Tom and Huck Never Had It So Good
This letter (Sent to North Vernon, IN Letters to Editor at Plain Dealer-Sun) has a rather
long preamble and a clarion call for continued action.
There are 22 creeks in Jennings
County (according to Bridgehunter.com); however, there is only one
that nurtured me to adulthood---Graham Creek. Only a handful of
surviving close friends and family understand my historical and
emotional attachment to this distant tributary of the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1948, my folks were
part of the exodus from Kentucky to Indiana. From age 6 until I left
home for an Air Force career at age 21, the Graham Creek and
immediate environs, were part and particle of who I was and what I
would become. My cousins, my brother and I were founding members of
the Graham Creek College of Advanced Piscatorial Studies. If it swam,
we caught it. We gigged suckers, seined for minnows and crawdads,
broke open muscle shells for bait, and had secret names for our best
fishing spots: The riffles, the rocks, and the roots. Interestingly,
our biggest challenge was getting fishing hooks. Sure, we did the
ubiquitous safety pin routine and I developed a decent skill at
fashioning a hook from a paperclip. A small box of 10 hooks cost 12
cents and that was eye-watering finance for young farm boys. A couple
of events I clearly recall:
When I was 12, I knew of
President Eisenhower's love for fly fishing (I later learned Camp
David was created for him in the Maryland mountains for him to trout
fish) and I would day dream of finding Ike fishing alone on the
Graham Creek and he asking me to fish with him. My biggest concern
was how could I ever get the dirt, blisters, and brier scratches off
to be clean enough for the president. My only imagined solution was
for my mother to simply remove my top layer of skin!
A few years later, I went
to the area we called the rocks and there were a half dozen gents
surrounding a honey hole of rock bass (aka goggle eye) and the
strongest fish on earth—smallmouth bass. An older fellow in
overalls was standing on the bank with a cane pole and a small rubber
spider attached to his line. The other fisherman were wading, using
closed face spinning reels and having little or no luck. The
“Spiderman” was catching fish on almost every cast. He was very
loud in his celebration of his fishing skills.
Two or three weeks later I
returned to this can't miss fishing spot. The same guys were fishing,
minus the “Spiderman.” One of the men said to another, “You
know if we will be real quiet, we just might hear (name withheld)
down there in Texas where he is visiting some kinfolks!”
As I daily feel the
increasingly moist wind from River Jordan, I have some concerns about
the future of Graham Creek for coming generations. Specifically:
- The continued preservation of the James Covered Bridge over the Graham Creek. I am over 800 miles away, out on the southern Great Plains; consequently, I do not know of the current efforts underway to continue to save this treasured bridge. I do know the late Mary Ann Keller and her brother Bobby Keller were the champions who turned back a major assault from bright young road planners and the mega farmers who own large heavy equipment. I say to all in the current vanguard, 'Do not grow weary in well-doing.' Save Our Bridge!
- Several years ago when I purchased an out-of-state Indiana fishing license, I noted the warnings in the book of regulations against eating fish from Graham Creek that were contaminated from herbicide and fertilizer runoff. Hopefully, this is no longer the situation; however, if it is still going on, clean water advocates expand your base of support, find some pro bono environmental lawyers and use every print, broadcast and social media outlet to make the case for the preservation of our precious waterways. To see the scope of the situation impacting our streams in Jennings County, go to the Google Maps satellite view of the fields near the Graham Creek and you will discover, acre after acre after acre of land planted in what looks like corn.
- It is on Google maps that I found the Graham Creek miss-identified as the Muscatatuck River. The Muscatatuck River is indeed in Jennings County; however, it is not the Graham Creek. I call upon conservationist groups, computer geeks, and concerned citizens to please voice your concern to Google. It is never too late to correct a needless error. There is only one stream in Jennings County that flows through my life, and it is Graham Creek.
I have been blessed to
have had the opportunity to fish in lakes and streams in Alaska and
Canada and 15 other states, in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans. But only one small, sometimes flooded, sometimes
almost dry, sometimes covered with leaves, sometimes frozen over,
sometimes muddy, and sometimes almost clear stream in Jennings
County, Indiana called Graham Creek,that forged and molded my memory
of a real childhood that Mark Twain could never create for Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.
Glenn <><
Just West of Yesterday
