The sun provides an orange iridescent glow along the edges of the streaked morning sky as I ride to work. To avoid the incoming Nashville traffic I drive along a winding back rode that momentarily takes me away from the hustle and bustle of an ever expanding metropolis. I pause briefly on the aged one lane concrete bridge and look up along the bubbling creek that will accompany a portion of my journey. A rock overhang just a small distance away seems to provide the perfect refuge for bass waiting on an inattentive water strider. These moments provide the morning meditation preparing me for another day of taming the robotic world.
The winding creek isn’t much different than scenes along Malone Creek back home, but the memories of the famous Blue Hole on Buzzard Roost comes to mind. I’ve made many journeys down to that infamous place both sightseeing and wetting a hook hoping to catch that bass or a mess of brim that you might know as bluegill. Sometimes I think the legend outweighed my personal results, but I have been known to catch some fish there.
Getting to the Blue Holes was most of the fun. In my younger years we could make the trip in our old truck, but it was more likely we went in Uncle Garvin’s jeep. Uncle Garvin had one of the old Army jeeps and he often took the jeep to its design task of conquering rough terrain, much to the delight of my cousin and me. I can still remember the last hill before the famous spot as being muddy and difficult for most ordinary vehicles to traverse. But Uncle Garvin’s jeep hummed along, all the wheels pulling us through the squishy mud as we ducked from the overhanging tree branches.
The fishing shows on television always amaze me. The hosts on those shows are constantly using some new fangled artificial bait with a fancy rig to lure a fish. I never understood the thrill of all that expensive gear and I don’t recollect it catching a fish any better than Nature’s perfect bait, a minnow. In fact the only bass I caught down at the blue hole came to me on a string with a cane pole on one end and a hook and minnow on the other end. Of course worms were the bait of choice for the catfish. Either way, you could easily come up with your own bait or, for a small amount of change, purchase enough natural bait for a whole day of fishing.
Dad seemed to always know where the best fishing cane grew. We would head out in the old blue truck along some back road until we found the perfect spot where a wilderness of cane grew. Dad never took more than one or two; just enough to replace any we might have broke on our last fishing trip. He would use his pocket knife to slice the pole and then trim the ends. I reckon the only man made things about our fishing gear might be the hook, line, float, and sinker. Dad had a mold for making our own sinkers. It didn’t get much simpler.
I imagine some young fellow has similar memories about this creek I cross along my path to work. The creek follows the road on one side and an old rock fence lines the other, providing a scenic trail that is only disturbed by us local commuters. It isn’t long before the rock fence is replaced by the modern fence lining the freeway. Maybe a few more years will pass before the metropolitan expansion finds that little section of road. It is the least we owe ourselves for the scenic memories under the ginger radiance of a Southern sunrise.
The winding creek isn’t much different than scenes along Malone Creek back home, but the memories of the famous Blue Hole on Buzzard Roost comes to mind. I’ve made many journeys down to that infamous place both sightseeing and wetting a hook hoping to catch that bass or a mess of brim that you might know as bluegill. Sometimes I think the legend outweighed my personal results, but I have been known to catch some fish there.
Getting to the Blue Holes was most of the fun. In my younger years we could make the trip in our old truck, but it was more likely we went in Uncle Garvin’s jeep. Uncle Garvin had one of the old Army jeeps and he often took the jeep to its design task of conquering rough terrain, much to the delight of my cousin and me. I can still remember the last hill before the famous spot as being muddy and difficult for most ordinary vehicles to traverse. But Uncle Garvin’s jeep hummed along, all the wheels pulling us through the squishy mud as we ducked from the overhanging tree branches.
The fishing shows on television always amaze me. The hosts on those shows are constantly using some new fangled artificial bait with a fancy rig to lure a fish. I never understood the thrill of all that expensive gear and I don’t recollect it catching a fish any better than Nature’s perfect bait, a minnow. In fact the only bass I caught down at the blue hole came to me on a string with a cane pole on one end and a hook and minnow on the other end. Of course worms were the bait of choice for the catfish. Either way, you could easily come up with your own bait or, for a small amount of change, purchase enough natural bait for a whole day of fishing.
Dad seemed to always know where the best fishing cane grew. We would head out in the old blue truck along some back road until we found the perfect spot where a wilderness of cane grew. Dad never took more than one or two; just enough to replace any we might have broke on our last fishing trip. He would use his pocket knife to slice the pole and then trim the ends. I reckon the only man made things about our fishing gear might be the hook, line, float, and sinker. Dad had a mold for making our own sinkers. It didn’t get much simpler.
I imagine some young fellow has similar memories about this creek I cross along my path to work. The creek follows the road on one side and an old rock fence lines the other, providing a scenic trail that is only disturbed by us local commuters. It isn’t long before the rock fence is replaced by the modern fence lining the freeway. Maybe a few more years will pass before the metropolitan expansion finds that little section of road. It is the least we owe ourselves for the scenic memories under the ginger radiance of a Southern sunrise.
