Chapter 7 ~ Sounds Fishy to Me

(part 3)

Whenever we went fishing with Carmon, you could always bet that we would eat off the land.  There was the summer we discovered wild asparagus growing along the roadside and we all risked snake bite picking a bushel.  This was steamed in a large pot and served with fresh butter we bought from a local farmer.  Yum!  Many times the salad, which graced our camp table, was made with fresh watercress from the streams, lightly wilted with a dressing of bacon and vinegar.  Divine!  It goes without saying that we ate a lot of fish:  bass or crappie rolled in cornmeal and fried in bacon grease; trout, dusted with flour, and lightly browned in butter; fish fillets coated in a tempura batter and deep fried with onion rings.  However, the kids’ fondest memories of fishing trips with their dad didn’t involve the food we ate so much as the way he prepared it.  I’m referring to The Knife.

As I mentioned earlier, Carmon was the epitome of self-reliance.  You really could strip him naked and abandon him in the wilderness, and he would thrive if he had his pocketknife.  He never went anywhere without it.  I think he may have had it since boyhood.  Of course, that was back in a gentler day when children could take a pocketknife to school without being expelled for carrying a concealed weapon!

Carmon used The Knife for everything.  He cut rope, gutted rabbits, whittled wood, scaled fish, loosened screws, trimmed his nails, removed fishhooks, and even dug splinters out of tiny fingers.  To my knowledge, in over twenty years, he never cleaned it, unless you could count the frequent rubbings on a small sharpening stone (which he also carried in his pocket).  The blade of The Knife had been honed to such a fine edge; I think he could have shaved with it, just like Crocodile Dundee, if called upon.

Now, knowing all of the places The Knife had been might help you understand the children’s concern when Carmon decided to fix lunch.  The routine went something like this:  Step #1) Take The Knife out of the pocket, along with the whetstone; Step #2) Swipe The Knife over the stone a few times until the blade is razor sharp;  Step #3) Use The Knife to put big globs of mayonnaise on several slices of bread;  Step #4) Wipe the mayonnaise off of The Knife on the leg of your Levi’s;  Step #5) Slice Spam, fresh tomatoes, and onions and place them on the sandwiches;  Step #6) Wipe Spam, tomato, and onion juices off of The Knife on the other leg of your Levi’s;  Step #7) Fold the blade back into The Knife and replace The Knife and the whetstone in your right front packet; Step #8) Serve the sandwiches.

Silently, the children and I added our own Step #9) Pray that no one would die of ptomaine! (And just for the record, no one ever did.)  

~ ~ ~

Speaking of ptomaine, some of the things Carmon cooked and ate left me wondering about his sanity.  I think I have already mentions the fried rattlesnake, and crawdads made it to the menu more than once, but at one time in our life together, frogs’ legs came close to being a staple.  Now, I had helped clean and cook many a mess of fish, but I drew the line at frogs.  I agreed to eat them (and they really do taste a lot like chicken), but that’s where it ended.  I refused to catch, kill, gig, skin, dismember, or otherwise relate to frogs in anyway.

My strongest memories of frogs had nothing, however, to do with the kitchen.  Carmon had gone frog gigging (and yes, that is what they call it!) with some of his buddies on a Saturday night.  I waited up for him until after 11:00, but I knew I’d have some very active children up at the crack of dawn, so I had finally gone to bed.  I don’t know what time he came in, but he was still asleep when I woke up in the morning.  Mercifully, the children were also still asleep, which meant I could get my bath before everyone wanted breakfast, which would give me a head start on the usual Sunday morning rush.  I gathered up my Church clothing and a fluffy big towel and headed for the bathroom.  Then I opened the door.

I cannot begin to describe the smell that assailed my nostrils.  The bathroom was full of frogs!  Not just little tiny things, either.  These were giant, ugly, green bullfrogs!  The tub was half full of water, but the frogs were not in the tub.  They were on the tub, in the sink, on the toilet seat, on the towel racks, and on the floor.  The entire bathroom was covered with more slime than a Ghostbusters movie.  It looked and smelled like a black water swamp!

I rarely got on Carmon’s case about any of the critters he dragged home, but I made an exception in this case.  His story was that it was dark and he thought they were little frogs (although that really didn’t explain why he thought he had to drag even little frogs home!).  Either way, of course, it made no difference to me.  Carmon had a clear choice: either the frogs went immediately or he and the frogs could go immediately.  I’d never seen such a grown man move so fast! 

~ ~ ~

One final fish story needs to be told before I close this chapter.  Since I was the only one there to witness it, some may think it is really fishy, but I promise you it is true.

One summer, Carmon and I were able to leave the children with my parents and we took a week long fishing trip to a beautiful place in northern Nevada called Peavine.  Because we had the time to camp for a week, we took the tent instead of the camper.  It was a wonderful and unbelievably restful week. 

The only thing I truly missed was a shower.  After several days that problem became more than academic and Carmon and both decided we could use a little clean up.  Because I was -- and still am – a creature comfort loving kind of a gal, I heated my water over the fire before taking my campground version of a sponge bath.  Carmon laughed at me and asked where my pioneering spirit was.  He, frontiersman that he was, would bathe al fresco. 

It was sundown when he stripped down to his shorts and waded knee deep into the river.  His squeal of protest was like music to my ears.  It was my turn to laugh as his lower extremities turned a lovely shade of blue.  Then he stopped squealing and put his finger to his lips to silence my laughter.  A German Brown trout was swimming between his legs.

So quickly did he do it that I don’t know who was the more surprised, the fish or I.  Carmon put his right hand on top of the fish and pushed it down into the mud.  Then he put the index finger of his left hand into the fish’s mouth and hooked it up through the gills.  In triumph, he lifted his fourteen-inch trophy out of the water.  I could hardly believe that he’d caught a trout with his bare hands (note: that is b-a-r-e, not b-e-a-r hands!), even though I had seen it myself. 

While I cooked supper, Carmon took care of his frost bitten toes and got dressed.  The fish was delicious - and so was the watercress.

© Gebara Education, 2001. No portion of this book may be copied by any method without the express written permission of the author

Picture of watercress in a stream from www.ryanbluffgardens.wordpress.com

Picture of pocket knife from www.antiquemystique.com

Picture of Spam sandwich from www.sodahead.com

Picture of fresh frogs' legs from www.hotrevelation.blogspot.com

Picture of bullfrog from www.edupic.net

Picture of trout stream from www.fishandboat.com

Picture of German Brown trout from www.backpackinglight.com