A Fish Tale

We lived up Johnson Holler at the old house at Earl’s when I caught my first fish. There was a little creek under the hill, it was no more than 2 feet wide, and there wouldn’t have been any fish in it had it not been for our neighbor, Roscoe, who worked at the local trout hatchery and who stocked the creek. Roscoe had stopped by our house and told Mom that he had put some trout in the creek, and that she ought to let us boys try to catch them.



Dad, Mom, Jason and Me at the old house at Earl's.

When Dad got home from work Mom told him about the stocked fish, and how I wanted to try to catch one. Dad then borrowed a fishing pole off of my Uncle Fudge, actually Fudge gave me a pole with an old closed-face reel, it was green as I recall, and I used it for years. Anyway, over the next few weeks, I tried and tried to catch a fish with no luck. My favorite spot was the little water hole that Mom used to get water out of the creek to use for baths and such. It was a little wider at this spot, maybe 3 or 4 feet across, and about a foot deep. I was only 4 years old at the time so I was never allowed down at the creek unattended, but most of the time, I was down there fishing by myself with my Aunt Big Six or Mom watching me from the nearby holler road. I know I just about drove them all crazy with my incessant stammering about wanting to go fishing.

One day in June (I just remember it was in June but not any particular part of the month) luck caught up with me, and I hooked a trout. It was a strange feeling, I felt it tugging at my line and once it was hooked, I saw the trout roll over in the water. Well, I was too excited to reel it in, I just took to hollering “I caught one, I caught one” and I took to running up the hill towards Big Six, all the while carrying the fishing pole with the line still rolling out of it. It was about 30 feet up to where Big Six was standing, and she, still not believing that I had caught a fish, told me that I had a helluva mess with fishing line stretched through the briers and grass between the creek and the holler road. I kept saying, “I caught one, I caught one.” In an effort to get me to shut up, Big Six decided to walked down over the hill to check it out first hand. As we got down to the creek, she saw that I wasn’t fibbing, there it was, a medium sized rainbow trout. It was flopping around on the creek bank, apparently when I took to running up the hill, I somehow managed to drag the trout out of the water. I was as proud as could be.



My Kindergarten photo, taken soon after the fish incident.

With Big Six’s help, we got the hook out of the fish’s mouth, and she handed it to me to carry up to the house. Mom was waiting for us at the front door, she heard all the commotion and knew that I must have lucked onto one. My Granddad, who was visiting at the time, kiddingly asked me if the fish was blind or crazy, because it had to be one or the other to allow me to catch it. Mom then asked me if I wanted a fish sandwich made out of my trout.

Well, up to that point in my life, I never realized that fish sandwiches came from actual fish. As soon as it dawned on me that my fish was going to have to die in order to have a fish sandwich, I cut a fit saying that nobody was going to eat my fish. Mom then asked me if I wanted to put it back in the creek, and I wasn’t up for that option either. I thought I was going to make a pet out of my trout! Mom, who said we’d better get the fish back into some water if I was going to think about what to do with it, produced a gallon canning jar full of water, and we put the trout in it. It took to swimming around (this ought to tell you just how big this fish really was), and I thought I had a prize.

I remember soon after this, we had to go into Franklin for something and I insisted that I take my jarred fish with me. I showed everyone who would look when we were in Franklin. I remember we parked right in front of the old IGA store in Franklin, and me and my granddad stayed in the truck while Mom and the other kids went in the store. Whenever someone would come out of the store, I’d hold up my fish and holler at them, “Lookee here what I got!” Nearly everyone stopped to look and to talk with me, and they acted like it was a whopper. I was beginning to be thoroughly convinced that I was a fisherman extraordinaire!

After showing my fish to everyone in Franklin, we went over to my Granddad’s house to wait for Dad to get home from work. Granddad lived between where Dad worked and Johnson Holler, so he’d see we were there and stop by. Soon after arriving at Granddad’s, I decided that I would put Swimmy (a name I got from a book that I really liked at the time titled "Swimmy") into the water hole behind Granddad’s house. They figured there was enough fresh water coming into the water hole to keep my fish alive, and it was small enough that I could visit my trophy fish whenever I wanted. Looking back, it really is a wonder a coon or a hawk didn’t scoop out Swimmy, but they never did.


Taken before the fish incident, but while we lived at Earl's.

As with any prized possession of a child that age, I soon lost interest in Swimmy, and while everyone knew Swimmy was there, we didn’t give it much thought. As the summer wore on and it got dry, Granddad’s water hole was drying up. I remember them telling me that I needed to get Swimmy out of the water hole and go put it in the river or he was going to die. Well, of course, I was having none of that, and one day about a week later I remember poking around near the water hole, and I noticed that there was a half eaten fish laying in the cracked mud. I don’t recall that I was terribly upset, but I must have been because I remember it. I recall going around to the front porch where everyone was at and saying that Swimmy was dead, and as I put it, “his belly busted open and his guts came out.” They all told me that I was warned that I needed to put Swimmy in the river, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I brushed them off, and just let it go. Soon the neighborhood cats ate what was left of Swimmy.

You know, I never did like the taste of fish, but I would eat fish sticks (albeit reluctantly) if Mom made them for us. But after what happened to Swimmy I completely refused to eat any kind of fish or seafood again. I am now going on around 27 years in my fish free lifestyle. Now I have such an aversion to it that I can’t even stand the smell of it without getting sick. Really, I physically throw up if I smell cooking fish, as evidenced on a trip to Red Lobster where I only got the door open, and they got pile of vomit on their welcome mat. This is much to Shirley’s chagrin since she loves fish and seafood and I won’t allow it in the house, and if she eats it, it has to be when I’m not with her. Maybe psychologically, Swimmy affected me more than I know.

Life at "Earl's"

Some of my earliest childhood memories took place in an old ramshackle farmhouse that we referred to as “Earl’s”, named after the man who owned the house, Earl Huffman. The house was located up Johnson Holler on Friends Run. I don’t remember any of the other places we lived before that, so my earliest memories take place at Earl’s.


Below is a photo of my brother Jason and I playing dress-up in mom's nightgowns!


I remember Mom setting up a table and chair on the back porch of Earls and feeding us breakfast in the sun. Me and my brother would eat our cereal at this table nearly every morning that the sun was shining. Mom always made sure we had neat little bowls to eat out of, a fact that isn’t lost on either of us all these years later. She and Dad always made sure we had the perfect childhood, probably stemming from the fact that Mom didn’t have one herself as she was placed in foster care at an early age.


Below is a photo of Jason and I at the breakfast table that I mention in the above story. We'd have breakfast here nearly every morning.


A sad memory I recall from Earls was we had a little brown puppy, whose name has been forgotten through the years. He was a playful little puppy and Jason and I loved him. One wintry evening Dad went out to get wood for the stove and the puppy followed him out, and when Dad’s arms where full of wood and when he started back inside, the puppy got under his feet and Dad unknowing stepped on him. Dad was then and is now a big man and of course the little puppy didn’t stand a chance. We all heard a yelp and that was that. I think it hurt Dad more than anything to know that he had accidentally killed our puppy. Of course, the next day we had a puppy funeral.

Yet another memory of Earls is that of the Chipmunk. We were walking around with mom one day and found a chipmunk that was “charmed” by our cat Sylvester. The chipmunk was in a daze and I’m sure ready to be lunch for Sylvester. Mom picked up the chipmunk and held it for a few minutes until it came out of the charming and then it bit her on the thumb. Of course, while mom was yelping in pain, Jason and I were laughing since we thought that was funny.

It was at Earls that I’m sure I got my love of the land and planting. One day while “looking” some Pinto beans for supper, Mom gave me some of the broken beans and told me to go plant them. I’m sure she was just thinking of something to get me out from underfoot, but I took her advice and went out to the garden, punch a hole in the ground with my finger and planted a bean in every finger hole. Lo and behold a few weeks later we noticed that my beans were growing. I don’t remember ever picking those beans, perhaps we moved before they were ripe but I do remember that they grew.


Below is a photo of Jason and I playing with our sticker books, this was taken about the time I learned my numbers and colors.




At Earl’s I also remember learning my colors and numbers out of the Sears Catalog. My brother who is 18 months older than me, was preparing for grade school, and he knew his colors, numbers and could read. I remember not wanting to be left out so I told mom that I wanted to learn them as well. She set me down on the couch with the catalog and showed me different colors and numbers, and then she gave me some crayons and told me to draw a green “1” on the wall. I did. Then a Red “2” and I did that as well. That is how I learned my colors and numbers, it was fun to learn when you got to write on the walls, a fact that I’m sure wasn’t lost on my mother. And all it cost her was a little paint.

Earl’s was up a holler than was full of rattlesnakes, you had to be careful when you got out to open the gate as there was, more often than not, a rattler laying around the gatepost. Mom and Dad would never allow us out of the mowed yard without them because of the snake problem. I don’t remember ever personally dealing with a snake while at Earls, but I do recall Dad and Aunt Tam killing them on pretty much a daily basis, but then again I was only 4 years old.


Below is a photo of Jason and I playing with our new "horses" at Earl's.



It was at Earls that I also got my cracked foot. I got a wagon somewhere, God only knows where… it could’ve been Rio Mall or the Dump, or perhaps a yardsale, but let’s suffice it to say that I got a wagon and was playing with it in the yard. I would ride in it and Aunt Tam would pull me around. I got the bright idea to roll down the hill into the road one day in my wagon. It was not a steep hill, but a hill nonetheless. Unfortunately for me, directly in my path was my Grandad’s truck. I knew I was going to hit the truck so I started flailing my arms and legs. I hit squarely into his truck rim, and unfortunately for me, my leg was between my wagon and the rim. I squalled and Aunt Tam came and got me and took me to the house. I remember someone jokingly saying “Well, we’ll just have to cut it off.” And they got out their pocketknife. I’m sure they thought I was putting on but it liked to scared me to death. Upon closer inspection, my grandad pronounced my leg broken, so off I went to the hospital. Sure enough my leg was cracked. Oddly enough, to date that was the one and only broken bone that I have ever had. That could lead into another story… the exploits of me in my cast, but I’ll save that one for another day.