Growing Up Country

July Fourth Fish Fry Was Biggest Gathering In Yocona Bottom History 

(Editor’s Note: This is the 11th installment in a series written by Baxter Jones about his growing-up years.)

Daddy had lots of relatives  and close friends that he had known since childhood. In most cases, I just called them uncle. There seemed to be a special relationship with Uncle Batte, Buck, and Hope Miles. These guys were really my cousins, Great Aunt Nolie’s children, and were close to my Daddy’s age. To complicate matters, Daddy had an aunt, a sister, and a daughter named Nolie. 

I had noticed that every time these fellows got together with “Shorty,”as they called Daddy, just like most of his buddies, there was a lot of joking with each other. They shared tales that, as hard as I  listened, some of these stories seemed to be intentionally kept from me. These boys spent a lot of time together in the early years of their lives, and it always seems like homecoming when they got together.

Buck lived close to us and we saw him often, but Hope lived and worked in Arkansas, and Batte worked in the Illinois Central Railroad shops in Memphis. It was afternoon of the third of July when the Miles boys and their wives came by to visit. Then, Uncle Robert and Aunt Gladys came by, as did Uncle Van  Cooper. It was quite a visit for these men, who hadn’t seen each other in a spell. 

Even those who lived nearby had just “laid by their crops,” and only now had a little time to visit with their friends. The visiting took place in the yard where there were a few lawn chairs about, as well as an occasional block of wood hauled over from the wood pile to sit on. The group of men had moved away from the house, probably to get out of ear shot of the front porch where the women were. Daddy had bought a new bull that he was very proud of and the men had been to the barn to look at “Ferdinand,” and then walked down the field road a ways to look at some of the crops.

Then someone asked if Daddy could still shoot a rifle and Daddy bragged that he could still knock those squirrels out with his .22. Hope showed Daddy a new pocket knife he had bought and told Daddy that he would throw it up in the air and let him shoot at it, if Daddy would give him a dollar if he missed. That was a bad bet on Hope’s part, because Daddy went into the house and brought out  his gun. Hope threw the knife up and Daddy busted both handles with first shot.

It was fun for me to listen in on their conversations and probably also to be in the way as well. Uncle Buck went to his Model A, got a jug, then very discreetly passed it around to the men, so as not to alert the women folk, who were sitting on the front porch. This would have been especially important with his wife, Aunt Irene. She was one of the sweetest, nicest, Christian ladies, and she spent a lot of  her time trying to rehabilitate Buck. This was not to say that Buck was a bad person but, from time to time, he was bound to have a nip or two and Irene was locked in at zero tolerance.

The conversation had picked up a little by now, and someone suggested having a fish fry for the Fourth. Everyone though this was a good idea, except for one small item—they didn’t have any fish to fry. Buck said he knew someone who had a big seine, if he could just come up with an old place to use it. They kicked this around for awhile and, at Daddy’s suggestion, decided they could seine Horseshoe Lake. This was yet another wide bend in the old river run across the road from our house. We had gone fishing here lots of times and it was one of my favorite places. You could expect to catch anything out of this old hole, my Daddy had told me. The idea of going in here and taking a hands on approach to catching these big old fish, or whatever kind of unknown creatures, just set me on fire. 

It was decided that they would meet at Horseshoe at eleven o’clock on the morning of the fourth, if all went well. Then we’d bring the fish to the house, clean them, and have one heck of a fish fry for whoever wanted to come. 

When everybody left in the early evening, I was so excited and I know I worried Daddy to death, asking questions about tomorrow’s event. There wouldn’t be very much sleep for me that night as I lay in bed, and rehearsed a fishing trip like the world had never seen. It hadn’t occurred to me that Daddy might not let me go, and I’m sure he would have preferred for me to have stayed at the house. This would have been the wise decision, given the obvious dangers for a little squirt as myself, but when he saw my enthusiasm I suppose he just couldn’t say no. 

The crew began showing up around ten, checking plans and equipment. Buck came through with the seine, which was a main player in this event, and Daddy loaded some tubs which would hopefully be filled with fish, and somehow we all ended up at Horseshoe a little after eleven o’clock as  planned. 

These men, other than Daddy, were rookies in the water and knew very little about what they were doing. They all worked at “public jobs” and weren’t as close to nature as my Daddy, or in as good physical shape. Fortunately they had some young help, David, Ray, and Billy. 

We started off in a somewhat conventional method of seining. However, the million-or-so cypress knees in the shallow water made this extremely hard, When you tried to “land” the catch someone had to constantly be going behind the seine, lifting it above the knees, thus letting most of the fish out. We caught some fish with this method, but it was a lot of hard work.

Then someone came up with a good idea. We would “set” the seine wherever we could find a clear place on the bottom, in the deeper water where two men would hold the seine while everybody else would line up and make a lot of commotion in the water, driving the fish into the seine. It took a little while to perfect this method, but eventually it worked well. When we were making our final approach to the seine, the seine holders would then rush forward and upward with the seine and everybody would get around the seine, roll the top and bottom line together, and walk the seine, loaded with catfish, suckers, buffalo, drum, turtles, and an occasional snake (although, I don’t recall any bad ones that day) out on the bank. We would put the seine back in position and drive from the other direction.

Speaking of snakes, one of the traits my Daddy possessed was his ability to immediately identify non-poisonous snakes from the poisonous ones. Several times this day he took the snakes we caught, or one that would have his head above water, and calmly throw them aside. When I see Dad in heaven, however, I’m going to tell him that he was wrong about poisonous snakes not being able to bite under water. He had this misconception all  of his life, as did lots of other people. However, this has been proved otherwise and I cringe when I think about us grabbling those old floating logs in the old run, where we had to run the snakes off. 

There is no doubt that this was the most fun I had ever had in my young life. I could swim and yell and splash, and make as much racket as I could, and this is what I was best at. I remember Daddy, the boys, and I were the drivers. 

When I would get tired, I would hang onto Daddy, or ride his neck. Even though Horseshoe Lake looked awfully big to a little boy, it really wasn’t, and a half dozen crew jumping and yelling and splashing must have had a tremendous impact on the quiet life of the critters that lived in this bend in the old river run. I guess you could say that we caught a lot of fish, threw a bunch of trash fish and little fish back, and scared the hell out of the rest of them. We kept about three wash tubs of fish—mostly catfish, with a few large Buffalo.

The real work began when we got those fish to the  house and the cleaning started. Dressing the catfish was simple. You skinned him, gutted him, cut his head off, and cut him across grain in chunks, or steaks. Dressing the buffalo fish was a whole different ball game. Daddy was the only one who knew how to do this, so consequently he had to dress all of them. I watched Daddy do this special process in order to greatly reduce the problem of the bones. It is a delicious fish when it is prepared properly. (I have wished many times that I could remember how he did this, as it seems to be a lost art.)

A big black pot was set up near the woodpile, where it could get plenty of fuel, and then a small kindling fire was started.  When the fire caught up, the lard was added, and the men began to leave and get their wives and return to the fish fry that was on the way at Lem Jones’ house. 

Mama had invited her brothers, Earl, Hugh and Clarence Carothers, and their wives, from across the river. She had also invited her sister, Flora Prince, her husband, Calvin, and their oldest child, John, who lived in Brownsville, Tennessee, and were visiting Granny Carothers; along with Uncle Van Cooper, and a fair sprinkling of neighbors as well. 

This was the biggest event that I can remember ever being held in our little house in Yocona bottom and it was such a happy time. There seemed to be people everywhere—on the porch, on the steps, sitting in chairs in the yard, eating on the car hoods, at the wood pile, or wherever they could find spot. There was lots of laughter and a happy time was had by all. My cousin, John Prince, was my only contemporary and we romped and played like wild Indians and had a wonderful time. I can only imagine how tired Mama and Daddy must have been when this was over and as good a time as we all had, they didn’t plan anything close to the size of this event ever again.