"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

"Birds of Prey"

DATELINE: 3/29/2011
"BIRDS OF PREY"

The symbol for this great country has always been the American Bald Eagle. Everybody was for it back in the early days, except maybe for old Ben Franklin, who wanted it to be the American Wild Turkey. Well I was fishin down in the salt water for speckled trout some time back, and I saw something that made me kinda re-consider old Ben's point of view.

While I was fishin for those trout, I saw an Osprey (fish eagle) dive down into the water and snatch up a trout with his talons and start headin back to the nest with it. About this time here comes a bald eagle bearin down on that osprey, and before you can say excuse me, he has hit that osprey right in the back. Well the osprey drops that fish and turns upside down in mid air to turn its talons toward the eagle, but its too late. The eagle headed straight for the dropped fish, snatched it up, and was flyin back home before you knew what was happenin.

Now osprey only eat and feed their young the fresh fish which they catch themselves, while an eagle will eat most anything, and likes to rob the osprey of their catch. Which is the more noble bird?

It seems like the American Eagle up in DC has been robbin a lot of folks in this country of their hard earned catch, and not only feedin their young, but a lot of other folks who ain't earned nothin for themselves. It has done got to the point where this old osprey can't catch enough fish for me and all of them too!

I believe that old Ben realized that the Wild Turkey takes care of themselves and their own too. Maybe its time to send a Turkey (or an osprey) to DC, and Bascomb is ready to go.

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

Bascomb Biggers

"Lawyers"

DATELINE: 3/05/2011
"LAWYERS"

I was thinking the other day that maybe it was time for old Bascomb to make out a will, being that I probably don't have as many days ahead of me as I do behind me. Well even a good old southern boy knows that you can't beat a Jewish lawyer when it comes to messin with this dad-gummed legal system, we got goin in this country today. So I contacted the best firm in Nankipooh:
Travice and Leecar
Counselors at Law
#9 Main Street
Nankipooh, Georgia
Now I have known both of these fellers for nigh onto forty years, so I figured I could trust them to do right by me. Well first off I had to take one of them out to lunch just to set up a time to start makin out the will. Then the appointment time kept changin for the next couple of months, until finally three months later I had a chance to sit down in the office and discuss the will, which I had ended up havin to write myself.

Well they called in a bunch of folks to testify that it was in fact my will, and I of course had to pay for their lunch as well. Then they told me that when they had finished every thing, they would sent me a copy of the will to keep at home. When I did get the copy, I found out that a bunch of pages had all been scrambled up, and some of the heirs were different than what I had said to begin with. The only part that was right was the one about Travice and Leecar being in charge of my estate, and them gettin some of the money.

They promised that they would fix everything, and send a good copy of the will to me in a few days. Well its been several months now and I ain't heard nothing else from them about it. I got to thinking about the way the government and all these lawyers are runnin things these days and I decided that I just ain't gonna die, cause its just too dad-gummed complicated.


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

Bascomb Biggers

Field Hand

DATELINE: FEBRUARY 21, 2011
"FIELD HAND"

Back when I was farmin in a big way, I used to have a field hand working for me by the name of Joseph Barnes. Now Joseph was a good worker on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but he was pretty much no a count for the other days of the week.

You see, Old Joe liked to start his weekend on Thursday night, which made it hard to get to work on Friday or Saturday, and of course we don't work on the Lord's day, and then Monday it took all day to recover from the the previous three days. Old Joe liked to hit the jug pretty hard, and only drawin wages three days a week, he just couldn't seem to get ahead.

Now just about every other week, Old Joe would come to me and say, "Boss Man, I ain't gonna have enough money for the rent and the groceries, so I was wonderin if you could let me have a little advance, so I can catch back up". Well, after working for me for twenty years, Old Joe was so far in debt that he could work the rest of his life and never get out of debt, even if he was to work six days a week, which we both knowed he wasn't gonna do.

By this time I knew that Joe's son Tom was gonna be just like his Daddy, and was already borrowin money from me too. Well after awhile, havin these folks all owein me money, it started gettin hard for me to pay all of my bills, and finally I had to give up farmin all together, cause I just couldn't make enough money to pay the bills for all of us.

Now we got some folks up there in Washington DC who are a lot like Old Joe, they figure that they can keep gettin money from the Boss Man, and that well ain't never gonna run dry, until one day they look up, and China owns the farm, and they ain't got a job no more. You can't dig out of a hole, and you can't borrow your way out of debt!

There is three things that are important to a politician. First they got to get elected. Second they got to get all the money they can from the taxpayers, and third they got to get re-elected. Nothin else is really important to them. Once you understand that, then you also know that they know how to spend, but they don't know how not to.

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

Bascomb Biggers
February 21, 2011

BASCOMB BIGGERS FOR PRESIDENT
PLATFORM PLANK # 9 - "Make Fried Catfish the National Dinner"

"Campaign Platform"

DATELINE February 14, 2011:
"Campaign Platform"

BASCOMB'S CAMPAIGN PLATFORM

1. REDUCE ALL FEDERAL TAXES BY 20%
2. REDUCE ALL FEDERAL SPENDING BY 40%
3. MAKE A BALANCED FEDERAL BUDGET THE LAW
4. PLACE TERM LIMITATATIONS ON ALL CONGRESSMEN
5. REDUCE PRESIDENTIAL AND CONGRESSIONAL SALARIES BY 50%
6. SEAL ALL U.S. BORDERS (NORTH, SOUTH, EAST AND WEST)
7. DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS
8. MAKE ENGLISH THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE U.S.
9. MAKE FRIED CATFISH THE OFFICIAL NATIONAL DINNER

"Don't forget, I ain't never lied to you, except for maybe, right now."

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

Bascomb Biggers
February 14, 2011

"Don't get caught with your britches down!"

DATELINE: JANUARY 5, 2011

Don't get caught with your britches down!

One hot summer day me and some of my twelve year old buddies was playing hookie from our work on my daddy's farm, and was down at the Alexander's cow pond doing some skinny-dippin. Well we was havin a grand old time until Mr. Alexander's seventeen year old daughter rode up on her horse and ordered us to get out of that swimmin hole, and off of their land!

Well we didn't know what to do since we didn't have a stitch on, and we weren't about to stand naked in front of that girl, so we just stood there in that water above our waist. Well she just sat there on that horse, and keep tellin us we had to get out of there and go home. Finally after about a half hour, she got tired and rode off, and we grabbed our clothes and high tailed it out of there!

Now it seems to me that both the Polecats, and the Skunks, have been standin around Washington up to their waist in muddy water with their britches down, and don't know how to get out of the fix they are in. One way would be to stand naked in front of the country and let everybody see them for what they are. Which in my opinion is nothing better than a bunch of lying skunks and polecats, who really ain't interested in anything other than gettin re-elected and grabbin all the money and power they can get their hands on.

Of course if they had to stand naked in front of the country, they wouldn't have any place to hide that money they been grabbin at. I say make them stand up for what they are, or throw them all out office at the next election, and let another bunch get caught with their britches down!

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

Bascomb Biggers
January 5, 2011