Gann Family Stories by Billy Elmore Gann |
Fishing With Grandfather's Heart By William Elmore Gann There's a long story about my grandfather getting caught cavorting with a farm girl in a pokadot dress. Something about doing "what ain't never been done afore" up top of a West Texas windmill. But he'd always tell the women folk in the family he was called Pokey Dot because he lost his shirt in a game of Texas Hold 'em and had to go home in a pokadot pajama top. While both of those stories are likely true, I'll have to tell them another time. Now, I'm talking fishing. Elmore Bolinger Gann was born in Maysfield, Texas in 1890. The man made great stink bait. Using dough, fish, chicken blood, liver, and heart all cured in some special way, it was some nasty stuff. He'd say, "Billy!" (That's what he called me, Billy.) "Come take a woof a this. Jus made a fresh batch stink bait, we got ta go fishin" He'd wink at me from under the Stetson cowboy hat and grin from a cracked-up face that mapped out a life of cotton picking and fishing. He'd always make kind of a clicking noise with his cheek, that meant hot sun, cold beer, fried catfish, and fun. So off we'd go, me and my old pal to the "Kaynal" as Pokey Dot called the place he loved to fish. The All American Canal in the Mojave Desert runs through a hot, snake and scorpion infested cactus patch near California's Mexican border. "Brings to mind West Texas," Grandpa would always say, as he squinted out at miles of bleak mono toned landscape, "only nicer." I must have taken him on his "Last Fishing Trip" out to that old canal a hundred times over a twenty-year period, and in time the place began to grow on me. Seems Polka Dot was an old man all my life. He must have been seventy when he first moved to California, and started showing me the fine art of dragging carp, and catfish out of muddy water. "I'd druther drink muddy water and sleep in a holler log, " he'd sing when the fish were biting. I was 16 and we made something of a cosmic connection on those trips. We fished out at that desert ditch until he died at 91, but that's getting way ahead of the story. There was this one railroad bridge out in the Mojave he loved the most. It was the only shade for a thousand square miles. Trains and railroads, must have reminded him of the wandering honkey tonk life of his youth. We'd sit under the bridge with an ice chest full beer, throwing Pokey Dot's little stinkballs at Channel Cats. Elmo would sing: "All around the water tank, waiting for a train, thousand miles away from home, been sleeping in the rain...." I Loved to hear his stories. They all started out, "One time me 'n old Charlie Pratt was a fishin down on the Little River..." One story varied from another with the change of good old boys, or locations from one part of Texas to another. The activity he'd tell about might vary from hunting, to planting, or Saturday-night dancing, but the story would always wind on in wonderful images, and end with a joke, lesson, or salient point. "Let that be a lesson to ya boy. If your gonna spoon with a gal in a pokadot dress, pick a place where you can sneak off quite-like come sun up. I swear, small-town folks never let you forget anything." Or, "Boy, don't bet the shirt off your back or draw to an inside straight in Texas." On that last trip he'd hooked a really big one and fought that fish, a two foot Channel Cat, for nearly half an hour. To him, this was what life was all about. It was as if he had suddenly forgotten he was old and tired. "She's good'n ain't she?" He said about the fish flopping on the bank. He became more animated than I'd ever seen him. He sprung up, cleaned the fish, told stories, and sang old songs all the while we broke camp. Even though it was early, he insisted it was time to go. We packed our gear, went home, and he died for real a few months later. End of Story. Now I'm supposed to have a moral, joke, or salient point here, but nothing much comes to mind. Back then, I did write a country song about fishing with Polka Dot. It wasn't that good but sometimes I still sing, "Pokey Dot, won't ya look what I got, big ol catfish, and ya know I wish, we could go fishin..." to a cold beer at some favorite fishing spot. Other times that old song starts running through my mind at work, and I hear myself humming "If I ever have a grandson, I'll teach him life is for having fun, and take him fishing till I'm 91." Then I know it must be time to mix up a batch of Elmo's stink bait, and take it out to where the railroad bridge crosses the All American Canal. I tie up a grab hook on a sliding sinker set up, form a little ball of Elmore's awful stuff , and send it drifting down the canal with a little piece of grandpa's heart. |