Post 30: Moving on up

     As I reached high school age, things on the farm began to change, somewhat. I thought we had reached the ultimate in high class living a year or so before when we cut an old rug up into strips and made a path all the way to the two-hole outhouse. I could go to the outhouse in the middle of the night, and my feet never touched the ground! Come to think of it, I never understood the logic behind having two holes. They were right side by side, and I never knew of a single time when both were used at the same time. I know for sure I never shared it!
     But now, we were digging a ditch and running water into our house, and a real bathroom was about to be in the works. It was only a one-holer, but eons ahead of the outhouse. Real toilet paper too! No more old Sears and Roebuck catalog for the Gillums – we're moving on up!
Bob Rice and Grady Hunicutt moved to Wing, a big event for one year. Nobody moves to Wing anymore. They were a year or two younger, but we had lots of good times. Bob, Grady, and I were headed to the river for a night of frog gigging, fishing, and camping. Grady had just gotten out of the hospital, having had a very serious sinus problem. He had specific strict orders from the doctor to not get any water in his head whatsoever. Grady gigged at a frog, missed, lost his balance and his head went clean under water–I've never seen anyone do that while frog gigging, before or since.
     We decided on that trip that we were all cussing too much, so we made a gentleman's agreement that if one of us cussed, the other two were obligated to hit him on the shoulder, hard. Well, poor old Grady. Just out of the hospital and everything is going to h– I mean, everything is going bad. He cussed, Bob and I fulfilled our duty. It made him mad, he cussed again. We hit him again. This time, he cussed a blue streak. Well, before this incident was over, Grady was all stove up and Bob and I were rolling on the ground, laughing.
     Later that winter, on Thanksgiving Day, Grady and I were hunting in the bottoms. Squirrels, mostly. We flushed up a couple of ducks off Lilly Pad Lake, we both shot, and they both fell, right out in the middle of the lake. Wing is not on a major duck flyway, and they were rare. Also, we both had a strong sense that if we killed it, we ate it. Well, we flipped a coin, probably a penny. I stripped off; Grady built a fire, and I swam for the ducks. It was only about 3 feet deep, but I had to swim. If I put my feet down, I just buried up. By the time I got back to the fire, I thought I was going to freeze to death! Later on that winter, the same thing happened, I won the coin flip, and I had a good laugh as Grady started to strip. Then he said, “Hey, there’s a boat on the other side!” If I had not been afraid Grady would hit me on the shoulder, I probably would have cussed.
     Harold came in on a furlough from the Air Force. I had caught some pretty nice cat down on the slough, and as is typical for Harold, he just had to give it a try. Even though it had been raining a lot and the river was coming up. The slough makes a big curve from the river, then back to it, and we would have to swim it to get to the good hole. One night Harold and I and my cousin, Jack Larry, set out. The water was over my head, but we got across OK. The fish were not in a biting mood, but the river just kept coming on up. Pretty soon, the road was about the only ground not covered on the whole island, and we decided to get out while we could. The water moccasins were all up on the high ground too, and
Jack Larry and I were barefooted, with one small light. Every few steps we spotted another one. When we got to the spot where we had to swim, there was now a rushing current. Larry and I both had to hang onto Harold on the way across to keep from being washed away. He was larger and a strong swimmer, but I still don't know how he did it. Well, the snakes were just as thick on the other side, and I've never been so happy to get home.