BUCK AND BERRY, UP THE CREEK
Second in the series.
Buck jumped out of the bus, ran into his house, and dropped his books on his bed! He already had everything he needed for our weekend of camping and fishing packed in a box and ready to put in his wagon. He hugged his mother and asked her to say bye to his dad. He told her not to worry cause he would meet them at church Sunday morning. Grabbing the tongue of his wagon, he ran to (Mr. Willy’s), his grandfathers house, and yelled, “I’m gone to the Berry’s. We’re gonna camp at the chickee on the back end of Lake Ocala for the next two nights. If you want to join us, come on up.”
Buck walked at a good clip the entire three miles to my house where we loaded everything in my little pirogue. Mostly we were just restocking some of the things we kept at our chickee like cooking oil, salt and the like. We always had to take the perishables we needed; so we had about a pound of bacon, some corn meal, white bread, sugar, potatoes and the other usual items. While I picked some limes, Buck picked a bag of oranges. We both had our fishing tackle including a gig for flounder, and mullet.
Now days most people don’t let their kids take guns off like this but back then it was prudent to carry protection. The land was still wild in some places and we were going where you might find an alligator lying up in the middle of your camp when you came in from fishing or hunting. Alligators ain’t what we were worried about though.
Our best protection was my dog Sidney who we took with us sometimes. That dog would lie around and not hit a lick at a snake until he saw food or heard a peculiar sound. I didn’t want that stinky old dog at first but he was put on me, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. You see my cousin Sidney came to visit from Goodland and brought that ugly looking thing with him; and when he left, he didn’t take him back. When that dog came here his name was Possum because that’s what he looked like. After I came to the realization that Possum was now mine to keep, I renamed him Sidney after that rascal who left him with me. Sidney had long gray hair on his body with blue and brown specks and short gray hair on his tail. His head was too big for his body and his eyes were each blue and brown at the same time. Those multi colored eyes were set so close together that he looked like he might belong on a wanted poster. Most of our neighbors wouldn’t come into our yard if they saw Sidney lying under the house, or anywhere else for that matter. Sidney would stand at the edge of the yard and stare at folks as they walked by, and without fail they would cross the road to get away. Sidney didn’t really stink cause he would take a swim every day or two and that kept him good and clean. Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t smell like one of those fancy women from Tampa, but he wouldn’t run you out of the camp either.
In this part of Florida it didn’t get too cold in the fall so the bugs were still bad. Shoot, the bugs were always bad down here because it didn’t get too cold in the winter either. Mr. Willy said the Seminoles would smear mud on their exposed skin to keep the bugs off when they got too bad. Now the mud from the bottom of most saltwater lakes or bays around here is black, gooey, and smells like something awful. I’m sure they didn’t put that mess on themselves every day.
The sky was clear and blue and the woods were as still as could be. The water didn’t have a ripple and was clear as a bell. You could see fish hiding behind limbs and stumps in the water just waiting for some unsuspecting creature to swim by.
Before we left our dock Buck took the cast net my Bigdaddy made for us and caught some small pinfish. We put them in a bucket in the middle of our pirogue beside Sidney. They would be our bait as we fished our way to the back side of the lake and up Panther creek to our chickee. (A chickee is a structure with a thatched roof on poles with a table or group of tables underneath.)
Stopping every now and then, I poled the pirogue along the edge of the lake as Buck would cast a pinfish in a likely place for a redfish, or a snook if it was warm enough. We decided what we really wanted for supper was trout so Buck cast out in the open water onto a grass flat. The sun was hot and with the line out we stopped to eat an orange and drink some cane juice. Just as Buck got finished peeling that orange the line went tight. He handed me the orange and I started to pull the sections apart as Buck tended the line. The tide was coming in and we thought the boat was moving and maybe the pinfish had burrowed down in the grass. There was no run; not even what you would call a pull. It just looked like the line was hung on something. When buck tried to pull the line free, it came to life. What ever it was made a run out toward the front of the pirogue but Buck managed to turn it. Just as soon as it turned, it made a run to the back and circled around. I turned the boat so Buck didn’t have to contend with me in his way. By now Sidney was on his feet and barking wildly, which didn’t help matters. At this point we knew this wasn’t any ordinary trout and after four or five minutes of fighting, Buck got it along side the boat. Local folks call a trout like that a yellow mouth gator trout.
Sidney was a good retriever but at the moment that character became a short coming as he sailed over the side of the boat and on top of one of the largest trout I ever saw. When Sidney grabbed hold of the fish and disappeared under the water, the line yanked out of Buck’s control. Now back then fishing reels didn’t have drag systems and the spool started spinning wildly. This created a knot around the spool locking it tight and causing that old cotton line to break. The rod tip shot up into the air with a snap; the boat almost capsized, and Sidney was gone. When the boat settled in the water and Sidney resurfaced, the trout was still in his mouth. He swam back to the boat just as proud as he could be and proceeded to try to climb in, almost swamping the boat. We were grabbing for the fish and trying to hold Sidney away from the boat at the same time so he wouldn’t swamp us. After we got the fish out of his mouth, I dragged him around back to be pulled safely over the stern.
Sidney worked his way thru my legs to the middle of the pirogue where he took his place beside his quarry. Buck poured the baitfish out as we didn’t need them any longer and Sidney held the still fighting trout down with his paw. I started polling again as Buck put our supper on a stringer.
As I polled us into the mouth of Panther Creek, we spooked a school of about one hundred redfish. Back then a school of one hundred redfish was nothing to write home about. At this time of year we expected to see schools of redfish, but not many snook because the water was beginning to cool off. The rest of our trip to the chickee was uneventful, but we were still excided from the adrenalin of the big trout landing.
When we reached our camp, we unloaded our supplies while Sidney stayed with the trout; and it was a good thing too. A big old turtle swam right up and tried to take our catch, but Sidney would have none of it and grabbed that snapping turtle by the neck. Now a 10 pound turtle has an advantage over an 80 pound dog in the water, but it was shallow and Sidney dragged it up on the shore. We had to use a good oak stick to pry Sidney’s jaws open so we could remove the turtle. We didn’t need a turtle of any size so he was let go.
Sunset found us enjoying a fine trout dinner with cornbread, boiled potatoes, and oranges. I poached the fish in a small amount of water with the juice of one lime, about a tablespoon of red pepper sauce, and a little salt. I cooked all the water out and it left a thin golden brown crust on the fillets. Old Sidney had two of those fillets and one big potato. In all there were six good size pieces, and enough culls to bait three crab traps for the night.
I built a small fire under the chickee of green wood so it would create a lot of smoke to keep the “no-seeums” away. While I built the fire, Buck started washing the dishes. About seven o-clock, after we finished the dishes, we washed ourselves the best we could and turned in until morning. Some time in the late night or early morning a line of thunderstorms rolled thru and shook us out of bed. We managed to get back to sleep and by sunrise the sky was clear again.
I awoke again some time before sunrise, stoked the fire and put on a big pot of water. Just before sunrise Buck came back to camp with a bucket of crabs after checking the traps. I dipped enough hot water for coffee and put some pepper sauce, two limes and the crabs into the big pot. The crabs were finished before the coffee was so we took them off and cleaned them for lunch. The coffee was ready by the time we had finished cleaning the crabs. We had leftover cornbread and cane syrup for breakfast. I’m not sure what Sidney had for breakfast but he didn’t go hungry because we heard him catch something about 100 yards from camp. I know he ate because he was a mess when he returned and had to be washed. We had everything put up and left camp less than an hour after sunrise.
Over the last year we had ventured farther and farther up Panther creek. Our adventures had taken us about five miles up the creek and off on a little known cut. The cut got smaller as we went and we had to push low hanging limbs and fallen limbs out of our way. After a total of about an hour and a half of hard rowing, we found a shallow lake of about ten acres with a small island smack in the middle and a number of inlets. Before we poled into the lake, we used some of the broken crab shells and culls to chum a spot to throw the cast net for pinfish. We got enough bait in just two throws to last the morning.
I polled us into the lake and around counter clockwise with the sun to our backs, very slowly, and very quietly. We could see some very large tarpon rolling but they were not our quarry.
I stopped the pirogue to let our eyes adjust so we could see into the water.
If snook were made of gold, we would be richer than the King of Siam. You could see snook every where in the shadows just out of the sun. Everywhere we looked were snook and redfish. It looked like most of the redfish were too big for us to fight on the tackle we had. Tarpon were in the middle rolling and hitting baitfish. When the tarpon would split a school of bait and chase a few toward the mangroves, the snook would attack in numbers. I let the pirogue drift out from the shore a little and we just watched. The tarpon worked a few over to the mangroves and Buck cast a fat pinfish right in the sweet spot. A giant snook came out of the shadows and nailed Buck’s bait. At once there was an explosion of spray and then the silver giant shot up on its tail. The fight was legendary.
I couldn’t stand just sitting there while he had all the fun so I joined in. I had a pinfish loaded up and in the air before he had his under control. No sooner did my bait hit the water then an explosion erupted on the end of my line too. We were a double header! Sidney was as excited as we were and with the barking and jumping back and forth, we almost capsized several times. This went on for the better part of two hours until we called a short time out for some cane juice and oranges. Sidney ate a big blue crab and finished the orange he had been mauling all morning.
A note of interest: the dog’s cousin, Sidney bred, ate oranges but not limes or grapefruit.
The home team was ahead 11 to 4, so we tied on some heavier line and hooks. We had each lost a lot of line so we used what was left for backing and tied the heavy stuff to it. While Buck finished re-tying his rig, I poled us back into the creek for bait. Same as before, just two throws and we were ready to go. I polled us to the back side of the island and the second half was under way.
We both cast at the same time and we both hooked up at the same time. Buck had a big snook at the front of the boat and I had a big bull redfish off the stern.
Buck soon got his snook under control but the redfish was burning my thumb and I was beginning to wonder if I could hold her. Because our reels didn’t have drags, we were holding our thumbs against the spool for the drag. Sometimes one would have to use both thumbs to hold a really big fish, and now was one of those times.
Before we realized it, the sky was beginning to turn dark but not from the sun going down. The weather had changed and that was not good. We were well over six miles from the chickee and we had some hard rowing to do thru some dense mangrove swamps. We had plenty of time before dark, but in a hard rain, land marks seem to change and one has to be careful.
The wind started to come up but the temperature didn’t drop like one might expect. The wind was out of the southeast and that meant there must be a strong front to the north moving in fast, or worse, a hurricane! Once in the canal between the mangroves we were not bothered by the wind unless the canal opened up wider or turned in the direction of the wind. When we were where the wind blew in between the mangroves, the water would whitecap; and if you were facing the wind, the going was hard. After about thirty minutes of hard rowing, the rain started, light at first, and then in thick sheets of blowing rain. After a few minutes in the heavy rain there was over two inches of water in the bottom of the boat and one of us had to bail it out. The rain was warm and after we got used to the drops on our faces, it was no big deal. Then the lightning began to flash! At first we could hear the thunder in the distance but it was soon on us. At times the strikes were so close you could smell the ozone. We didn’t know what ozone was but we knew it was very bad. I had been told stories of people feeling the charge building up in their bodies just before they were struck. Sometimes Buck and I would both feel the tingling just before and during the strikes. Sidney got as low in the pirogue as he could. He paid no attention to the water in the bottom. We were afraid to pull over and hold off on the mangroves because we had seen several split apart and scattered across the water due to lightening strikes. In places the splinters would be everywhere and the smoke would still be in the air and bubbling up out of the water around what ever was left of the tree.
As we got closer to our chickee, the waves began to increase in size, and in open areas they would come over the side of the pirogue if you didn’t hit them head on. Hugging the bottom, Sidney just looked up only briefly every now and then, and would then duck back down.
Just before reaching the chickee we had to cross a wide area of the creek, and the wind and waves were getting worse. At this point the creek opened up to about 400 feet wide, and about a quarter mile long; then it became narrow again. When we got into the worst of the waves, the front of the boat and Buck were coming completely out of the water. When the boat would fall back to the surface, water would splash several feet to the sides, and sometimes the next wave would come over the front. This was not looking good; and, in fact, in my 12 year old mind, it was looking pretty bleak. The boat was beginning to fill with water and one of us would have to bail the boat while the other would paddle. The problem with that was when either of us stopped paddling, the boat would turn sideways to the wind and waves and take on even more water. Not only would it take on more water, but the waves were so large by now that we were in danger of turning over. We just had to go for it with all our strength and trust that God would pull us thru.
We worked and paddled with everything we had and finally made it to the other end of the wide area where the waves became smaller. Another five minutes out in that and we would surely have lost everything and have to swim for it. We pulled up to a big mangrove, tied off, and began to bail. We just sat there for a few minutes in the down pour resting and not thinking about the lightning, until it hit not more than 50 feet from us. With out a word we both untied the lines and paddled on into the rain and wind.
Within 15 minutes we were pulling the boat up on the shore by the chickee.
Sidney was the first one out. In fact he bailed out before we bumped up on the shore. He swam the last 20 feet, ran to the chickee, and jumped up on one of the tables.
Buck and I got everything out of the pirogue and ran from two lightning crashes to get out of the rain. The chickee was built on a slight rise so the water was draining away but there was standing water completely around it. The wind was blowing rain in sheets underneath the chickee and up on the tables. There was a rack up in the roof so we lifted Sidney up. Then we climbed up to dry out and get out of the wind. We didn’t know what we were going to do but we knew we couldn’t make it home in this weather. We were trying to think of how to get to higher ground because the water was up about three feet above the high tide mark already.
We had been up on the rack for about 10 minutes when my dad came running under the chickee followed by Buck’s dad, Mr. Tholocco. They had come looking for us in dads little river boat with a 20 hp. Johnson outboard motor. The wind and rain were so loud that we couldn’t hear them yelling for us until they got under the chickee. They didn’t know we were up on the rack; and when Sidney barked right in dad’s ear, he almost fainted. He sure didn’t expect that. They told us not to bring anything just hurry to the boats. They said the weather was going to get much worse within the next few hours, and we had to get to higher ground.
At this point I should remind you that in those days we didn’t have the Weather Channel or TV for that matter. We had one radio at our house and we got only two stations. By the time a weather report made it all the way up from the Keys, or down from Apalachicola to our area, it was too late to do much about it. We had to read the signs and that didn’t give much time when one lived on the coast.
We tied my pirogue behind dad’s boat, loaded Sidney in it, and climbed in the other. Poor Sidney looked like somebody had licked all the red off his candy cane back there all alone. Sidney was okay back there but I would have been scared too. Dad’s boat was flat bottomed with high sides and a high rise in the bow. The high rise in the bow would take the waves much better than my boat, but we still had to bail the rain water. Before we got to Lake Ocala, dad stopped and tied my boat high up in a mangrove because it was slowing us down too much. Sidney was glad to be up front with us, but I sure hated to see my little boat go out of sight. My pirogue was the only toy I had and dad saw the look in my eyes as it vanished in the heavy rain. He said, “Don’t worry bud. If we loose it, Bigdaddy and I will build you another. It ain’t worth risking our lives over.”
Lake Ocala is really a small bay that opens up into a large bay. It is about five miles long and a half a mile wide with 15 creeks running into it. By the time we made the two and a half miles down the lake to our house, the waves were bigger than I had ever seen them in the lake and dad was looking pretty worried. Mr. Tholocco carried a look of concern like I had never seen on him before. Both our fathers had spent their lives on and around the water but this had them nervous.
Our house was built up on stilts; and when we got to it, the water was two feet deep under it. Now, two feet of water under the house meant that the lake was up about eight feet above the high tide mark. Bigdaddy and my brother Pierson had moved our animals to a protected chickee up on a shell mound in the tall trees about a mile from home. That chickee had been fenced in with 8” planks to hold livestock in times like this. My mother took my two younger brothers William and R.C. and a lot of our belongings in our truck up to Buck’s house on high ground.
Dad tied the boat to the porch, then removed the outboard from the boat and put it in the house. The water was rising by the minute and we waded thru as much as three feet of water until we were half a mile up the road. We had to walk to Buck’s house but we were having trouble just standing in the wind and had to hold on to each other. Limbs and leaves, and foam off the water were blowing by us like bullets. The rain drops felt like sand stinging your face. Sand felt like BB’s hitting your face, and small chunks of wood and shell hurt something awful. I saw my first tornado up close that day and I hope I never see another as long as I live. I have seen water spouts in the distance before but tornados are a different animal when they’re right there on you.
When we got to Buck’s house, we saw our cow and mule and Bigdaddy’s cow and two mules in their barn. Bigdaddy said, “Just as we got the livestock to the mound chickee, it just up and flew away, along with several big trees on the back side.” Pierson had a big bruise on his leg from a tree that fell right beside him and spooked the mule. He was dragged for a little piece before he got the mule stopped. Bigdaddy said it was an act God that saved him, and nothing else. William wanted to go outside and look around. R.C. was busy drying Sidney, and Sidney was enjoying every minute of it. My mom and Mrs. Tholocco were busy checking Buck and me for injuries but found none. Our dads and Bigdaddy just listened to the wind and rain.
Some time late that night I fell asleep and didn’t awaken until after daybreak. When I went outside, there were trees down everywhere but the sky was clear as a bell. Mom and dad left at sunup to check on our place, but Pierson and Bigdaddy stayed at Bucks to help his dad fix the roofs of an outbuilding and the barn. William, R.C., and I helped Buck pick up limbs and other trash in their yard.
All and all they came out of that storm pretty good considering the damage I saw being made to the woods. Mom and dad had to walk to our place because the roads were blocked by trees and washouts. It would take weeks to clear everything from the roads and repair the one bridge between our houses.
When mom and dad returned, they said that we had a fair amount of damage. The house was still there but some shutters were missing and some of the tin was gone from the roof. We lost most of the barn, all the hay and anything that could float away did float away. The boat had broken loose and was twenty feet up in an oak tree about a half a mile up the road. The strangest thing too, the wagon was not far from the boat, and it was in a tree about five feet off the ground with the outhouse in it. We all missed that outhouse. The one thing that hurt us the most was the open well. It was full of muddy salt water and fish.
We stayed at the Tholocco’s settlement the next night. Pierson, William and I stayed at Buck’s, but Mom, Dad, and R.C. stayed at Mr. Willy’s next door. Bigdaddy went home as he didn’t have that much damage. We helped the Tholocco’s and Bigdaddy repair their places while our house dried out for the next two days. The Tholocco’s walked down there with us the first day and helped open the house and spread things out on the porches to dry out. We found three snakes and a coon with babies camping out in the front room. An alligator had set up house keeping in the barnyard with a big old moccasin. Bigdaddy killed the moccasin and just closed the gate on the gator. The ground was so muddy we couldn’t bring the livestock back anyway so the gator was kept there until we could dress him.
Our house had four rooms, a kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms, and it had porches on all four sides. Each room and the front and back porches had a single light bulb that hung down from the ceiling. The front porch was covered and screened in, which is where we spent most of our time during the hotter months. The back porch was covered, screened and partitioned. On one side it had a bench and cabinet with a wash basin which made it our bathroom. The other side of the back porch had a wood stove, and a cabinet with a hand pump and sink that drained out into the yard. That was used as our kitchen in the summer. Dad had stretched about three layers of old fish net over the side porches for shade which worked well. The net gave a little shade and allowed the breeze to vent thru. The outhouse was about 100 feet behind the house.
The area where the sink drained always stayed damp and had a good stand of Cow Lilies. Any food scraps like coffee and tea grounds or any vegetable waste were thrown there. What the chickens didn’t eat went to the worms. We had a ready supply of Red Wigglers for fishing up in the freshwater creeks.
Bigdaddy’s house was built just like ours on stilts about eight feet off the ground. It sat about 200 yards down the lake and 100 yards back from the shore line on an old shell mound. The mound was about 10’ high and about half an acre. He had his barn right beside the house. His place had remarkably little damage. He lost only two trees down near the water and a few pieces of tin off his barn and house. He didn’t even loose his outhouse. I’m not sure how he would have taken loosing this house as he had lost his original place to a fire just a few years earlier.
When I was about seven years old Bigdaddy’s house burned to the ground. He and grandma lost almost everything in the house. The only thing I remember them saving was the safe, and a few quilts. We managed to salvage some flatware and the like from the ashes, but not much else. I’ll never forget that day. Mom, William and I were in a pirogue on our way from Miss Thelma’s house about two miles down the lake. Mom was polling us around a point when we saw the smoke across the lake. She pushed that boat harder than I’ve ever seen anybody push. By the time we landed at Bigdaddy’s we new it was lost. Bigdaddy and Ma were standing and watching the last wall fall in. There were boats and trucks from all around that belonged to the neighbors who tried to help. Bigdaddy tied a chain around his safe, broke out a window, thru the chain out, hooked it to Babe, one of our oxen and literally pulled it thru the wall. Uncle Junior said just as it came busting thru the wall, the roof caved in. That place had been a show place, with six rooms downstairs and three upstairs. There was a porch that went completely around and a balcony out front. Bigdaddy even had a car port just off the east porch, and a garage in the backyard. He didn’t rebuild where the old place was. He said the memories were just too much.
After the storm we slept on our front porch in hammocks for over a week because our mattresses were still damp. Mom said we were lucky they didn’t mildew and spoil. Everyday William and I had to dip water from the well until it was as empty as we could get it. Then it would fill itself, and we would empty it again. This went on for the next week. After that one could not taste the lingering salt, but it had a distinct sulfur smell. The sulfur gassed off in a few days and it was okay again.
After three weeks the road from the north was cleared only as far as the bridge, so we had to leave our truck there and walk the rest of the way to our house. The family did much of it’s traveling by boat but dad needed that bridge. We could take the boat up a creek to a dock behind Lev’s store, so the truck didn’t get used much for the time being.
The only church around was just up from the store and what little damage it had was fixed by everybody in the community in one day. The school house was another story, as most of it was lost to a fire during the storm. We got out of going to school for a month until a bunch of old busybodies messed that up for everyone. The women on our end of the lake decided to hold school in the church. Class started at eight o-clock Tuesday thru Thursday and turned out at three in the afternoon. The mothers would take turns teaching; never mind that some of them were illiterate. The illiterate ones would teach us things like which plants were medicinal, how to spin yarn and braid line, and make a net, how to preserve foods, or how to cook on an open fire. One woman even taught us how to block off a section of a creek and raise fish. We also learned how to build a house and thatch a roof. The new school opened the next year and I hated to see it even if it did have heat.
After things got back to normal that winter, the whole Tholocco family and our family rebuilt the chickee up on Panther Creek and fished that hidden lake. We named it “Bad Weather Pond” and never told anyone else about it.