The Other Side of the Pond - CornFed (unputdownable books .TXT) 📗

It had been quite a while since I had thought of Keith McCree. Why I was thinking of him this morning is beyond me, but there he was, every other thought being hijacked by something Keith had said or had done. I called them “little Keith-isms”, those things that some people think are funny, others think are kind of strange, but end up as the uniqueness you remember the most about someone when they are not physically around any more.

The morning wasn’t unusual in any sense of the word. I was home to visit my son and we were doing the normal country-boy-ride-in-the-truck thing and listening to a song about someone losing their truck keys the night before at the honky-tonk. But it was Keith that kept running through my head and it wouldn’t stop.

Keith McCree was family and a friend, which is quite different than a “family friend”, that likeable someone your loved ones know but doesn’t really get involved in your life beyond casual settings. Keith is also the person who introduced me to bass fishing, which has blessed me in many ways but also led to my eventual dating demise as it became more interesting than girls at one point.

I didn’t know the first thing about bass fishing at the time. I had heard mention of such a sport from Keith when he would show up at the house, smelling like a tuna fish sandwich. We had watched some fishing shows on the television, where the host entertains the crowd by pulling in big bass affectionately called “lunkers”. I can still hear Keith whooping and hollering louder than the guy actually catching the fish. But, to be honest, it looked boring. I was nearing puberty. I wanted a kiss on the cheek, not a bass in the boat.

But, as good fortune would have it, I was being raised in an area where bass were practically jumping out of the ponds, walking on their fins, waving at the tractors, beckoning that people fish them relentlessly. Everyone was fishing but me. That is, until Keith grabbed me up one afternoon and took me bass fishing.

My fishing tackle was mixed up at best, as I had only dabbled in fishing for catfish. I had one of those toddler-reel-and-man-rod combos, a Zebco 33 on a rod built out of Kevlar it seemed, the kind of rod that would probably double as a cattle prod or a rescue stick for people who fell overboard. Keith had one of those open faced “fancy” reels, an Abu Garcia he called it. I never expected the French would know anything about fishing, and with the spool of line sitting naked like that, I sort of figured they were pulling one over on Keith.

That afternoon, we rode to the pond in his turkey-terd-tan colored F-150 with an inline V6. It sounded like it was in line to be replaced, knocking and grunting with every touch of the gas. Keith was wearing standard country boy attire: dirty jeans, dirty tennis shoes, dirty camouflage hat, his hair curling out from underneath, and a 7 day old beard that was working down his neck into his shirt, probably only days away from taking over his entire body. I at least expected him to show up in some fishing outfit like the guys on TV, something elegant to signify the occasion. To Keith, well, I suspect it was just another day in country paradise that didn’t need dress formalities.

As we arrived at the pond, the South Pond as it was called, I realized I had never consciously paid it much attention. According to Keith, it was drained and freshly stocked 3 years ago and “nary a person had touched it since.” We were about to, as Keith said, “catch us a mess of virgins.” At that point, it sounded kind of exciting.

I was forever spoiled that day and it took a few months for someone to convince me that bass fishing was tough work. It was simple in this pond. We would pull up to a spot, throw a worm, any worm of any size and any color, hook or no hook, wait 5 seconds, reel, detach bass, and repeat. Eventually, there was too much blood loss from the millions of little holes in your thumb, the little bass teeth tearing off a layer of skin with each body convulsion. Sometimes I just handed them to Keith to pull off when I figured they were getting too close to the bone. By the end of the day, we just cut the barb off the hook, hoping they’d fall off near the boat.

In addition to the simplicity of bass fishing, I learned a new term that day, a “honey hole” as Keith called it. There was one spot, the size of a peanut trailer, that had a bottomless pit of bass, a seemingly parallel universe where the Bass Gods just threw fish at us til we got tired of catching them. I remember getting my worm caught on a limb protruding from the Honey Hole, the little gelatin tail suspended in mid-air, a full 6 inches out of the water.

WOMP!

Like someone just threw that bass out of the water and onto my hook. I thought Keith was going to throw his hat at the bass, it’s leaping ability provoking either a case of the jitters or some self-defense technique. All I could think was “Great, now I gotta reel in another fish.” By the grin on Keith’s face, the day was carefully being logged into his Fishing Stories handbook.

There is a point of no return called “fisherman’s saturation” and I found it a few hours into the day. Some 50 bass caught and countless missed ones, and I had seen enough. I needed ice for my arm, bandages for my thumb, and a television contract. I had never seen anyone on TV catch 50 bass in a few hours and I certainly never saw them catch anything on a Zebco. Keith however, was busy munching on a sandwich, gearing himself up for another round. I don’t remember exactly how the day ended but I remember it was yours truly who threw in the towel and watch Keith paddle, and fish, his way to the shore.

Keith was also responsible for introducing me to the reality of bass fishing after our little bass-spanking excursion in Fantasy Bass Land Theme Park and Extravaganza. He took me to the lake to fish, as he put it, “the way most folks have to fish”. By this time in my fishing career, I had followed Keiths’ leading and had enough Abu Garcia gear to be considered for a promotional contract. The jacket, the reel, the rod, the tackle box. I was living the Abu lifestyle before I could even drive. While I was busy polishing my reels, Keith was dipping his into the lake to “get the noise out of the gears.” Keith never saw much use in keeping his reels finely tuned, preferring to grind out the bass retrieval.

True to form, within 10 minutes, I had set the hook into something that was giving my shiny gear and me much trouble. I fought it. It fought back. Keith coached me in the finer points of reeling in a trophy bass….

”Keep the rod tip up! Let it run. Watch out for the sticks. The motor! Look out for the #$%* motor!”

There was Keith, spinning the boat in circles, trying to outmaneuver me while I try to outmaneuver the fish. By the time I got him to the boat, we were all too dizzy to even put the net under him. The fish was cross-eyed at this point and I think he just got too disoriented to know which way was out and ran into the boat by mistake.

After we figured out which side of the boat the line was at, we netted him. I became the proud owner of a 10-pound mudfish. I can see why they called it a mudfish. Keith had a few choice words for the species saying it looked like someone had just taken a big pile of mud, stuck some eyes on it, threw it in the water and screamed, “Go forth! Reproduce you mud sucker you!” Keith was more disappointed than I was at the sight of the mudfish, preferring that I had landed a big bass more than anything else. It’s one thing to coach people on bass fishing from a mass distributed videotape or television series. It’s an entirely different thing to take the time to do it personally.

I didn’t catch the first bass that day, my impatience giving into the temptation of throwing Cheetos in the water, hoping that the Crusty-Salty-Orange-Crunch plug was the one lure that would trigger a strike from these snooty bass. Keith, well, he just kept on fishing, politely stepping over my pile of once used multi-colored worms that didn’t induce the kind of action the magazines had promised. He managed two half pounders and I cannot remember a point in our long day where he stopped fishing.

There were many other times Keith and I fished but I cannot put them on paper as readily. Today, these just resonate with me more than the others. I wish I had the chance to create some new ones, now that I understand time on the lake with friends is more important than time spent in a pool hall with strangers.

It was over 5 years ago when I got the phone call that Keith had died. I was in Atlanta at the time, driving my truck down the clogged streets , a misplaced country boy looking for a meaningless activity to do. They told me something had happened to his heart. I was numb the rest of the day, feeling guilty that I didn’t feel like crying when I knew I was supposed to. It’s weird when you get news like that, out of the blue, intruding in your life and you cannot even find the emotion beneath it all.

My dad remembers that day too. As he was assimilating the news that Keith had died, there was a very large buck with a doe about 100 yards from his home, running in and out of a thicket. People were seeing this spectacle from the highway and were calling him, passing on the news of the shooter in his front yard. Being a hunter, I understand the pull of the big buck, but Dad went on about his business of figuring out what to do now that his friend was gone. There are only a handful of things more important in life than big bucks. Keith was certainly one of them.

I arrived at the pond this afternoon with my 7 year old. Keith was but a distant memory, my early morning reminiscing of him replaced with other things. On the weekends that I have Russ Jr., we always make one pass at the pond before living the lazy truck-riding country boy dream. As I made the first cast, I heard Russ Jr. say,

“That log looks like a gator, doesn’t it Keith?”

It froze me in my tracks. I hadn’t mentioned anything about Keith to anyone today. And Russ Jr. was such a small fry when Keith had died. But I heard him clearly. He had said Keith’s name.

“Son, what did you say?”
“That log, it looks like a gator.”
“Not that. Who were you talking to?”
“Um…I don’t know, I