SOUTHERN FRIED

I used to live on a small farm some twenty odd miles north of a store I owned in mid-eastern Mississippi. Each morning, bright and early, I would drive to work in my pick-up. This was rural country and I was used to seeing a lot of wild life almost every morning, especially deer. I kind of kept my eye out for animals crossing the road.

One winter morning the temperature had dropped down to seventeen degrees, real cold for that part of the country. Anyway, I was cruising down this straight stretch of highway and a good ways ahead I could see a dog on the left side of the road. I slowed down and braked to a complete stop. Right in front of me a great big blue tick hound dog started across the road with a fresh caught catfish in his mouth. That fish was flopping like crazy and would weigh at least eight pounds!

That old dog walked across the road, up a little embankment, under a barbed wire fence and turned right. Every now and then he would throw his head back like he was adjusting his neck. The catfish kept flopping!

There was a little white house with a front porch about fifty yards back up the road. That dog walked up the front steps, across the porch and with that catfish still in his mouth, reached out with his right paw and scratched on the door. The door opened and the dog with his catfish went inside. I drove on to work.

That dog and catfish bothered me all day long. I spent the whole day speculating how that dog came into possession of the catfish! As I was driving home late that afternoon, curiosity got the best of me. When I got to the little white house I pulled over and parked. I crossed the road, walked up on the front porch and knocked on the door. An old man, somewhere near ninety, opened the door. Before I could introduce myself he said "Hi young man, come on in, it’s a little chilly out here on the porch." I went inside. The old man sat down at a small table beside a wood burning stove. "Now, what can I do for you?" the old man asked.

I told him about my experience with the dog and catfish that morning.

"Oh, yeah" he said "That was Old Sport there" tossing a hush puppy in the air. From out of nowhere that old blue tick hound dog was in midair where he caught that hushpuppy and swallowed it before his paws touched the floor. The old dog then disappeared behind the couch.

"Every time it gets real cold that pond across the road over there ices over around the edges. It never has iced over completely. Anyway, them big catfish get to jumping early in the morning and sometimes they will come back down on the frozen ice and slide right up to the bank. That’s when I send Old Sport here over to fetch me one. See, have a bite!" holding up a big hunk of catfish. "Southern fried!"

"No, thank you sir," I replied as I turned for the door.

He got up and tossed another hush puppy into the air for a repeat performance and said "Ain’t he a goodun?"

Driving on home I got to wondering how cold it would be the next morning……..catfish jumping and sliding right up to the bank…….no way, forget it!

I’d kind of taken a liking to the old man and the next morning I stopped and walked up to the front door. That house was empty. No dog and no old man!

The man who owned the pond across the road told me later that no had lived there in years!

Fish tales you hatch
Should always match
The catch.
But bigger ones
Are sometimes found
By a hungry, flop eared,
Blue tick hound.
On frozen pond!
Or, in your mind?