[Granville-Hough] 23 Jun 2009 - Bunker Hill 3

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:58:24 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: BunkerHill3, 23 June 2009

GOLDEN DAYS AT BUNKER HILL, by Harold Hopkins, used by permission, Part 
2, Fishing.

It was about this time when my Dad and I and my cousin Lloyd Butler and 
his dad, Walter Butler, and my uncle Grover Yelverton all went on an 
overnight fishing trip down on Cohay Creek at a place called Bunker 
Hill. Bunker Hill was near the Illinois Central railroad line between 
Mize and Taylorsville. We went in Uncle WalterÆs 1932 Chevrolet sedan, 
with our bedrolls or quilts piled in or on the car along with the 
fishing equipment. We turned off the main road and drove slowly along an 
old logging road to get the car as close as possible to Cohay Creek. 
Suddenly, the right front wheel sank into a deep hole in the road, and 
the car stopped. We tried to pry it out, but it was nearly dark, so 
after a few attempts we decided to make camp right there, and use the 
remaining daylight to set out our hooks.
Setting out hooks overnight was what fishermen did in those days to 
catch catfish and eels. One tied a line several feet long that included 
a baited hook, line, and sinker to the end of a slender green pole cut 
and trimmed from a branch or sapling and its butt end sharpened. The 
hook was baited with worms, a minnow, or a crawfish, and tossed into the 
creek, and the butt end of the pole was pushed into the soft creek bank 
deep enough that nothing short of a 60-pound catfish could yank it out. 
You set out two to five dozen more hooks the same way along the creek in 
spots where you thought the big ones might be hiding. Next morning you 
were up by daylight to make the rounds of your set-outs. At each one you 
hoped thereÆd be a big catfish or eel tugging so hard that the tip of 
the pole would be bobbing up and down. When that did happen, as it did 
sometimes, it could set your adrenalin racing.
IÆve strayed from the point which was that when Uncle WalterÆs Chevvy 
sedanÆs front wheel sank into the hole, one of the adults among us û the 
driver, of course - pronounced an ugly word or two and allowed that the 
car had hit a pot hole. In my simplicity, I thought that a pot hole was 
one done by someone looking for gold, not a section of rut blown out by 
rainwater runoff. Today I know that pots are not found in pot holes, 
though some may have several hubcaps lying in or about them. My 
suspicions that we had foundered in a gold hole were strengthened when 
one of the adults commented that many years before, a house had stood in 
the very spot where we had now come to grief. Indeed, the evidence that 
a house once stood were there û a few bricks making up a part of a 
chimney, old pieces of lumber, and one other damning bit of evidence 
that I will soon disclose. And now (as a certain radio commentator used 
to say) for the rest of the story, one with what you might call an 
iron-ic twist:
We set out our hooks, returned to camp and had dinner. Dinner or 
breakfast in the woods, whether itÆs mothers from home or DadÆs from the 
campfire, is infinitely finer than food from any restaurant anywhere. If 
you want to enjoy a heavenly taste, just camp overnight when you are 
about 10 or 11. After dinner the adults among us played non-gambling 
games with cards, pitch (setback) or five-up, by the firelight. 
Eventually Lloyd and I, grew bored and unrolled our quilts for bed. The 
ground underneath the quilts was hard, as ground almost always is, and I 
remember that I remarked to my cousin that, WouldnÆt it be nice if we 
had bedsprings under our quilts to soften the ground a little?
The campfire died and the adults came to bed but I lay wide awake. The 
stars were out, and in the stillness you could hear things happening out 
in the woods. Something was poking me in the back through the quilt, and 
I couldnÆt get up and remove it because Lloyd was asleep on the other 
side of the quilt, and it would wake him. I donÆt know how long it took 
for me to get heavy-lidded, but it seemed no time at all before I was 
awakened by the mumbling of adult voices, saw the fire all lit up, 
smelled breakfast cooking, and got ready to gobble it down so we could 
go and see how many big catfish were squirming on our hooks. But I hung 
back a bit for Lloyd to get up too, because I wanted to find what it was 
that had been poking me all night. Finally, he was up, and I grabbed the 
edge of the quilt and swept it back, and there it was! û an old piece of 
bedspring. Unfortunately, wishes can come true.

GWH: My first fishing trips were remarkably similar to HaroldÆs. I 
caught my first fish in a slough or bar-pit on Hachitapalou Creek, then 
we went on by mules and wagon to Cohay Creek to spend the night, not far 
from the Ace Johnson bridge.. My second fishing trip was a long walk 
down the railroad to Okatomy Creek in Simpson County, where it rained 
all night after we set out hooks. It was hard and cold to sleep in the 
rain even though I was hunkered into a partly hollow trunk of a big 
tree. We had to wade out of the swamp to the railroad and walk, all wet, 
back home. I was in the second grade.

P. S. Another little episode from "When Insults Had Class," occurred 
when a member of Parliament said to Prime Minister Disraeli, "Sir, you 
will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That 
depends, Sir," replied Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your policies or 
your mistress."