Over My Shoulder

I remember a lot of Uncle Harry stories----like the time that he and Aunt Fern came to the farm for the week end---like usual, Uncle Harry brought some fishing bait with him. In the heat of the summer, we would have trouble finding fishing worms, so he would bring fishing worms, often he would bring a bucket of minnows which he would work with to keep alive, and sometimes he would bring a package of shrimp for catfish bait.

On this particular occasion, I remember that he brought shrimp. If you were fishing with the shrimp, you would peel the outer shell off, and place a piece of the shrimp on your hook----weight it down with a sinker, and throw it out on the bottom---usually this would be good for a big old bull head or so.

I recall that we fished Saturday, and probably a while on Sunday, before Uncle Harry and Aunt Fern returned home on Sunday evening. During this time in our lives, we were busy on the farm, and rarely started the car during the week, as we had not any place to go and no reason to go. Along about Thursday or Friday, someone had occasion to open the car door------the stench about knocked them down. The car smelled as if an animal had died in it.

Of course, we opened all of the doors, and began to search for what was causing the terrible smell. The car that we had at that time had pockets on the inside of the doors, in which one could store maps, pencils, handkerchiefs etc. In the passenger side pocket we found the source of the smell----Uncle Harry’s package of shrimp that was left over from the previous weekend’s fishing trip.

Apparently Uncle Harry had placed the package in the car pocket on Sunday afternoon when we left the creek. He then forgot it when he unloaded the car, and no one else thought of looking for it-----that is until after being closed up for four or five days in the hot summer sun, the car door was opened. It took days of the car doors open, and fumigation to get the smell out of the car----the odor had permeated the upholstery, the headliner and the side panels. Thereafter, we always accounted for Uncle Harry’s shrimp after he went home.----It has been a long time since I used shrimp for fishing bait.

Then there was the time that Dad, Uncle Harry, and I had been fishing down at the Irish Branch---we had gone to the creek on the ‘A-Farmall’ hitched to the hay rack. The hay rack had a 12 inch board around the perimeter, so as to make a grain bed out of it.

The ‘A’ had a road gear in which the tractor would run about 12-14 miles per hour on the road. One problem with running in road gear, with the fishing tackle on the wagon, was that the vibration on the wagon would ‘move’ everything around, and ‘splash’ the water out of the minnow bucket. To avoid ‘spilling’ the minnows, we would stand on the hay rack and hold the minnow bucket---thus absorbing the vibration so that the water would not splash out.

On this day, as we left the creek, I stood in the middle of the wagon holding the bucket of minnows---like usual, we had fished too long, and were going to be late for dinner, so Dad had the ‘A’ in road gear. After we had stopped at the highway south of the house and had turned north for the last quarter of mile home, Dad shoveled the throttle open to ‘full throttle’.

Uncle Harry was riding on the tractor draw bar, visiting with Dad,----trying to learn more about the tractor, he asked Dad if the tractor had good brakes. Not thinking, Dad promptly stepped on the brake, sliding the tractor tires. ----When one is standing on a hay rack with a bucket of minnows, running down the road at 12 MPH or so, and the brakes are suddenly applied-----there is nothing to do but to go with the momentum----which I did as I stumbled forward trying to catch my balance----at the front of the wagon, I ran out of room as I hit the 12” board on the front.

However, I had not run out of momentum, and there was nothing to do but to continue forward off the front of the wagon----scraping one of my shins from the knee to the ankle. As I doubled over to avoid hitting my head or shoulder on the plow bracket that was on the tractor, Dad realized what had happened and released the brake---- not only was I going to fall off, I may very well be run over by the wagon. Fortunately, the wagon missed me as I hit the ground and rolled to the side of the road.

As I lay there moaning and holding my leg, Dad got the tractor stopped, and he and Uncle Harry appeared at my side-----with an explanation of “Get the minnows”, one grabbed the minnow bucket and set it up and they both started gathering up the minnows that had spilled. After all of the minnows were gathered up and back in the bucket, they checked to see if I was ok----I found that I was in pretty good shape except for the scraped shin-----it took about six weeks of penicillin to get rid of the bone infection that developed from the scrape.

What makes this story more interesting is that about 20 years later, ‘the chickens came home to roost’. Dad, my two sons (Michael and Steven) and I had been fishing at the Ceder Bluff fishing hole. At that time, to get to the Ceder Bluff hole, we drove back through Brownie’s (Christine’s Dad) west field to the hay meadow, and walked the one-half mile down over a small hill covered with an outcrop of limestone rock--through a little valley and over a small hill to the creek.

On our return trip to the car, Dad was carrying the minnows as we came up over the limestone strewn hill. Like I have gotten the last few years, Dad was not as steady on his feet as he used to be, and as he stepped up over one of those large rocks, he slipped, fell and spilled the minnows-----both of my boys jumped forward with a shout of “Get the Minnows’ and started gathering up the spilled minnows. Regardless of whether or not he was hurt, Dad and I could do nothing but laugh, as it had brought back a memory of 20 years ago, and the boys could not understand why we were laughing. ----Dad was not seriously hurt---mostly pride.