GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE for Tuesday, March 10, 2026

Welcome to another spring morning, filled with unlimited possibilities, unfathomed potential, unimaginable fun, frolic, and joy, skeeter bites, doodoo to step in and carpenter bees to battle. Sorry, but that's life in a fallen world! There are ups and downs, smiles and frowns, blossoms amid thorns, abilities yoked in tandem with disabilities. A blaring horn may be a friend blowing to share a moment with you in passing, or an unknown driver warning you to get out of the way. Okay, you know the drill anyway, we all do, not a single one of us has lived a moment in an unfallen world...not yet! But speaking of car horns, I missed the old days when walking across a parking lot, if a friend or family member saw you they would toot the horn and wave, and you would smile and wave back. But car key fobs with the lock and unlock button that also beeps the horn has put the quietus on those smiles and waves. It only took a couple of embarrassing moments of waving like an idiot to someone just locking their car, before we ended the practice of responding to a toot like a blithering idiot. Occasionally we hear such as this, "I saw you at the Huge-Big Hypermart last week, you were walking across the parking lot toward the Hip Replacement Clinic and Tire and Garden entrance, and I tooted at you, but you did not even look!" I say, "probably heard the toot, but I pay little to no attention to toots these days." "Next time, text me first to let me know the toot is for me." "That blamed parking lot is so big anyhow, it is like a sea of toots when they put church pews and picnic tables on sale, everybody and their mama pointing key fobs and tootin', it sounds like an orchestral practice over at the Helen Keller School of Performing arts." Well, enough frivolity for this morning, let's try to find a more serious closing topic for this missive. Let's talk of redfin pike. There is no better little fish to catch, and none better to eat.

The most bestest lil ole fish ever

The time to catch them is from spring to early summer, and almost always in creeks, the best way to catch a heap of them is when creeks are no longer running in dry times, where they must congregate in pools along the stream. Fish those holes and it might surprise you at the numbers those spots may yield. Grandpa said they used to use a strip of red cloth to catch the first few, then they would gut them and slice a strip of the red belly and use it for bait then to keep catching them. The only bait I and most others use for redfin is a red bait. The red rooster tail spinner is the preferred bait. I have seen years in the past when the redfin were in the creeks and holes by the thousands and everybody and their brother was catching them, almost in a frenzy. Several years ago, spring rains had the creeks all on the boom, and when the high waters dropped, it landlocked holes in every dried-up stream, and all were frothing with redfin. Folks that had never fished for redfin got the fever. They traipsed every creek bank and dry bed, found every waterhole still remaining and caught skoodoodles of redfin. There were no red rooster tails to be found anywhere around redfin pike territory. I headed out on a Saturday, stopping in every place in Swainsboro, to no avail, none of the stores had any left. I headed toward Statesboro, and stopped at every place between Swainsboro and Statesboro that sold tackle, and they were all sold out, and laughed when they saw what you were looking for, because the army of fisherpersons hoping to snag a red rooster tail were legion, and all sorely disappointed. The last stop in Statesboro was Kmart. I held out little hope of them having even a half of a rooster tail. I walked to the fishing tackle area and lo and behold, by drab, there were two hanging there glistening like the holy grail. I reached and slid them forward to the end of the display rod, feeling as rich as Croesus!! I was suddenly aware of a shadow looming to my right, a wooshing sound, and the distinctive smell of Lorillard's Peach Snuff, as a bony and wrinkled hand slapped mine causing me to drop one of the rooster tails, that was quickly snatched up by those bony fingers! I saw that it was an aged crone, wearing a work-hardened visage as brown and bony as her claws. She had the body of a witch, with the clear blue eyes of a maiden. I don't mean she had a maiden's eyes, like in her giant pocketbook, I mean her eyes were clear, blue, and sparkling. She reared back, snatched the rooster tail and hissed her snuff-laden breath at me and said, "thattun's MINE!!" I slapped her, took it back and walked away with both of them. I almost felt bad about it, as she was of course somebody's dear ole snuff-dipping granny, but that slap sealed her doom. I did not look back, I have read the Old Testament ya know. I had'em rung up, paid cash and walked out the victor. I did feel as if I had looked back I would have seen her casting a spell or bad-news incantation at my backside as I egressed. Looking back, maybe I should have let her have one of them, because my nice lil ole life took a considerable turn for the worse, right about then, that lasted about twenty-seven years. But, "law, them redfin pikes wuz dang-nyare wuth it," as Pa would say. Love ya, thanks for listening.

Numbers 6: 24-26, KJV

we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me