LITTLE FISH - BIG FISH

DATELINE DECEMBER 07, 2010:
Little Fish - Big Fish

I was fishin with my Grandpa one day at the old Blackmon pond, near Whitesville, and we was catchin some pretty nice shellcrackers, about the size of Granpa's hand. I was fishin with a cane pole baited with red worms, and for one of the few times in my young life, I was catchin more fish than Grandpa.

About this time I see my bobber go under, and I pull up a small bream that was hardly worth keepin. Well, as that little bream was flipping across the top of the water at the end of my cane pole, all of a sudden this huge bass jumps a foot out of the water and grabs that little bream in his mouth. Well he hit the water with that bream so fast and with such fury, that he snatched that cane pole right out of my hands and took out across the pond with it, and my Grandpa is still laughin!

Now right now down here in Nankipooh they are arguing about who they is gonna tax the most. The plantation owners or the sharecroppers. Well as we was listenin to them all talk about who was the best friend to us little folks, they was busy linein the pockets of the rich folks and themselves. Even the mayor got in on it, sidin with the Skunk Party, even though he is a member of the Polecat Party.

You see they had us so busy watchin that little bream, that we was not payin attention when that big old bass come along, and not only took our little bream, but took our cane pole too. What I am tryin to tell you is, that if you think a bunch of professional politicians are lookin out for us little folks, then you might as well hire a fox to guard your chicken house!

Now that's the way I see it, and you can tell-em I said so!

Bascomb Biggers
December 07, 2010

Party Lines

DATELINE: NOVEMBER 24, 2010:
Party Lines

Do you remember party lines? No I ain't talkin about the Skunks or the Polecats parties, I am talkin about when you had to share your telephone line with two or three other families. That was back in the day when most folks lived out in the country and there weren't enough phone lines to go around, so folks had to share. Our first telephone in Nankipooh was shared with the Smiths, Cartlidges, and Rogers families, and you knew whose phone was ringin by the number of rings. The Biggers phone was three rings, and the Rogers was four, Smiths two, and the Cartlidges was one.

You had to listen pretty close to hear the number of rings so you didn't answer somebody else's phone, and you couldn't make a call going out if somebody was already on the line. Of course, there were those who listened in on other folk's calls, and since everybody knew each other there was very little secrets kept. As a matter of fact I believe that Grandma Biggers invented the first "Conference Call", since she and Aunt Helen Rogers, and Mrs. Evelyn Smith, and Mrs. Dora Cartlidge used to all get on the phone together every Wednesday at 2pm to discuss the grocery shopping for the next Thursday.

In those days every village was a family, and folks looked out for each other, and knew a lot about one another. Maybe this world would be a lot better off if we thought of each other as a village, instead of a metropolitan area! After all, they say the world keeps gettin smaller and smaller, and if we are all going to get along, we are going to have to spend a little time in each other's shoes.

Now that's the way I see it, and you can tell-em I said so!

Bascomb Biggers
November 24, 2010

Politicians

DATELINE November 16, 2010:
Politicians

Things have been kinda quiet down here in Nankipooh ever since the big election for mayor of Nankipooh between the "Skunks" and the "Polecats". Why its so quiet, that on a still night you can hear the rust growin on those campaign promises. When we was talking the other day, my cousin Elmo asked why I called the two parties the "Skunks" and the "Polecats" I told him that they wasn't much different, they both just want to get elected and then take our money and use it to get re-elected. And, besides, they both stink!

Now I ain't saying that they are all bad, just most of them! Now if you don't like callin them skunks and polecats, I looked up some other words you might use in my friend Mr. Webster's big book, that might describe them better for you.

carpetbagger:
n.- any of the Northern politicians or adventurers who went South to take advantage of unsettled conditions after the Civil War: contemptuous term with reference to the luggage they used in traveling light, any politician, promoter, from the outside whose influence is resented

scalawag: 
n.- a scamp; rascal, a Southern white who supported the Republicans during the Reconstruction: an opprobrious term used by Southern Democrats

scoundrel: 
n.- a disparaging dim. mean, immoral, or wicked person; rascal, rogue; scamp, low; dishonest; base

Skunks, Polecats, carpetbaggers, scalawags, and scoundrels, they are all about the same!.


Now that's the way I see it, and you can tell-em I said so!

Bascomb Biggers
11-16-2010

The Great Recession

DATELINE November 10, 2010:
The Great Recession

A very wise man once said history repeats itself, and we are doomed to be its servant. We are in the middle of Hard Times, but this is not the first time and probably won't be the last. Some are calling this "The Great Recession"
The last time it was:
The Great Depression

"After nearly a decade of optimism and prosperity, the United States was thrown into despair on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed and the official beginning of the Great Depression."

When I was a young man, my daddy had a man who helped work our land as a "Share-Cropper", which meant that we paid for the seed and provided the land, while he did the work, and then we divided the money from the sale of the crop on a fifty-fifty split. At the time this seemed like a good idea. Over a period of time Old Samuel was supposed to save enough of his money to buy the land from Daddy. The problem was that Old Samuel liked a taste of the jug, and laying in the bed with his wife, and it turned out that after ten years, he had seven kids and no money. In fact he was borrowing against next year's crop from my daddy to keep the kids fed and a little squeezins in the jug.

Now it seems to me that now that we are in these hard times, its time to get out of bed and lay down the jug and start plowing. Just like Old Samuel, most of us can't afford seven kids and laying up in bed with mama and the jug. We got some folks up in the DC area who have been sippin on the jug and borrowing against next year's crop for quite some time now, and its time to pay up!

It really don't matter whether you call it The Great Depression or The Great Recession, the fact is, the stock market is still in trouble along with the rest of us, and the only thing that is worth anything is hard money and hard work! Its time for those "stump-talkers" to get off the jug and get to work. And, you can tell-em I said so!

Bascomb Biggers
11-10-2010

Prime the Pump

DATELINE: November 4, 2010:
Prime the Pump

The system is broken, and the public don't trust the politicians no more, so how do we fix it?
The following quote taken from the day after the 2010 election, pretty well sums things up.

"Tuesday's votes were largely a referendum against Washington and the politics of the status quo. While the GOP benefited from widespread disillusion, voters remain just as unhappy with Republicans as they are with Democrats, telling exit-poll interviewers that they view both parties with almost equal disgust." - (skunks and polecats - BB)

Well I know how to fix a broken plow, and I know how to prime the pump when the water stops flowing, but fixing a broken economy, well that's another thing all together.
Or is it? Maybe all we need to do is prime the pump! For close to two years the Great National Bank has been giving all of the banks in the country money on loan for no interest.
This means those banks don't have to give you any money for your savings or retirement, that they hold in their bank. Which means your little peanut crop ain't growing, since it ain't getting no water. Meanwhile the bank's big soy bean plantation is getting plenty of water for free, and growing faster than kudzu.

So the water ain't flowing into your account no more, and your little peanut crop is getting smaller instead of bigger. Seems like all we got to do is prime the pump! Let the Great National Bank start charging the banks for water and maybe they will start paying you to use your water, and your little peanut crop can start to grow again!
If you don't understand how this works, then I have a homework assignment for you.
This holiday season take time to watch "It's a Wonderful Life". It pretty well explains the whole thing. Funny how they understood all of this more than fifty years ago!
(Maybe you should let your new Congressman in on this!)

Bascomb Biggers
11-04-2010

The Write In Ballot

DATELINE October 29, 2010:
The Write-In Ballot

Is it just me or is our country up to its collective neck in quick sand? It has got to the point where it seems the voters can't tell the difference between a skunk and a polecat. I've done swallowed so many lies during this election that I can't even say "Howdy do" and make it seem like the truth. I tell you it makes me feel more like I do now than I did a little while ago. But my old daddy used to say that even a blind hawg finds an acorn every now and then, and it's about time for this old hawg to root one out!

By that I mean it's time to throw all those skunks and polecats out of office. I mean every last one of them! I intend to vote against every incumbent from now on until they all get so scared that they do what the people want for fear of losing their jobs, which is all they care about. If I can't find someone decent to vote for on the ballot, then I will write one in, and speaking of writing one in, there is not a better time to write in Bascomb Biggers anywhere on the ballot where you don't like the choice.
Bascomb Biggers
October 29, 2110

The Nankipooh Mayor's Race

DATELINE: October 14, 2010

"The Nankipooh Mayor's Race"

We got ourselves quite a horse race down here in Nankipooh, watching these two scalawags try to out lie one another in order to be elected mayor of Nankipooh. On one hand you got the Democrat Ray Brown, a former mayor, and on the other hand you got old Nate Done, a former county commissioner running for the Republicans. Now both of these old boys are what we call professional politicians and they have been messing up Nankipooh and the county for decades now. So you might say we ain't got much of a choice for the next mayor of Nankipooh.

They both run ads on the TV that look like mirror images of each other. For instance they both got an ad showing two old farmers settin on the steps of the general store drinking cokes and playin checkers. While they play they are bad-mouthing the other candidate, and laughing at him.

One of these fools has a TV ad which says that everbody is laughing at Nankipooh, and the other one has an ad sayin his opponent has nothing to say, except apologize for when he was the mayor before. Neither one really wants to do anything for Nankipooh, they both just want to get elected so they can keep feedin at the public trough.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of these nere-do-wells lying to me to get my vote.
I'm also tired of these old boys tellin me how bad the other is, so you won't see how bad he is. My Daddy said you could always tell when a politician is lying, because it starts when they open their mouth.

You can always vote for me, Bascomb Biggers, I don't want much, but I sure would like a steady income in these hard times. Besides, there is one thing you know about me for sure..."I ain't no liar, and I ain't never lied to you, except for maybe, right now."

Bascomb Biggers
10-14-2010

"Let's Make a Deal" vs. "The Barnestormer"

 

DATELINE AUGUST 16, 2010:
"Let's Make a Deal" vs. "The Barnestormer"

What's in a name? I'll tell you names are common, but people ain't! Watching two old political hacks try to re-invent themselves for the voters, is about as funny as watching a fox trying to unlatch the door to the chicken house. And when you elect a professional politician to office, it's about the same as letting the fox guard the chicken house for you. You know he can't be trusted but you don't know what else to do.

Now about one hundred years ago, we had a "common name" election here in Georgia for Governor, between a man named Brown, and a man named Smith. Now Mr. Joseph M. Brown was the son of Joseph E. Brown, who had been the Governor of Georgia during the Civil War, or as we like to call it, "The Great War for Southern Independence". Of course we won that war, since when it was over, all of the Yankees went home, which was not the case the last time the North invaded the South, since by then we had air-conditioning, and they all stayed.

Brown had won in 1908 against Hoke Smith with the slogan "Hoke and Hunger, Brown and Bread", and these two old boys did not like each other. It was during some pretty hard times, and it was easy for these two rascals to play the people off against each other. Well, Smith won by a narrow margin in 1910, but soon ran off to Washington to take the place of U.S. Senator Alexander Clay, who had died in office. So Brown won in 1912, as Governor of Georgia, and renewed the fight against his old enemy, Georgia Senator Smith.

So here we go again.  That was then, and this is now! Now it is an ex-Governor against an ex- Congressman, both of which are trying to convince the voters that they know how to get us out of this mess, even though they were both involved in getting us into this mess! Sound familiar?

You can always write my name in, Bascomb Biggers. I promise not to steal near as much from you as some of these other candidates!


Bascomb Biggers
08-16-2010

The Story of Bayou Bait

 

Dateline: July 30, 2010
"The Story of Bayou Bait"

Many of you know that I like a good glass of wine with a good meal, but probably few of you know that I am also an avid fisherman.

On a recent trip to Louisiana to visit my Cajun buddy Boudreaux and get in a little bayou fishing, I learned a new lesson in catching fish. Boudreaux and I were in his jon boat back in the swamp fishing for bayou catfish. We were using chicken livers and also balls of cheese as bait.

We had also taken along the required cooler of cold beer, but since Boudreaux and I both like to eat and drink wine, we had also packed some oyster and shrimp Po-Boy sandwiches, and a bota-bag full of a good seven-year-old California Cabernet Sauvignon.

Well into the day and after a great shore lunch and a few cold brews during the heat of the day, I began to notice that Boudreaux was pulling in some pretty nice big Bayou Catfish while I was mostly catching small mud cats. So I asked Boudreaux what he was using for bait, the chicken livers, or the balls of cheese. He told me that he was using the cheese balls. so I immediately switched over to the cheese myself. Well another hour passes and my luck still hasn't changed, but old Boudreaux, was still hauling them in, so I began to watch. After a nice big six pounder, I watched him re-bait his hook with another cheese ball and then take the bota-bag and soak the cheese with the Cabernet.

I said "Wow Boudreaux, you are using wine and cheese to catch those big cats!" He replied, "Man these are Cajun catfish and they got a lot of French Blood in them, like all us Cajuns!" "But you should see the size of the ones I catch when I bring along a bottle of ten year old Lafite Rothschild!

The morale of this story is that you have to use the right bait to catch the really big ones!  When a politician uses a lot of really big promises to get your vote, he may just be baiting you, so don't believe what they say, just look at what they have done.
 
Bascomb Biggers

The Georgia Governor's Race

 

DATELINE JULY 20, 2010:
"The Georgia Governor's Race"


We are having quite a run here in Georgia for the office of Governor of this grand old state. It makes me remember the first time I asked my Daddy how you could tell if a politician was telling the truth or not. He said "Son, they never tell the truth, they start to lie as soon as they open their mouth!"

Now that was then, and this is now, so I looked up the definition of politician in the Websters Dictionary, and one of the definitions was " a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow, usually short-sighted reasons."

The election for Governor we are having is quite entertaining. One candidate wants to solve the state's problems with a state run bingo game. Another wants to re-fit all of the state government buildings with low-flow toilets to provide employment. Another claims to be able to take on the federal government on health care and immigration issues, and so on, and so on. We took on the federal government in reconstruction days, and all we got out of it was the Klan!

It reminds me of one of the silliest gubernatorial elections, the one in 1966 between Maddox, Calloway, and Arnold. (Say doesn't gubernatorial remind you of Goobers, which is what most of them are?) Well in the 1966 election, there was a runoff between Lestor Maddox, a Democrat who had never held office, and a Republican, from my home of Harris County, and the son of a wealthy family, Bo Calloway. Both of these men were conservative and segregationists, and not popular with all of the public. So there was a write in vote for former Governor Ellis Arnold, which caused the election to be thrown into the General Assembly even though Calloway got a plurality of the votes, but no majority.

During the general election one candidate confessed to being a thief, but defended himself by saying, "Yes I stole money from the state, but only a little bit. You don't have any idea how much these other candidates might steal from you!" Well the outcome was never in doubt since the Democratic Legislature voted 182 to 66 for Maddox, who had never held office before, and had not even captured the most votes.

So who should you vote for? In some cases it doesn't seem to even matter. You might say that finding an honest politician, or even an honest political party, is about the same odds as a blind hog finding an acorn. Don't forget we voted for a man for President who promised change, and the only change we got, was which pocket our money went into. I say tar and feather them all, and ride them out of town on a rail!

You can always write my name in, Bascomb Biggers. I promise not to steal near as much from you as some of these other candidates!

Bascomb Biggers

The Nankipooh Enquirer

Nankipooh, Georgia

Editor in Chief: Colonel Bascomb Biggers

Ace Reporter : Scoop Biggers

RE: "History"

My Great, Great Grandfather’s name was James Joseph Walton Biggers.  In 1828, when he was just a small boy of four years, his family moved from South Carolina to a small frontier town on the Chattahoochee River called Columbus, Georgia.  He spent the next sixteen years of his life growing up near the river and watching his father plow the hard, red Georgia clay in an effort to feed his family.  At the age of twenty, JJW Biggers struck out on his own, and started his own farm in Harris County, Georgia, near what is now Calloway Gardens, but in those days there was just Mulberry Grove, and a small village called Hamilton, Georgia.

During the period leading up to the Civil War his farming efforts prospered, and by the time of his death, he owned about two thousand acres in Harris County and about three hundred more in a little village north of Columbus called Nankipooh. After his death, his heirs received shares, but the farming continued under the direction of his son, Bascomb Biggers who was born a few years prior to the Civil War. During Bascomb's time Nankipooh consisted of five or six farms run by the families named Livingston, Walton, Moon, Adams, and Biggers.

Bascomb remained on the land until his death, at which time the properties were divided among his eight children. Three of those children spent their lives in Atlanta, while four remained on the land in Nankipooh, while the youngest, James Walton Biggers moved into Columbus and became a successful architect and designed many of the citiy’s most prominent buildings, including the Public Library.

The oldest son, James Norman Biggers continued the farming and married one of the Livingston girls from the farm across the road, whose name was Bessie Lee Livingston, and thus those two farms were united. By the 1950's James Norman Biggers also ran a store called Biggers Grocery at the intersection of Hamilton Road and Fortson Road which also intersected the Central of Georgia rail line connecting Columbus and Atlanta.

The Biggers family played a prominent role in settling Nankipooh and were part of the building of Nankipooh School and the Pierce Chapel Methodist Church a few miles north of the school. There are many stories concerning the origins of the name Nankipooh, The version which Norman Biggers (born 1885) believed to be true was that Nankipooh was a great chief of the Muscogee Indians who were a branch of the Cherokee living in the Chattahoochee Valley when the first white settlers arrived in the area and founded Columbus and later Nankipooh.

Norman Biggers Bentley

DATELINE JULY 4, 2010:
"Bascomb Biggers"

My name is Bascomb Biggers.

During my lifetime I saw quite a lot of history as I watched our country grow up. That included the Civil War, which is about as bad as it has ever got in this country. It looks like now though, that we are in some pretty hard times again, and I just can't hold my say any longer.

Here are a few things that remind me that no matter how hard times get, we are still lucky, and mighty beholden to the good Lord for looking out for us. When people ask me how I am, I say, "Better than I deserve, but not as good as I wanna be!" Which is a reminder to me that we all owe everything to the good Lord! But, here are a few of those things that I mentioned.

1. Hearing the bell rung to come in for dinner, after being in the field since sun up.
2. A cold dipper full of well water, after six hours out in the hot July Georgia sun.
3.The sound of caddie-dids up in the trees at sundown.
4.Watching the lightning bugs after dark.
5. Hearing that old bull frog down by the mill pond late in the evening.
6. Waking up in the morning to the rooster crow, and knowing there are fresh eggs, and homemade biscuits for breakfast.
7. Walking out to the fields with the fresh scent of Georgia Pine in my nostrils.

Something I ain't never liked: A politician standing on a tree stump making promises for votes, that you know he ain't never gonna keep!
"Now that's just the way I see it, and you can tell-em I said so".

Bascomb Biggers
07-04-2010