Guest Blog: Charlie, part 1

Guest Blog: Charlie

Ok Ok Ok.  So, I had some stuff I wanted to put up on the blog, but was hesitant, for many reasons.  See, many of the people I associate with and am around, appear MUCH more southern than I am.  I mean, I grew up on the outskirts of a small town, and on the lake bank of Cane 'River' in Natchitoches LA (its a lake, believe it or not).  During the late spring and summer I'd pick up pecans at the request of my dad, until I had no less than a grocery sack full.  And October brought squirell hunts and subsequent gumbo cookings over heated games of Cadalliac with the more 'mature' gentlemen of our unoffical family club. Whats more southern than that, right?

But my move to the bigger, faster city of Shreveport Louisiana in the Spring of 2004 placed me far enough from those simple times, that they were almost forgotten.  Almost.

Now, my dad, Charles Sr, at one point in his life, was an advid sport, hobby, and dinnerplate fisherman.  And my uncle has always been as well, from what I've been told and witnessed with my own eyes. But in the era that I grew up in, regardless of living on the Cane River Lake, my dad's fishing days were almost extinct.  I do remember though, my first catch ever, a catfish off of our old party barge that we kept lasso'd on the bank there behind our house.  It was purely accidental, as I'm sure you could imagine. I flopped out the line on a ragged looking zebco reel, and while not watching the bobber, I suddenly had a tight line to deal with.  I didn't even know what to do, so I handed it to my dad, who I'm sure was pretty happy to see that we were catching anything at all, and he likely set the hook (I had no idea at the time why I handed him the pole or what he did with it, I'm purely speculating) and he reeled the ugly ol cat in a bit, then handed it back to me.  I remember vividly, doing....almost nothing to help the situation.  My job became "hold this net over the edge", as he took the rod back and talked me through what he was doing.  We had a great looking river monster there, probably a whopping 2 or 100 pounds.  Somewhere in that range.

Years past by, and we moved off of the lake and back towards town, as my parents seemed to be working more and more, and enjoying the lake less and less.  Maybe it was my sister and I just being so engaged in being teens and young adults, that sorta thing is expensive for a parent, you know.  But those days of squirell camp and casting lines, was slowly slipping away then, even before I made the move to the metropolis of an hour north.

(Part 2 tomorrow)