November 20, 2017 - The Gregstons were our “down-the-hill” neighbors when our family moved to Shelbyville, Texas in 1950. They were almost as poor as were…but not as poor….because they owned a cow….and their cow’s milk and butter they kindly shared with us. Their son Kenneth and I became close friends and often fished together in Dr. Jack Windham’s Lake.
When I was discharged from the Army, Kenneth invited me to go fishing with him again at Dr. Jack’s Lake. “We’ll put in at the button willows and head straight to our favorite spot”, he said. The next morning, we turned into the woods near the First Methodist Church, and within minutes were pulling in fish with almost every cast. In less than an hour our fish basket was full and Kenneth chuckled, “Let’s go in”. “We’ve got too many already”. And as I was lifting the basket into the boat, it slipped from my hands and headed straight toward the bottom. I snatched off my shoes and hollered, “I’m going after them!” “No, Henry…No!”, Kenneth shouted back. ”This water is 15 feet deep!”
As I moved downward, the water got cold…and then completely black. Unable to touch bottom, I frantically started toward the surface when an amazing thing happened. My right foot slipped right under the basket’s bail (!) and it was still there when I exploded at the water’s surface. Kenneth tearfully repeated, “I told you, Henry”. “I told you!” “I thought you had drowned.” I rolled on my back, raised the basket with my foot my foot and calmly said, “Get ‘em Kenneth”. The surprised look on his face is one I’ll never forget.
When Pam and I stopped on the Shelbyville Hill last week, my memory flashed back to 66 years ago…to 1950. I showed her our house on the hill, the Old Mill Pond and told her about Dr. Jack’s oil derrick and his lake in the woods. I also told her about the day Kenneth and I went to catch “a mess of fish” for supper and wound up catching a basket-full… not once…
…but twice.
