Dennis Crocker Memories - Part 9 (October 17, 2013)
I am sure most of you remember the "old bridge" across the Pacolet at Pacolet Mills. It had a steel structure, and basically a steel frame but the deck was made of wood and had been asphalted over. That bridge was built to replace the one that washed away in the 1903 Flood. By the early 1950's it was falling into disrepair, and walking across it on the walkway for pedestrians you'd come to several places where there were holes where the boards had given way. We used to delight in kicking gravel through the openings and watching the gravel make little splashes in the water surface.
Most of the time , the water was placid and lazy , but I can remember once when heavy rains in the mountains caused the water level to rise almost to the deck of the old bridge. I remember being afraid to walk across it.
Our 5th grade teacher was Mrs. Weeks. She was a gray haired lady that wore her hair in a bun sorta like my grandmother Loftis did. Mrs Weeks had been a little girl at the time of the great flood. Her father-in-law was known As "Jap" Weeks, and according to the stories Mrs. Weeks would tell about that flood was that Mr. "Jap" Weeks was the last man to drive over the old bridge before the floodwaters took it down, and she talked as if it were a close thing.
One other thing I remember about Mrs. Weeks was that she loved her two little black Scotty dogs. She was a stern disciplinarian, but a good teacher. I enjoyed her classes immensely. She'd let us, even encourage us to build balsa model airplanes during 'Study time" . The other kind of model airplanes we built were made by folding notebook paper into plane shapes, and when school was out , and we were walking home, we'd linger on the bridge across the creek there at Hotel Hill and sail our creations off the bridge on the down hill side. Some would make it all the way to the bottom , others would festoon the trees growing in the creek gorge. Some times I'd save one or two "planes" for the river bridge, as there was no trees to intercept their flight.
I remember one cold Saturday in February. I was bored, and it was too cold to play outside, so I asked Mother if I could go to Uncle Floyd's store, which was just down our lower driveway and across the road, which I don't think had been paved at that time. I guess she wanted me out of her hair, so she let me go with the admonition to behave my self, and not to be gone too long.
The store was open, but the door was closed against the cold. Uncle Floyd was sitting in his rocker on one side of the potbellied stove that cast a warm red glow, and his pal, and sidekick, Jesse Green, was sitting on the other side of the stove in a straight chair.
"Dennis," uncle Floyd said around the stem of his pipe,"good to see you son. You are just in time to go get us a bucket of coal."
'Yes sir" I replied,'cause I felt he wouldn't send me home too quickly if I were to be helpful.
I went out to the back of the store and filled the coal bucket so full I could barely carry it. I lugged it inside, and set it on the edge of the firemat and pulled a little 3 legged stool up to the perimeter of the warmth of the stove. The two old men were talking about fishing.
Jesse said, "Floyd, did I ever tell you about the big ol catfish I caught off the Pacolet Mills river bridge back in 1949?"
Uncle Floyd took a drag off his pipe, and blew the smoke toward the stove. He said, " Jesse, you told me so many fishing lies, I reckon you prolly have, but I don't recollect it and Dennis ain't heard it, even if I have, so why don't you tell us about it.
Jesse took out his pocket knife, and cut off a plug of Brown Mule chewin tobacco, and once he got his plug in his mouth to where it suited him, He began. "It were in the spring of 1948, Along about May, as I recall. I was fishing off the bridge one night, using my old Pfleuger rod and reel, when something started fooling with my bait. I give 'er a minute or two , then I snatched the tip of my rod up. I's using that black nylon fishin line, musta been 40 pound test, and I thought I'd hung a log, but directly, it started swimming away from me. My drag on that ol Pfleuger reel was just ascreamin. I commence to try to work that fish , or alligator or whatever it was toward the bank, cause I knowed I'd not be able to pull him up to the bridge. They wasn't no working to it-that dern fish started swimming toward the upper dam, and I couldn't stop him. he run off all my line, and then snapped it like a banjo strang."
"I thought you started this off by telling us you caught a big fish-not that he got away," interrupted Uncle Floyd.
"Well , Floyd, If you 'll just let me finish, there's more to this story. So, all day the next day I couldn't thank of nuthin but that monster fish. Just had to be a big ol catfish. I heerd the've caught some out in the Mississippi that weighed 300 pounds"
"This here ain't no Mississippi "says Uncle Floyd,"and they ain't no catfish around here that weighs no three hunnert pounds!"
"Will you just hush and let me tell my story," says Jesse. "Well sir , the next morning, I went out to check my rabbit gums, and I had a rabbit in 3 of 'em"
"Any of 'em weigh three hunnert pounds?" snorted Uncle Floyd.
"No , Smarty-alec, but one of 'em did weigh about 3 pounds, and it give me an ideer. I went out to Bill's (Bill Burgess' garage, Uncle Floyd's son) and ast him if I could borrow his wrecker truck that night. He let me have it, and I went and got one of them big 3 prong grappling hooks like we use to fish for a well water bucket if one comes off the rope and drops in the well. Come dark, I drove down to the bridge, parked a lil bit to one side, and baited that big ol grappling hook with a skint rabbit on each prong, and I tied that steel cable from that wrecker good and tight to that grapple hook, and throwed the whole kit and caboodle over into the river. Well, dang my dingies, if shore 'nough something hit that hook and pulled that steel cable straight, but I got the wrecker going on rewind, and I pulled the biggest catfish outen that river that anybody had ever seen. He was so long, that when I got him into the back of Bill's truck, about 4 feet hung of the end---but that ain't all!"
"I noticed something funny on that fishes side, like a scar or something. I got to studying it closely, and it were a scar-it were a date. Somebody caught that fish a long time ago, and carved a date into its side. "
"What was the date?" asked Uncle Floyd.
"That fish was dated 1892, which means it was 53 years old when I caught it!"
Uncle Floyd tamped his pipe, but didn't bat an eye at this story, but he picked up the narrative. "You right, Jesse, they is some really big catfish in that stretch of water between the upper and lower mills. I had a right unusual experience myself, fishing of that bridge. It was at night, and I had a lantern going , and I accidentally knocked it offen the bridge rail---and a big ol fish came up and swallered the lantern!"
"Yep, "Allowed Jesse, spitting his tobacco into the coal bucket, "That was some big fish".
"Wait,"exclaimed Uncle Floyd,"you aint' heered the best part. I managed to catch that same fish 3 nights later, and got him landed just below the Methodist church. We we cut him open THET LANTERN WAS STILL BURNIN!!"
Jesse, stared steadily across the stove at Floyd, and He finally said, "Floyd, I'll cut 4 feet off my fish and get rid of the date scar if YOU'LL JUST PUT OUT THAT LANTERN!!!!
I would have loved to have stayed longer, but they would have just sent me out for another of coal. I dreamed about big ol catfishes that night!!!
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