Setting Out Hooks on the Little Choctawhatchee

     If you ever want to travel in time and space, build a fire in the cool night air.  There is something about the wood releasing it's energy as flame, heat and the smell of smoke that acts upon the brain.  As you stare, mesmerized, into the flame and red hot coals, you become transported to another time and place.  Sheila and I had cut down trees in the yard and piled them up.  Using a large lighterd stump, I set the pile on fire.  As the sun vanished and darkness descended upon us, she went inside to fry chicken and make a potato salad.
     The dogs and I were tired, they lay down for a nap, I sat in a lawn chair and stared into the fire.  I went back to a time when my body was fresh, no arthritic hands, sore back or dim eyes.  I was ten again, fishing on the banks of the Little Choctawhatchee river.  Dad had carried my brother Benny and I, Junior Key, Harold Key and Otis Cole to Mr. Woodham's place.  It was located near the Sylvan Grove church in Dale county.  My brother Wayne, who was fourteen at the time, had only one thing on his mind and fishing was not it.  We turned off the paved road at the old grocery store, traveled down the dirt road a couple of miles, turned into a field road that carried us to a large scope of woods.  After a few minutes of driving through the woods on the rough path, going around washouts we finally saw the river.  At this point it was really just a large creek.
     When we got there it was late in the afternoon.  There was plenty of light left in the day to cut sticks and sharpen the ends.  We walked along the bank and every twenty feet or so we would drive the sharpened end of the stick into the soft dirt of the bank.  To this we would tie a nylon string to the end.  At six feet or so in length with a large lead sinker and treble hook.  For bait we carried a tub of chicken livers.  We always only carried two 1 pound tubs of livers, but that was never enough.  Before it got completely dark we would overturn dead limbs and rocks to find salamanders.  This dirty job always fell to Benny and me, but we didn't mind.  The catfish always went for them anyway.
     Our next job was to gather up wood for the fire.  To get it going, we would get a few dry leaves burning and then dad would throw a half cup of clear moonshine on the small fire.  After the explosion, in any wood remained on the pile, it was definitely on fire  The first few trips to check the hooks was taken by us all.  By the third trip all the men had started a poker game and it was up to Benny and me.  Benny carried the lantern until we got to the hook.  If the cork was underwater he would hand me the light and he would pull up the fish.  Then I would have to carry the heavy string of fish in the dark and slippery mud.  However I did not mind.  At that moment I could tell that I was soon to leave childhood behind.  My father loved good moonshine whiskey, but the other men liked beer.  I asked if I could have one of those beers and dad, thinking that I would not like the taste, said "yeah, why not".  My first taste was like drinking nectar from the gods.  Nothing before or since that crossed my lips, tasted so wonderful.  I could not wait for my next can.  For the next forty years, I could not get my fill.  At fifty, I decided to not drink any more.  Thank God, I was able to lay it down.  I am not an alcoholic, but the wonderful taste of beer will always be with me.
     There was a full moon that night and the light was soft and eerie.  The woods were thick and stretched for miles in either direction.  All kinds of creatures lived and died there.  Sounds near and far were strange and terrifying.  The grown ups did not pay any attention, but we could see them looking at us out of the corner of their eyes.  Benny and I played it cool though and acted as if nothing scared us. And after a while, it didn't. 
     After the fourth trip, we had enough fish for a grand feast.  After Benny skinned the catfish, I gutted them.  Dad had a big cast iron frying pan full of hot grease.  After he battered them up in beer and Adam's Mill cornbread, he fried them to a crisp golden brown.  The white meat would just melt in your mouth.  Along about midnight, after dad had won all the money, and everyone was tired of walking the bank and drinking, we called it a night.  Some of us slept on blankets and some of us fell asleep in the vehicles.  As the sun was coming up in the east, the trees on the other side of the river, shrouded in the mist rising from the river presented a glorious sight.  That along with the blue wisps of smoke wafting up from the smoldering campfire, is a sight that I will never see again.  The sound of the wood pecker hammering on the hollow tree, the great blue heron honking and the fox in the distance, is etched in my mind.  I was suddenly brought back to the present by "Charles' supper is ready."  Now that is indeed a glorious sound.