"The Catfish Hole"

DATELINE: 4/30/2011
"The Catfish Hole"


One day I was down at my catfish hole tryin to catch me some supper, and while I was fishin, I was dreamin up what I was havin for my supper. Fried catfish, fresh pole beans cooked with side-meat, sliced home grown tomatoes, grits and hoecakes. (Now some of you already know how I feel about hoecakes) I was fishin for supper, which is our evening meal, since we have our dinner at noon time.

Well this catfish hole had been in the Biggers family for several generations, and we took good care of it too. The hole was up against the deep side of the river bank where there is a big bend in the stream, with lots of tree roots stickin out in the water. Once a week we would go down to this catfish hole and toss in some cotton seed cakes and the water would just churn up with all those catfish gettin a free meal. This meant that just about any time we wanted some catfish for supper, all we had to do was wet a hook, cause there was always plenty of them around.

As I was waitin for one of those big cats to come up and suck up the chicken liver baited on my hook, I remembered the time my daddy caught one of those town folk down there at our hole, catchin our catfish. It was old Leroy Stubbs who had never had a job for more than three days, since about all he could hold onto was that old mason jug he had got from his daddy. When he saw Leroy, my daddy fetched him a lick upside his head with and old sweet gum branch. Leroy give out a holler, and said "what are you hittin me for, I was only fishin!"

Now Leroy knew this was our hole, and that we spent a lot of time, and a little money fattenin up those catfish for our skillet, but he saw the chance to take advantage of our work to fattenin up his own belly. This was not the first time we had ever caught someone goin after our catfish, and of course me and daddy knew it would not be the last either.

You know it seems that no matter how hard you work, there is always somebody, who does not want to work for what they get , but they want to live just as good as those who do work for what's theirs. The good old USA has got a lot of those folks, and you had better believe they vote for the "Skunks" and "Polecats" up in DC who are willin to give them some of your catfish, and maybe some of your silver dollars too!


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

Bascomb Biggers

"HoeCake"

DATELINE: 4/12/2011
"HOECAKE"

The first time I heard the term "soul food" I had no idea what it was. Then one day I looked in the window of a soul food cafe, and when I saw the menu, I realized that I had been eatin " soul food" most all of my life. Old country folks cooking, like what I grew up on, included fried chicken, turnip greens, black-eyed peas and cornbread, and sometimes the cornbread was hoecakes. Hoecakes is about as southern, and about as country as you can get.

"Southern culture is the "cornerstone" of Southern cuisine. From this culture came one of the main staples of the Southern diet: corn, either ground into meal or limed with an alkaline salt to make hominy. Corn was used to make all kinds of dishes from the familiar cornbread and grits, to moonshine. Cornbread was popular during the Civil War because it was very cheap and could be made in many different sizes and forms. It could be made into high-rising, fluffy loaves or simply fried for a fast meal." Or, even made into Hoecakes.

"According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term hoecake first occurs in 1745. The origin of the name is the method of preparation: field hands often cooked it on a shovel or hoe held to an open flame. Hoes designed for cotton fields were large and flat with a hole for the long handle to slide through; the blade would be removed and placed over a fire much like a griddle."

Now when I was a young man, there was another young man who lived near Nankipooh called "Hoecake". Now Hoecake was just about the meanest man I had ever known. Some say he got his nickname because he was tougher than a three day old hoecake.  At any rate I was scared to death of him, and with good cause. He had at one time cut off a man's nose with a knife for no good reason at all.

Well there was a time when old Hoecake set his eyes on me and said he was gonna whip me like I ain't never been whipped before. Well of course I was scared, and did not know what to do. I had an old 16 gauge shotgun, but it never occurred to me to shoot him, I just hid out every time I saw him coming. After a couple of months Hoecake found somebody else to be mad at, and he never bothered me again.

Now some may say I was a coward, but I knew I couldn't whip him, and I was not goin to shoot him, so the best plan seemed to be, not to be around where ever he was. It seems like there is a lot of folks who would rather shoot than wait it out, but I don't think that's a very good policy, even for a country to follow. By the way, last time I heard of Hoecake, he was in federal prison for bank robbery.

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

Bascomb Biggers