Fishing became one of my favorite things. It was a peaceful way for me to escape from everything else going on around me. All I had to do out there was concentrate on trying to catch the biggest fish.
In the summertime, Lady and I would get up at the crack of dawn and head to Alum Creek. Alum Creek was about five miles from where I lived and we walked it every chance we could. Lady loved going fishing. Every time she saw me grab my fishing pole she would start prancing around on the floor. Her nails needed to be clipped and the floors were wooden so it sounded like she was tap dancing when she pranced around.
We started out early in the morning and didn’t head home until the sun set. Everyone was afraid of Lady even though she wouldn’t hurt a fly. She looked ferocious with her big reddish brown chest and sharp white fangs that only appeared when she was tied up or barking at a cat. She hated cats with a passion and anytime she took off like a bat outta hell to run after something, I knew there had to be a cat involved.
Whenever we came home from shopping, running errands, or whatever we needed to do for the day, Lady would be waiting for us with her snout glued to the crack of the door – if you listened closely you could hear her sniffing us out. As soon as the keys hit the lock she was ready to make her great escape. Knowing what was about to happen, we would brace ourselves for the trampling; and if there were two or three of us we would form a barricade of sorts with our legs in an attempt to stop her from running us over. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. The odds were two-to-one, typically in Lady’s favor. It must have been a funny sight for anyone that might have been watching.
Whoever held the keys would put them in the keyhole, turn the lock, and then reach down to grab the doorknob. If you were the key holder slash door opener and there were other people with you to help and you were carrying bags, you would hand those bags over to one of your defense players so that you could concentrate on getting the door opened. Once the door knob was turn and all the locks, unlocked, whoever held the keys would slowly open the door just enough for Lady’s nose to be seen and enough to allow their leading foot and knee to be wedged into the opening – this was so that we could shove Lady’s face back inside with one foot while trying to also get a knee inside to make way for the rest of our bodies.
Once we got one knee inside and braced ourselves we would then try to squeeze our bodies through the opening while keeping the gap closed as much as possible to keep lady from running out. Sometimes we were successful, other times we weren’t. When we weren’t she would dash out the door either knocking us down or knocking all or most of the packages out of our hands. Shit would literally go flying through the air. It had to be funny as hell to an outsider or passerby.
Back to fishing: I would catch my own night crawlers the night before and make dough balls out of either Wheaties cereal or some concoction that consisted of white corn meal and molasses. I don’t quite remember the entire process for making the corn meal dough balls. But I do remember wetting the corn meal and somehow getting it to stick together to form a ball of sorts and then boiling that ball in a pot of water with molasses. Dough balls were supposed to be good for catching catfish and carp, but it never worked for me. I always ended up taking the corn meal dough balls and pressing them into the holes of my big square bait net and using that to catch crawdads and turtles from the bridge.
The night crawlers and crawdads worked pretty good most the time with the crawdads working even better. Catching night crawlers was easy. All I had to do was water the lawn at night, and then wait for the sun to go down and the night crawlers would start to peak their slimly little heads out of their holes. The longer you waited the further they would come out their holes and the easier they were to catch. Sometimes you would get a 2-for-1 if you catch them mating because when they mate they get stuck together like dogs. When you go to grab them, it’s hard for them to quickly pop back into their holes and you get to grab them both at the same time. It looks pretty gross because they get all covered in a clear bubbly slime so I always used a glove on the slimy ones or avoided them altogether if I could get enough worms without needing to bother with the ones having sex.
I think people thought I was crazy out there in the middle of the night with a flashlight stooped over in the yard, combing the ground for worms. Every once in a while someone would walk by and ask me what I was doing or if I had lost something. When I told them I was looking for worms to fish with they would usually look at me as if I had lost my mind, say “Okay”, and keep on walking.