The sincerest compliment that I can give Ed Goddard is that he had a wholesome effect on my life for 70 years. Our families have long been friends – our daddies were fishing buddies together. I remember my papa saying that Mr. E.A. Goddard (Ed’s grandfather) liked to kid him but he always ended with “I never kidded a man that I didn’t like."
There are lots of qualities that shown in Ed but his ingenuity was shown at an early age – like the first time he spent the night with me. We were eight or ten years old and he slept at our house. The next day when it was time for him to go, he begged and begged me to spend the night with him, which I did. Later that night he told me that he was glad I spent the night with him because his daddy was really mad. He said Ed had imposed on my mama by spending the night with me. Now that I had spent the night with him and had imposed on his mama, everything was all right.
We lived to fish and spent many a night in the swamp. One time when we were around 16, we decided to sleep in the swamp. I had an old boat near Double Bridges where the creek gets big. We got there that morning and because the creek had risen, the water was muddy. We couldn’t even catch any small fish for bait. We tried everything. I remembered that Matthew Carson, a sharecropper on the place, had killed a rattlesnake the day before. We found that snake, skinned it and used it for bait. A tree had fallen in the water so we tied the hooks to the limbs on both sides of the tree. There were so many fish striking that it looked like the tree was moving. We spent the whole night paddling around the treetops setting hooks and had a string full of catfish. Rattlesnake was the best bait that we ever used.
On another trip we spent the night near Grandma Jones sucker hole. The mosquitoes normally were not too bad but that night they were about to carry us off. We saw we weren’t going to get any sleep so we devised a plan. At the count of three we jumped up and ran 500 yards through the swamp to Hickory Top. We doubled back about 30 to 40 feet. We ran over everything in our way but we figured we could leave the mosquitoes behind us. Everything was quiet then we heard the mosquitoes fly right by us. We thought we were safe until we realized the mosquitoes were doubling back just like we had. We still stayed the night but I don’t think we got much sleep.
Another night on April 1 when we were around 23, we walked to the river where now there is the school bus body. It was warm and pleasant. We set out our hooks and then it began to turn cold. We built a fire and tried to go to sleep but we couldn’t due to the cold. Our feet could be warm when next to the fire but our faces would freeze. We finally got the idea of building another fire so that our faces and feet would both be warm. On April 1 I always see in the paper that April 1, 1940 was a record low – the night we nearly froze to death.
Once we went to Cat Lake and were planning to use the boat that was left there. We found the boat locked by some big muscadine vines. The vines were about three inches in diameter and very tough. Ed said we could cut the vine with a pocket knife, which he tried to do. He cut and cut and pulled and struggled. I looked up and saliva had covered his chin. He looked like a mad dog he had worked so hard, but he did get the boat out. He had determination.
On another fishing trip we had put our hooks around Bryan Bridges. The river was coming through the creek. We crossed the slough – you could jump across. We stayed too long and when we got back, the stream was ten or twelve feet wide and the slough was about waist deep. Since we were going to spend the night in the swamp, we couldn’t wade it because we didn’t want to get our clothes wet. Ed looked up and there was a big muscadine vine that went into the sky and was attached to a big oak limb. Ed figured we could swing across, which we did. We felt like Tarzan. I named that place Goddard’s Crossing. Ed always smiled when I mentioned Goddard’s Crossing.
Ed was so proud of a pistol he received in his early 20s that he inherited from his Grandfather McCoy. He would send me to Jamie Barrow’s to buy the bullets. It was a fine pistol – engraved on it was “Police Special," a 38 caliber. He would carry the pistol everywhere he went in the swamp. He would walk up to a tree, yell “hands up” and point the pistol at the tree.
 |
| Pistol inherited from A.C McCoy |
The next story is one that I felt awful about. We were fishing down below Bryan Bridges. The fish weren’t striking. I came along the creek and he was standing on the bank. I made like I was going to push him but I didn’t touch him. Ed dodged and lost his balance and fell into the creek. Ed was big and strong but clumsy. He was going to scare me by reaching for the pistol but it was gone. We spent the day diving in looking for it but we were at the deep point of the creek. We finally gave up. Ed said that this was the worst thing that has ever happened to us. He had to leave for Emory so we went home. I told Matthew Carson what had happened to us. Matthew, a sharecropper on the farm, was a person who could do anything. He said we would go look for it the next day. When I met him the following day he was dragging a piece of 1/4 inch pipe with a pitch fork attached with the tines bent like a rake. He stuck it into the water and about the second pull he made contact. I dove in and got it. I then went to the depot and sent a telegram. It said “found pistol." Mrs. Hodges asked if that was all I wanted to put in the telegram. I replied that it was enough. (Update: Grandpa McCoy’s pistol is in possession of my brother George. Photo is posted here – Bruce Goddard).
The carp story is one of my favorites. Miss Lucy, John, Lydia, Ed and I were fishing at Clear Lake. We could drive to Twenty Eight break, which is way in the swamp. We walked about a mile from there to Clear Lake. We weren’t catching much and I told Ed that I had found another lake while duck hunting that I didn’t know existed. He and I went there with our reels. We got there and the lake had almost dried up. It was awful looking. Everything had died for lack of oxygen except for three carp. They would swim and come up for air, then go back under. Ed said we ought to catch them. We tried our reels, but the hooks wouldn’t penetrate the fish they were so tough. We decided to try a different approach. We found some dead pine limbs to use as clubs. When the carp would come up for air, we would club them. The three carp we got were tremendous in size. They looked really good when we cleaned them up in a levy pit. We took them back to Clear Lake and as soon as Miss Lucy saw them, she said that we didn’t catch them – we had been mudding and those fish weren’t fit to eat. Ed said he could sell them for 50 cents apiece. She said, “You’ll kill somebody too.” We carried them back to the car, which was itself a big undertaking. Miss Lucy made her final appeal to leave the fish but we put them in the trunk and took them to Jake Prager’s store and sold them. Two or three days later in the afternoon the phone rang. It was Ed. He said, “I know you’re on a party line; do you think anybody is listening? I just found out that Jake Prager is sick." I said, “Ed, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said, “I think that’s the right way to go. I don’t even remember calling you. Goodbye.” Both of us were very relieved when Jake Prager opened his store a week later.
…to be continued.
Recordings of Roy Jones. Transcribed by his daughter, Harriet Jones Geesey.
No comments:
Post a Comment