So the year's probably 1973. I was about nine years old and my father and I were riding down the road in his yellow Datsun pick up. These small trucks were fairly new in America at the time. I remember my father and my uncle had to tear the engine down entirely & put a new timing chain on it. I remember watching that process and being amazed that even though they had parts left over, it ran great! So we're riding down the road in the yellow Datsun pick up truck & we're singing songs. Listening to Creedence Clearwater revival on the eight track tape player. We are headed to the KOA campground to put our small fishing boat with trolling motor in at the landing there. We are going to do some shrimping with a cast net and fish a little for the day. So we head out , winding through the Blackwater Creek's of southeast Georgia. Spanish moss is hanging from the cypress trees. We go way out until we reach the brackish water, then saltwater. my father throws a cast net all afternoon . I remember thinking that surely he would forget to turn loose of it with his teeth and snatch his teeth out any minute but it never happened.I think we caught a few quarts of shrimp. Then later that afternoon we return to the Blackwater Creek's to fish. After we've been fishing for about an hour, we decide to go home. So as we're headed back around the corner of a creek and were hugging the bank under the shade of the trees, a water moccasin falls from a tree branch into the boat between us! My father deftly plucks it from between us and throws it back out of the boat , before it can right itself and be capable of striking! It's one of the things I remember vividly about him from my childhood. I always felt safe with him wherever we were. My father and his brothers had grown up on a share cropping farm & had an affinity for the outdoors! They were all tradesmen. My father was a plumber and his brothers were carpenters, electricians , brick layers & the like. I remember another time when we were clearing a couple acres in Bloomingdale GA. My father had borrowed the money from my grandmother(my mother's mother) to buy 5 acres of land in Bloomingdale Georgia and I was helping him clear it. I was nine, it was the same year 1973. I remember calling to him , I could see a snake, a very nasty looking snake, reddish orange in color. It had the kind of head you learn to recognize when you play outside all the time. A diamond shaped head that pit vipers have, my father came running the whole time yelling stay away from it, stay away from it. He had a turkey choke on his 12 gauge shotgun. He only had one shot in it but that's all It took. He took aim and took off just its head, from about fifteen feet away. The body squirmed and coiled, as if it was still alive, still coiled around the gardenia bush he had planted. Even though it's head was gone. I write these little stories to share but mostly so that as my memory fades these simple memories of a simpler time will still live somewhere on the internet...
Congratulations @boomer715! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPIf you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!
A good father is a treasure! Thank you for sharing this story of your childhood. Following to read more of your memories.
No man is perfect but I had a better father than most I think. He taught me that looking people in the eyes, meaning what you say and keeping your word were more important than the things we are led to believe are important.
I agree! :)