—living in some way Daddy wouldn’t tell us about—until they found her dead in an alley one morning. These days, she would bring her boys and we might teach them some of the secrets of fishing. We all had fun, even that woman before the demons took her and she dragged her anchor. All I can say about her then was that she could sure cook fish.

Those were the days. On good ones we would end the day with a fine meal and good fellowship. Later, the oldest Hester boy, Robert and Bobby Joe’s brother Wesley, would join the Army and bring home, four years later, a German wife. Sadly, she died not long after coming to America.

That was years later, though. On the magic Saturdays I remember, there is only image of a catfish pulling on a line while the grease popped, the women gossiped, and the young kids frolicked around the banks of that old stock pond.

Sundays were torture,
but Saturdays were magic.

My Redacted Life: Chapter 31 (Cont._3)

Marriage loomed a month away. We were stressed by the plans, haunted by doubts, and nervous about the future. Feeling edgy, we went fishing. Lake Conway was nearby and the landings there rented boats and motors. What else could a young couple in love do to settle their nerves?

The bream were biting just enough that day to keep our minds occupied. Still, we made plans for the future. I would become a partner in the firm and gain a reputation for excellence. Maybe I would work on a Master's degree. She would do something someday other than teaching.

Why had she gone into teaching?

“The guidance counselors never told us that girls could do anything else.”

“Oh?”

“Well girls weren’t supposed to go to college in the first place.”

“Oh?”

“Oh no. It was okay to live in a college town, though.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” if you were there to work on your PhT.”

“PhT?”

“Putting hubby through.”

“Oh.”

She yanked her line and pulled in a small bream, wriggling and thrashing as if its life depended upon it, which it did. She unhooked it, examined it, and said, “Go grow a little.” She tossed it into the lake.

I watched her and said, “Where did you learn to fish?”

She shrugged. “Where did you?”

That caught me off guard. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve just always known how.”

“So you think I am any different? Hand me the cricket box. Then turn around and face the other direction.”

I did as I was told and held onto the sides of the boat as a good deal of commotion occurred at the other end.

What was I getting myself into?

After a few moments, calm returned and she said, “You can turn around now.”

She had already baited her hook and tossed the line into the water. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Finally, I broke the silence. “Why did you decide to teach the third grade?”

She looked down the boat at me. “Because they wouldn’t let me run the torture ward.”

“Oh.”

She examined her bait and threw it back in. “I’ll bet you were a perfect student, weren’t you?”

“Hardly,” I said. “I was the youngest in the class and easily led astray. How about you?”

“Mostly perfect.”

“Mostly?”

“Except for the time I got sent home in grade school.”

“Sent home? For what?”

“This boy pushed me and called me ‘fatty.’ So I hit him in the face and broke his glasses.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Mama and Daddy had to buy him a new pair.”

“Oh.”

“Know what though?”

“No. What?”

“None of the other kids ever called me ‘fatty’ again.”

“I can imagine.”

We fished in silence as I wondered if rich folks in those big skyscrapers up north ever spent such wonderful times while they were waiting to get married.

Teach a girl to dig her own fish bait
and she'll take care of herself forever.

My Redacted Life: Chapter One (Cont. 3)

There is something about crossing the Mississippi River. No matter which way you’re going, you’re going someplace new. Certainly, that’s how I felt as I continued my second full day after separation from military service.

The ancients must have been in awe when they saw it for the first time. Wide and muddy, it has no reason to argue or brag. It’s the goddam Mississippi River and you can take or leave it. Much of America takes it. The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles, including all or parts of 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Years later I would read, at least three times, one of the greatest books ever written about one river. Back then, I was just fascinated all over again by the muddy expanse.

I descended into Arkansas and immediately came upon Lake Chicot and the city of Lake Village. I couldn’t have counted the many happy hours I’ve spent fishing on that Lake. It was divided then into two parts, one was constantly muddy from undeterred runoff. They used to have powerboat races on it when I was young. The other half was dark blue water that housed some of the best fishing in the state.

My father had taken up fishing trips when my brother was old enough for excursions. Lake Chicot was a favorite. It was long and narrow. You could paddle across it easily. As I drove by that day, I could almost re-smell the soft fragrance of willow trees of an early morning as we set off to our favorite fishing spot. No wild rides, no fancy musical shows, no entertainment spectacles, just a boy and his dad crossing a welcoming lake in the pre-dawn stillness. If there is a better time on earth for a young boy, I can’t imagine it.

There had been times, when I stared, rifle in hand, at the jungles leading up Monkey Mountain at Da Nang, when I had tried to relive one of those trips in my mind, just to pass the post-midnight hours. Now, here I was, all grown-up and wiser, back again.

Leaving Lake Village, I headed toward McGehee, then a thriving farm community that still housed an active railroad depot and thriving business district. Although I didn’t know it at the time, a few miles to the north one could find the remnants of the Rower Relocation Center, a World War Two concentration camp where Japanese-American families had been held as prisoners by a country that had abandoned love and grace. All that is left there is a cemetery and a monument to the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team.

442nd Monument at Rower

That was a regiment manned by Japanese-American citizens, whose families were incarcerated in places like the Rower Center. These men wanted to prove their loyalty to their country and were finally allowed to participate in the European Theater. The 442^nd became the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history. In less than two years of combat, the unit earned more than 18,000 awards, including 9,486 Purple Hearts, 4,000 Bronze Stars and 21 Medals of Honor.

A few years ago, my family and I attended a ceremony in McGehee to dedicate a museum in memory of the Rower Center. A college classmate attended. He had been born there. George Takei attended as well. He spoke, and described how, as a five-year-old, sent there with his family, He was forced to face the American flag each morning, with the barbed wire fences in the background, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

I didn’t know all this at the time. I was simply heading down the highway of my future, across a country that had just robbed me of four years of my life.

The Mississippi River drainage basin

Growing Up Southern: February 4, 2018

We had a small stock pond on our place when I was growing up. It wasn’t as big as a city block. They dug it to get fill dirt for a Jr. high school. There wasn’t much to it—the pond that is—but square foot for square foot, it furnished about as much enjoyment as any site you could find anywhere.

There were fish in it. Fish galore: bream, sunfish, catfish, and, later, bass. We never fished it out, but oh lord did we try. There were snakes and turtles, as well. We only swam in it once, and that was when no one was watching, My mother told the story about how, when I could barely walk, I had seen some people swimming in a pool, and, I reckon I was impressed because, alerted by our family dog “Bob,” she caught me next morning “just a high-steppin’ toward the pond.”

My Sainted grandmother would laugh and talk about how she had taken me there a little later and showed me how to bait a hook and toss it out. She created a monster, I guess, for she said all I wanted to do thereafter was to go and “pish” some more. I don’t know if kids have that much fun with their grandmothers these days.

There are so many lessons one can learn from a small, postage-stamp, place like that. For one, the cork from a bottle of Garrett Snuff makes an ideal “bobber.” Bouncing it up and down is supposed to attract fish. And something that Della Nathaniel taught me, you must spit on your bait if you want to catch the really good ones. Of course, she dipped snuff, so her spit was much more potent and effective than mine.

She sought, once, to even the playing field by offering me a dip. I tied, but decided I’d rather not catch fish than live through that ordeal again. Bless her heart, she moved to Oakland California later and found equality of sorts, I’m sure. I’ll bet she missed that old pond, though, from time to time.

Sometimes, when I was older, and the Hester boys lived close by the pond, we’d start out on Friday after school and fish until Saturday afternoon. Then the mothers who lived nearby would come over with the “fixin’s” and fry our catch for the whole neighborhood.

I still recall the day my dad and I went out one Sunday morning and cut a nice gum tree that we dragged into the pond for a fish refuge. I think the hooks I lost therein outnumbered the fish I caught from it, but since Sunday was his only day off, it most wonderful that we spent the time doing it.

Today, the average teenager has a cell phone that probably cost more than my father paid for that little spot where the pond was. I’ll match memories with any of them, though.

Ever notice how things
get less fun as they
get more elaborate?