Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Tadpoles in the Hole

Every so often Grandad
would need to get some feeder fish to put in the fishing hole that he stocked with channel catfish. Those fish were pretty greedy and would eat every thing that moved in the "Rock Pit". The Rock Pit was a spring fed pond originally, that he had bulldozed out years before as a stock tank and fishing hole. As I said, every once in a while we would go to one of the smaller ponds on the place and take some seine nets. It was always quite a spectacle, someone would always fall in, mud would be every where. Then there were the buckets. Once the net was brought out Mawmaw Opal and Mom would start sorting out the fish in buckets. Catfish, feeder fish and would go in one bucket. Any large fish would be saved to clean and put in the freezer and I got to play with the crawdads and tadpoles. These tadpoles weren't the tiny little wriggly things you might be used to seeing. These were bullfrog tadpoles. They were always huge, sometimes bigger than by nine year old hand. We used to go frog hunting some spring nights at these ponds and get thirty or forty frogs a night for a frog leg fry. One time when Paul was dating Patty, we had a Frog Leg fry and Patty was determined to help out cooking. She being a city girl had never fried frog legs before. Cledith didn't tell here that fresh frog legs would jump when you throw them in the hot grease. She freaked out that first time. Anyway, the tadpole were the most interesting part of this whole adventure to me. They would let me take some home in a pickle jar.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

The Empty Pickle Jar

I have always loved pickles. All kinds of pickles, except sweet pickles. I remember one time, at my grandmother Opal's house, MeMaw as I called her, I stole a jar of pickles from the refrigerator. I hid under the huge dark Duncan Fife dining table and chowed down on the pickles. To be truthful, the jar was only a third full, but I know that I would get in trouble for eating all those pickles. I don't remember why, but I lift the jar, with the fork still in it. Two weeks later, MeMaw found the jar, with the fork in it,
and couldn't figure out which one of us did it.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Hiding

One summer day when I was about five or six. I was staying with my grandparents Opal and Revis. It was a hot day, I remember the rivulets of sweat running down my face. As a kid, I remember it being hot, but we did not have air conditioning like we have today, we had swamp coolers if we had anything at all. They were basically large noisy fans that had a pan of water underneath and surrounded by pads that were constantly drenched with water. In fact, they only added to the humidity in your house. They did offer a cool blast of air to stand in front of on hot August afternoons. On this day, my cousins from Olney, Texas arrived. It was always a big production when the family arrived at Grand Dad's house. There were the loud exclamations of welcome, hugs, kisses, back slapping and the like. Then everyone would be ushered into the house out of the heat or cold (I never remember it being moderate, just hot or cold) and into the parlor where Mam Maw would serve homemade sugar cookies and Coke a Cola, or Breakfast if it were early in the day. Today it was after lunch, and I was in a shy mood and did not really know my cousins, (they were the girl cousins, eh). So I just went and hid. It was not uncommon for me to wander the farm, so nobody really knew where I was anyway. They called out a bit and rang the bell, but I was safely dug in under the huge bed in MawMaw's house. It was actually the coolest place to hang out anyway, The old bed was on an old concrete slab that was covered with tile. I remember. napping there in the cool dark watching the daddy long legs cluster in the cool spot under the bed frame. After a couple of hours, I hear the goodbye's start. This is when the hugging and kissing and back slapping started all over again. Nobody ever left Opal and Revis's house without a sack of fresh vegetables or peaches or whatever was in season at the time. I finally made my appearance just as the car was driving off, much to my Dad's dismay. I didn't worry though, it was 3:00 Coke time!