"The Evening Campfire" from
The Herald, July 11, 2010
Sneaking in at Old Man
Critchlow's Pond
Trailer Park Sam we called him, as
young teens without empathy or sense are prone to do,
although he never lived in a park per se, just in a
rundown old mobile home on five worthless rocky acres
with three younger brothers, two older sisters, a mother
who was always around and a father who wasn’t.
I was country back then myself. I
caught suckers and catfish in the river down the hill
and plucked green onions out of the family garden and
ate them raw, dirt and all. I cleaned chicken crap out
of the backyard coop and tended to our beagles and left
the house every summer morning to wander the woodlands
and countryside all day long, getting back just in time
for dinner and a yard game of hide-and-seek with my two
sisters Lukey and Peet and my brothers Earl and Foo.
But Sam was 10 times more country
than I could ever dream of being, and at ages 12 to 14,
I looked up to him as role model and best friend. He
could catch a bluegill with no bait on the hook and
shinny up a white pine with no branches. He could speak
to every neighborhood dog in its own language. They’d
stop their home yard frolicking every time he wandered
by and saddle up and murmur to him in animal tones.
And he was kin to every garter
snake in Mercer County and often carried them in his
tousled hair under his baseball cap. He’d show up an
hour late for a pick-up ballgame and take his hat off
and introduce his slithery friends. And he could trap
muskrats and hunt rabbits and angle for largemouths like
there was no tomorrow. Especially at Old Man Critchlow’s
big bass pond, where fishing was prohibited.
Trespassing wasn’t a crime back in
those days, at least not in our simple country-boy
minds. It was a challenge and a contest that you could
win or lose. Our final visit to the pond, Sam and I were
14 years old, and, although we didn’t know it then, we
were in the last months of our bloodbrother camaraderie,
before I would — sadly — abandon his friendship for the
siren calls of pretty girls and organized sports.
We hiked three miles that evening
up Lamor Road to a secluded grassy spot along Clay
Furnace Creek and set up the ancient army tent that Sam
had dug out of his father’s closet. We built a fire and
roasted hot dogs and told stories about the crazy
one-armed rural stalker and the killer pack of wild dogs
we imagined we heard howling in the night. Eventually we
settled into our soggy sleeping bags and fell asleep.
In the pre-dawn dark, we woke and
ate cold doughnuts from Sam’s pack and drank warm water
from his thermos and grabbed our fishing gear and set
out. We followed the creek back in upstream 100 yards,
listening to the invisible murmuring waters, then
slipped under barbed wire and made our way blind through
a minefield of cow patties in Critchlow’s pasture. We
plunged into a thicket where briars and branches stung
at our knuckles and cheekbones and then crossed into a
field just as daybreak lightened overhead.
A short climb up one hill now and
we were there. Mist rose off the pure, flat surface of
the pond and we paused and stared and listened to the
early-morning birdsong and bullfrogs croaking in the
background.
Sam moved first, casting a flatfish
lure into the still waters and retrieving it just below
the surface for five seconds before a big fish exploded
out of the water and Sam set the hook and reeled him in,
a fine 15-inch largemouth bass. I tossed my hulapopper
and caught two 12-inchers in two casts and laid them
both out on the rocky shoreline at my feet.
Then a screen door slammed in the
distance. We looked up and spotted Old Man Critchlow
plodding down the hill toward the pond. We could see
puffs of his breath ranting in the air. Sam and I looked
at each other and frowned. We had lost the contest this
time. I reached down, severed the head of one fish and
left it on the bank for him to find. Then we slipped
back down into the woods and away.
We would wait a few days and come
back, we told ourselves. Our future plans were clear. We
were 14 years old. The bass fishing was good. And
forbidden.
<<
back to columns |
