Nearly everyone who knew him told me the same thing: that he had been very well-liked, that he was kind, handsome, smart and had a great future, and that I “should have known him when he was a young man” – that Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the horror of what he had seen as one of the first liberating GIs into Germany’s gas-chambered concentration camps – had wounded his spirit.
The last time I heard that was from old lady Davis at his funeral.
Eighteen is awfully young to be shipped off to war, to watch people get killed, especially friends. In some way I’m sure the violence of war affects most everyone who experiences it. More than 50 years later I realize that now more than ever.
As a kid in the late 1950s, I can remember him trying to lift himself out of his downward spiral. But the final blow came when my mother had enough of his demons and drinking, left him and moved to Florida. He was just 39.
So Dad packed up his meager belongings and moved from his father’s Lykesland farm 45 miles away to an unfinished, dirt-floored cabin at a lonely little place called Riser’s Landing on the Santee River. The cabin and surrounding land was owned by one of his many friends, a doctor named Symes, as I recall. Here, Dad would become a commercial fisherman, a caretaker of the property and a bit of a hermit. Grandmother was determined to keep us kids together as much as possible, so she dictated that my brothers, my sister and I would live near her with various aunts and uncles. We would visit Dad as often as we could.
I was 12 and on summer vacation when my brother Ron and I began to help him work on making the cabin more livable. In the heat of a South Carolina June, we tore down two abandoned share-cropper shacks that the doctor also owned, and used the salvaged wood to patch holes in the board and batten walls, to build floors and ceilings, and put in a rough kitchen. There was no electricity, so we used hand tools to cut openings, frame them and put in windows and screens. It was hot, sweaty and dirty but rewarding work, as he taught us the basics of carpentry. I also learned just how determined and hardworking my father could be. I grew an inch that summer. And to like him better.
Other than a creek, there was no water. So bathing was a challenge. And, at night there were the hordes of mosquitoes. But I could not have been happier. After working with him all day, we’d spend the evenings fishing in the lakes formed by Squirrel and Warley creeks. Then, all too soon, summer was over and we had to return home to attend school.
For the first time in my life, I really missed him.
That fall, every weekend that I could talk someone into taking me the 45 miles down to Riser’s, I helped him work on the cabin. I remember watching Dad expertly lay bricks for the huge fireplace, leveling the courses by tapping each brick precisely into place. For him, it was therapy. For me, it was an incredible learning experience. When it came to construction, he seemed to know how to do anything. And it wasn’t all work. We hunted the surrounding lands, fishing the river and lakes for miles around, killing and catching our meat. Cutting and sawing wood for the fireplace. Exploring and looking for arrowheads and pottery. I still hated his occasional drinking, but I came to respect him anyway.
Grandmother bought him the boat.
A green 1960 Arkansas Traveler. He liked it because it was light enough to navigate shallow sloughs, tough enough to slide easily over blow-downs, and because it was aluminum, had almost no wood that could rot. It was low, making it easy to pull trot-lines or nets loaded with catfish over the bow and gunnels. Besides, he needed it in order to eke out some sort of a living in his remote little refuge. She bought it for him because he had no money. Of course, he never had any money. But of her five children, he was always her favorite.
Writing this reminds me of the time he was trying to tie the end of a trot-line to a bush in the middle of McGirt’s lake. He was so focused on the line of hooks, he never saw the water moccasin sunning itself on the very limb that he was trying to reach. Until I yelled. His hands froze six inches away, and the snake dropped into the cool water.
“Boy, I guess I’d a tied that line right to that snake, if you’d not yelled,” he laughed, his white teeth glistening.
He stayed at Riser’s for nearly ten years. And returned disgusted when someone stole his treasured Evinrude motor. He came home and raised bird dogs until his bad health stopped even that.
He left the boat to me. Along with a Winchester .22 rifle, and a Boy Scout knife, that was about it. We used the last of his money to bury him in a beautiful wooden casket. Seemed fitting for someone who loved the woods and waters as much as he.
I love Dad’s boat. It has reached a level of patina achieved only by age and use. Sit in it, take a deep breath and you can almost smell his pipe tobacco wafting through the air. In the under-seat well, wedged somewhere between the struts, I’ll bet you could still find scales from the very first bass I ever caught on a rod and reel. There’s a dent in the front where, in the dark, he hit a stump going fast enough to dump his Uncle Henry head over heels into the lake. There could have been some liquor involved. Or it may have been his way of telling Henry that he was not pleased.
I hate Dad’s boat. It is a damnable thing, worse when you’re in your 70s, as I am now. Narrow and tippy, unless you like falling into cold water with your clothes on, it’s treacherous to get into and out of. It is as noisy as a cheap mobile home in a hailstorm. After an hour in the South Carolina sun, the dark green aluminum will scorch your skin should you touch it. Some of the rivets leak so you can count on your feet getting wet. Did I mention that it’s uncomfortable as hell? The seats are so low your knees are higher than your waist. An hour of fishing is guaranteed to paralyze you from the neck down.
I love Dad’s boat. Like a lot of young fishermen influenced by outdoor magazine stories of the ’60s, I was smitten by the idea of spinning reels, light lines, spinners and spoons. So late one afternoon when I heard Dad say, “Come on boy, we’re going fishing,” I was ecstatic. First, that meant we would soon be catching fish. And second, he was going to tolerate me fishing with my new Shakespeare rod and push-button reel, at least for a while. I fished first, while he paddled the glass-like surface one-handed from the bow. For a half-hour he watched patiently as I missed fish, lost fish, got tangled up in nearly every overhanging limb and hung on unseen submerged stumps and sticks. When I lost my favorite Shyster, it was his turn, and we switched places.
Against the darkening forest, the setting sun’s yellow rays illuminated Dad’s worn khaki shirt like an old light bulb. His faded overalls matched his intense blue eyes. He was in his element, standing, lean frame bent at the waist, outstretched arms working his favorite jigger pole, the tip of that deadly device tap-tap-tapping the water’s surface as he fished around stumps and brush.
Two-hundred-pound nylon cord circled half the length of the cane pole and at the blunt tip was attached ten inches of 50-pound mono. Behind the tip, the pork rind lure and a trio of treble hooks jumped in fits and starts, beating the water to a froth. Having seen him in action many times, I knew it was coming. But like a covey of quail jumping from under your feet, the actual event always comes as a surprise.
It must have been our third stump when a healthy seven-pound largemouth launched herself from the black depths like a mad Poseidon missile, gulping the pork rind and hooks on her way up as she leapt three feet skyward. Twisting, shaking and bucking as hard as she could, she was a blur of spraying water. The hooks held fast, however, and she never touched the water again. Just made a big arc right into the bottom of the boat. No fighting. No playing. Dad was a serious meat fisherman.
Still, I hate Dad’s boat. It’s too wide to paddle except from the front seat, where fishing without a partner, or at least a stand-in cement block, causes the aft to rise several feet out of the water and the front to sink to within a couple of inches of catastrophe. The slightest breeze sails it around like a leaf. It has no drain plug, so when rain fills it up (and the wind always seems to flip it back right side up), you have to lift and dump out a boat-full of water.
Finally, I’d had enough.
So I bought myself a new plastic pond boat with comfortable padded seats. She’s nice and wide, not tippy at all. Light enough to load on my small trailer. Heavy enough not to sail in a breeze. And it’s exceptionally quiet. Got a live well, a battery compartment and lights. And it came with a trolling motor! Two people can fish all day in perfect comfort. It’s exactly what I needed for the pond I live on and the places I like to fish.
But I’m a very practical person. I don’t need two boats.
“Sweetheart,” my wife Merrie said last night, “you really ought to get rid of that old boat. Two boats will clutter up our beautiful back yard. One pond boat is enough.” I knew she was right.
But I really love Dad’s boat.
Dad was so focused on the line of hooks he never saw the water moccasin sunning itself on the very limb that he was trying to reach. Until I yelled. His hands froze six inches away, and the snake dropped into the water.
At dusk one day in late October, 1962, an old Chevrolet sedan rolled up in front of the cabin.
“That’s my friend Monk Hungerpiller,” Dad said, as he looked up from his grisly work on the catfish-cleaning table. “He’s a great coon hunter and has some of the best dogs in the state. Monk’s a little odd, but you’re going to like him. And boy, are you are in for some big fun tonight!”
As the dust settled, I noticed two giant coon dogs slobbering all over the sides of the windowless back half of this strange 1949 Chevrolet sedan. Dad poured water in a tin dish and the dogs nearly trampled me getting to it. What was strange about the car was that the rear end looked exactly like a big paper grocery bag that had been completely wadded up, then had air blown in to uncrumple it again. Mostly.
Later that night, by a kerosene lamp I stuffed myself with fried catfish and hush puppies as I listened to Monk and Dad talk about hunting, fishing, war and politics.
I was pretty shy, but at some point I got up enough nerve to ask, “Mister Monk, what happened to your car?”
“Well, son,” he drawled, “I pulled outa Tresvandt’s Landin’ one eve’nin, an uh damned – ” he noticed Dad grimace – “uh, darned ’ol gas tanker booted me uh hunnert yards down th’ road an inta th’ ditch. Kilt two uh my finest dogs. Messed up my car.”
He was silent for what seemed like forever, and I could see the emotion of losing his dogs pass slowly, like a faded curtain in front of his eyes. I was beginning to feel bad about asking when he recovered and went on.
“I put the in-shonce money in th’ bank, ’n used a ball peen hammer to beat my car back out. It’s fine now.”
Dad and Monk’s conversation faded to a drone far off in the distance. And I was dozing when dad startled me awake, nearly yelling it seemed: “Time to teach you to coon hunt boy!” And off we went in the pitch dark, down to the little boat landing.
The dogs were excited and tugging hard at their leashes as we loaded into Dad’s boat for the short run downriver. A stern word from Monk was all it took to get them to lay still in the bow. I took the middle seat beside Monk with Dad in the back, evening out the load. Water in the lakes was low and submerged stumps were a danger, but even in the dark Dad knew the path of the old creek channel, and he cut the boat around a dozen unseen obstacles, zigzagging back and forth until we reached the deeper water of the river. Ten minutes later, just as the waning moon was rising in the east, we arrived at the mouth of a small dry creek where we could pull the boat up and out of the water.
It might not have been hunting bobwhites from mule-drawn wagons by tweed-clothed gentlemen carrying side-by-sides, but that night was about as much fun as a 12-year-old boy could have: Listening to the dogs run in the distance. The excitement of hearing them bay when they were on scent, and then the sheer pandemonium when they treed one of their ring-tailed quarry. Running full blast through the swamp with flashlights and guns, trying not to fall into creeks, stump holes, and mud pits, all while scanning the treetops for raccoons. Shots are fired and huge raccoon bodies break though rotted branches and vines. Then the whole mess crashes to the forest floor. Finally, muddy, sweaty, fog-breathed dogs rush in for the attack, insuring the kill. Believe me, there is not a video game made today that even comes close. I was so tired, I almost fell asleep in the boat on the way back and I certainly don’t remember my head hitting the pillow.
We got up late the next morning, loaded dogs, guns, bags and bullets, coats, leftover food, water and coolers in the boat for the trip upriver. After a few miles against its current, we took a wide, hardwood-lined creek off to the right and followed it a mile or so to an ancient oxbow lake called Riser’s Old River. Twice, we had to climb out on storm-downed trees blocking the waterway and pull boat, motor, Monk and dogs over the huge trunks. Once we reached the bent shape of the open oxbow, Dad shut down the motor and let the boat drift so he could listen. We could hear squirrels barking off to the south, but from out in the lake came another sound, a cross between a bull bellowing and lion’s roar.
“Know what that is son?” Dad asked, pointing.
I could see long snouts and swirling, finned tails 75 yards in the distance. To a young boy they looked like dinosaurs. The hair on my neck stood up.
“Gators! You don’t think they’ll bother us, do you?” I asked, trying not to sound afraid in front of Monk.
“No, son. They’re moving away. The water is getting colder now and they’re slowing down.”
Still, I felt better when he cranked up the Evinrude and powered us off in the opposite direction. After traveling south for half an hour, though a maze of flooded waterways, we spent that autumn afternoon hunting squirrels on an island. There, we ate lunch on the bank of a small pond and watched egrets, herons and other birds come to roost in the trees above. The pond was loaded with more alligators, and its surface was covered with the feathers of birds foolish enough to land near the water or fall from the trees.
We got lost in the dark trying to find our way out. But only for an hour. Dad’s sense of direction got us home. I was sound asleep by the time we reached Riser’s Landing.
Dad left the boat to me. Along with a Winchester .22 and a Boy Scout knife. We used the last of his money to bury him in a beautiful wooden casket. Seemed fitting for someone who loved the woods and waters as much as he did.
That was over 50 years ago, but when I woke up this morning it seems like only last night that I stumbled up the hill to the cabin with Dad’s hand on my shoulder, guiding me half asleep along the moonlit path. It’s foggy and raining. Looking out of our bedroom window down the hill toward our pond, I can see the old boat lying on its side, leaning against a pine in our back yard. My new boat, under its shiny cover, rests right beside it.
The solace of Riser’s Landing helped Dad recover. As he got older, the demons faded. Or maybe they were just getting older too. He quit drinking and smoking. But the damage was done. He’s buried at Brown’s Chapel Cemetery not far from the old Lykesland farm.
That’s where I heard it last.
“What did you decide about the boat?” Merrie asks, startling me from my window reflections. “You going to give it to Phil (her brother) or sell it?”
“You remember old lady Davis?” I ask absentmindedly, turning for the stairs. Merrie is completely puzzled. I apologize, but hurry on down.
So I’m sitting in the kitchen at the computer now, typing up the ad for Craigslist:
For Sale. New Pond Boat. Perfect. Comfortable Seats. Used Almost None. Call or email . . .