I’ve listed three new paintings for auction at eBay which you can check out here. This one is from my childhood memories of growing up here in the South.
It was 1967. I was nine and my parents were to attend a Saturday evening Sunday School social meeting—a shindig. They decided I should attend as well. Such an event would provide the ideal setting for my first real excursion into socializing with big folk.
I should point out that my parents logic in this decision was as follows:
- There would be no cussing, drinking, or smoking since we were all good Southern Baptists—at least at church events…
- All the church ladies thought I was cute as a button anyway, so I would be a most welcome guest…
- All the church men would be delighted to have me listening in on their conversations and asking kid questions. They had no choice. The church ladies would see to that.
The event was down by the catfish pond at the home of one of the church founders. They had a regular Kennedy type compound as I recall. There was the main house, several small rental houses surrounding it, all rented to their grandkids, and a second main house occupied by their daughter and her family. There was even a daycare center which was run by their daughter. She kept every kid in the church and surrounding community I think—including me when I was just a baby. All of this situated on maybe twenty acres, most of which was woods, a very large vegetable garden, some outbuildings, and of course the catfish pond.
We arrived. Within minutes my face was covered in red lipstick and my hair had been tousled so many times that a little dab of Brylcreem would not do me. I took it like a little gentleman though. I even removed the lipstick myself before my dear mom managed to slobber on a Kleenex and wipe it off for me. Lord I hated that. Note to Moms: NEVER lick a Kleenex and wipe stuff off your little feller’s face. OK?
Down at the catfish pond there were lots of temporary, nylon-webbed folding chairs all around and the more purposed wooden ones you see pictured above. I was to find out, all too vividly, what the waist high, narrow wooden table and pail were for. Atop the creosote pole hung a street lamp of some sort which cast a surreal light in the dusky air. People were all about talking, laughing, skipping stones, pitching horseshoes. The church ladies were trailing down the hill from the big house to the pond, each with a covered dish of some sort, or pitchers of sweet tea. Upon delivery, most took an about face and trailed back up the hill for more—like so many well coiffed, Betty Crocker ants.
Then came Lassie down the hill with a couple of fishing poles and plastic container. Lassie was not a dog. Lassie and Sloan owned the compound. They were the family matriarch and patriarch. I never found out where her name came from, but from my perspective at nine years old, it was akin to a boy named Sue. I couldn’t imagine she was pleased with her name. There were many other southern name pairs present which I believe can only be found in the South. Pug and Thelma. Buford and Beulah. Archie and Polly, Sam and Virginia, Ben and Addie…and my parents, Clyde and Evelyn.
Lassie handed me a cane fishing pole and said “Here. Put chew a worm on there and catch you a catfish.” Then she held the plastic container full of black dirt in front of my face as though I was supposed to know instinctively what to do. “Go on. Git chew a worm.” My first social rite of passage in the adult world I suppose was getting that worm out of that dirt while giggly church ladies and snickering church men watched. First worm I ever handled actually. Didn’t like ‘em. Wasn’t about to poke a hook in one. I stood there, Lassie grinning down at me, and…well I kept standing there, worm in hand. Finally, Pug helped me turn the little worm into a knot on the end of the hook and walked me over to the edge of the pond.
All previously paused conversations resumed and I was left alone with the line in the water and cane pole tightly held with both hands. About fifteen seconds passed and the red and white bobber disappeared under the surface. The pole tip bent significantly and quivering, I shouted for my dad. “Pull it in!” he and a couple of others shouted back. I yanked the pole with all I had and out of the pond popped the red and white bobber and a sizable pissed off catfish. I turned and flung it up on the flat grass behind me and Sloan was on it like a cop taking down a belligerent hippie at an anti-war demonstration. He snatched it off the hook and said “c’mon over here son.” I had never seen a catfish unless it was fried. A live catfish looked downright inedible. I could not connect the dots of what was required to get something so ugly to somehow become a golden breaded slab of good southern eatin’.
We marched to the peculiarly narrow waist high wooden table with the plastic pail beside it. Sloan pulls a ball peen hammer out of the pail with his free hand—the catfish squirming in the other. Clueless I watch. Much to my surprise, Sloan lays the catfish on the narrow table, and with a blow akin to a blacksmith, pounds the catfish’s head with the hammer.
I flinched. As flinches go, it was a large one. About three feet airborne and a step or two past that once I touched down. I looked at my shirt and something I didn’t recognize had splattered on me.
In total disbelief, my wide eyes returned to the table top at the precise instant that Sloan inserted the pointed tip of a thin, curved knife into the anus of the catfish, quickly split it open from tail to gill, and began removing the entrails.
My response? …I puked. Much to Sloan’s surprise I might add. His flinch, though smaller than mine, included a non-Baptist-approved word skillfully uttered under his breath.
Sloan, holding fish to table and pointing to and fro with his knife, gingerly dispatched the church ladies rescue squad who quickly relocated me and cleaned up the accident scene. All so fast that few even noticed. Later that evening, Sloan grinned and winked at me from the other side of a loose circle of the cheap lawn chairs, each with our own bowl of home made ice cream. For a second or two, I wondered if this was what being an adult was all about. Then I went for another bowl of ice cream.
