The Young Boy and the Creek 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

When spring finally came in my third grade year  and I was deemed old enough to fish in the creek by myself. I was nine years old that March. I am not sure why it took Mom so long to come to the conclusion that I was old enough.  I knew every inch of the creek from our upper line fence, through our hill country and across to Herman’s field all the way to the bridge at the highway, maybe a distance of a mile or so.

My only problem now was school. The weekend only provided limited time at the creek. Dad had to drive the car to work. I figured that if I was sick until the bus was gone, Mom would have to let me go to the creek. Friday morning came, and Mom came upstairs to wake us boys up. The 3 of us shared an upstairs bedroom. My sister had the other room to herself.

 “I’m sick to my stomach.,” I told Mom.

“Okay, you can stay in bed,” Mom said.

I laid there and listened for the bus. When I was sure it had pulled out and headed down the road I sprang from the bed. I was confident that the monster was not under the bed this morning because I had watched my brothers get up and get dressed. I made my usual trip down the stairs, bounding down several steps at a time, with a final jump from four steps up, trying desperately to touch the ceiling that crossed the lower staircase.

Mom was in the kitchen. I stood close to the wood stove, the only source of heat in the house.  “I am feeling better,” I said.

“Oh, no you don’t, you go back to bed. You have to stay in bed at least until noon,” Mom said.

I had not counted on that, but that would be okay. Without a breakfast, I could get hungry early then go fishing in the afternoon, I thought as I headed back up the stairs.

Mom finally called me to come down for lunch. She had been working in the garden all morning. We had a large garden, about 1/2 acre.  I was already dressed in my work clothes. We sat at the dinning room table by the window. Mom always liked to sit where she could watch her lilac bush, flowers in the yard and the distant traffic on the highway. There were seldom more than 1 or 2 cars during lunch. Today we had an egg salad sandwich and a small dish of canned pears. Not my favorite, Mrs. Lilly would be serving her chili at the school today. 

This year was the first year that we had a school cafeteria. It was added on the back of the gym. All the mothers had worked with Mrs. Lilly during the summer and fall, canning stuff from the garden and all sorts of fruit.  But my favorite by far was Mrs. Lilly’s chili.  Only the chance of catching fish by myself would lure me away from that lunch.

I helped clean up the table after lunch. Summoned all my courage and then I spoke, “I’m feeling a lot better now, and I am sure bored.”

“You should have gone to school,” Mom said.

“Maybe I should go fishing,” I replied.

“Okay, you can go fishing. But you don’t go too far down the creek. If you can see the highway you have gone too far. And don’t you get yourself wet, you stay on the bank, and stay off the log jam.”

I was out the door in a shot. I grabbed the willow pole that I had cut and rigged last weekend from the cabinet on the back porch. I also picked up my little canister of tackle. I opened it to see what was left, 1 split shot, 1 hook and small, mostly empty, spool of leader.  I would have to be careful in the logjam hole. Maybe I would avoid that hole today, I thought. 

The pole was a cut willow branch about 5 feet long. I had cut a notch in the end and tied a length of line maybe 8 feet long.  I tied a loop in the end of that line and attached the hook with its short leader there. One splint shot above the knot and the rigging was complete. This was precious tackle. This was all there was. 

My brother and I would take the wagon on Saturday mornings and walk to Broadbent, about 2 miles down the road. We picked up bottles along the way. When we turned in the bottles at the store we got 1 cent for beer bottles, 2 cents for pop bottles and 5 cents for large quart size bottles. Mostly there were beer bottles.

With the money we bought our fishing tackle. Once in awhile on a good day there would be money left over for a candy bar or something. We could usually make the tackle last until the next trip but the logjam hole could eat a lot of tackle. That hole had the biggest fish. To fish it best you had to climb out on the logjam and fish down the cracks. Mom didn’t like to see us do that, but the biggest fish were there.  Today I would fish at the falls and be satisfied.  I picked up an empty tuna can from the trash and headed for the manure pile beside the barn.

We always just left the shovel stuck in the ground by the edge of the manure pile. If you could turn over a scoop of dirt by the edge there were generally enough worms for the afternoon.  It was hard for me to turn that scoop. Sometimes when I was by myself I had to dig in the manure pile.  The worms were small there. I jumped on the shovel to drive it into the ground and leaned back on the handle hard.  It flipped up on large scoop of dirt, and it was loaded with worms.  I filled the can quickly.

I headed across the field to the falls.  They were on Herman’s land but that was okay.  I could hear the roar of the water as it spilled over the low falls, maybe 5 or 6 feet high.  The hole here was deep and I could usually catch as many fish as I wanted here.  Once in awhile I would catch one that was 10 or even 12 inches but not as often as at the logjam.  With my pocketknife I cut a willow fork to hold the fish as I climbed down the bank. I had carried a pocketknife since I was 5 years old. All the boys at school had a pocketknife, we often played mumbley-peg at school during recess and lunch.

When I got to the hole I sat on the rock ledge beside the falls and threaded a worm on the hook, pinching off the excess worm. If the fishing was good I would need all the worms I had. I stood up and drop the line into the water just outside of the bubbles made by the falls. As usual, there was no wait, I had my first fish almost as soon as the worm hit the water.  I quickly unhooked it and broke its neck with my finger in its mouth and bending its head back. Then I placed in on the willow fork. I touched up the worm on the hook and added a little more worm. 

Returning the line to water, there was another fish, again, almost instantly. In a half hour time I had a dozen fish on the willow fork, all of them about 8 inches long. I was sure I could easily catch a dozen more, but I wanted to catch some bigger fish.  The logjam was about 3 holes down the creek. It was the last hole before the road was in view. I thought I would skip the 3 holes and go right to the log jam. Mom would never know.

It was good weather and the sun was out; the logs were dry. I liked to fish from the two large logs near the downstream edge of the logjam. They were the easiest to stand on and had a good gap between them. It always seemed that the bigger fish were under those logs. I lowered my worm into the gap between the logs. Again, almost instantly, there was a hookup. This was a bigger fish than the others, I would guess 11 inches. It took a little longer to tend to fish at this hole because I had to go to the bank each time. In the next half hour I had a total of 4 more fish, all between 10 and 12 inches. 

I lowered the wormed hook into the water between the logs. This time there was a funny tug on the line. I raised it again, slowly. A large trout followed it toward the surface before sinking back into the depth of the water. This was a large trout, maybe the largest I had seen in this creek. My heart raced and I lowered the line back into the depths of the water. Bam! There was a big strike on the line. I pulled and the fish pulled. The willow pole bent almost double. He slowly came to surface and the water between my feet exploded. He made a strong dive. Again I pulled and he struggled. Then my pull was against dead weight. He must of wrapped the line around a snag.  I was sick, not only was I about to lose this fish but I was going to lose the tackle also.

When I looked over the downstream edge of the log I could see the large trout still on the hook, struggling against the snag. If I could get down there, maybe I could catch him by hand and maybe even retrieve my tackle. I laid down the willow pole and went back to the bank, moving down the creek to a point I could get into the water. The water below the hole was not deep. The water was very cold. As I approached the hole I could see the trout. He was hung up on a small branch on a short piece of line. When I got close enough to reach him I was in waist deep water. I reached in and grabbed the fish, when I got a finger through his gills I was able to unhook him.

What a prize. It was probably 15, maybe even 16, inches long. I got him to bank. He was too big for me to break his neck. I took my pocketknife and severed his spine at the base of his skull.  After adding him to the willow fork, I returned to creek to try to retrieve my tackle. I found the stick the line had been wrapped around but it was not the now. There was another hook imbedded in the same stick however. When I retrieved this hook it still had some line attached and a split shot.  I was able to reach the willow pole on the log. I pulled my line up with no problem. 

This had been a great afternoon. Not only had I caught the biggest fish in the creek but I was coming home with more tackle than when I left the house. I gathered everything up and headed for the house. Even with the sun out, I was already chilled. Mom was going to be upset, but she would feel better when she saw this fish. I remember how excited she was when my oldest brother caught a 20 inch fish in the river last fall.

Mom was waiting on the porch as I crawled through the fence into the yard. She had her hand on her hips and a frown on her face. Mom never got really mad. She just said she was got disappointed.

“I thought I told you not to get wet!” she said.

“Mom, I couldn’t help it, this big fish almost got away,” I replied, holding up the willow fork filled with fish.

She took the mess of fish and started for the kitchen.  “You get out of those wet clothes and get in by the fire before you catch pneumonia,” she said.

I stripped down on the porch and put my clothes in the hamper by the wringer washer. Now I was really cold. I scampered into the kitchen and huddled up to the wood stove.

“You bring your shoes in behind the stove, I will get you a blanket,” she said.

I ran out, grabbed my shoes and returned to the stove. As I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders, I could start to feel the warmth return to my body. It had been a great afternoon.

Monday morning, as I was hurrying out the door to catch the school bus, Mom handed me a neatly folded note.

“Here is your excuse for Friday, you give it to your teacher when first get to school,” she said.

On the bus I took the note out of my pocket and carefully unfolded it. It read: “Please excuse David from school last Friday. He was ill.”

Photo by David Mark on Pixabay.

The Nineteenth Hole

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Preface: 

This year of 2022 is seeing continued violence on many fronts. We watch the evening news, and there are daily shootings in Portland. The city crumbles under incompetent leadership. The political divide in this country seems to prevent many people from crossing party lines at the voting booth to effect change, much-needed change. 

And now, another horrific school shooting. There is outrage, and there was cowardice on the part of those responsible for protecting us, the people. The anger is being directed against the gun. So the politicians will pass a bunch of laws. Most of those will have little or no impact on future events, but the politicians will be able to pat themselves on the back and declare that they did something. 

And they and we continue to ignore the elephant in the room. We ignore the fact that society is sick. Some individuals pass through our system in great need of help, and the system fails to recognize their plight. 

Is it the drug culture? Is it the fatherless home? Is it grandparents raising grandchildren when they failed in the upbringing of their children? Who knows the answer? And in this divided society, this woke society, those questions can’t even be addressed.

But that was not always the case, and the nineteenth hole was not just for drinking beer.

***

My ball was perched on the closely mowed grass of the fairway. That, in itself, was unusual. My drive had been almost perfect for the eighteenth hole on Pineway. It ended up just beyond the one-fifty bush and on the left side of the fairway. I pulled my eight-iron from my bag.

“You amaze me sometimes, Larsen,” Mike said as he watched me address my ball. “I couldn’t begin to reach that elevated green from here with an eight iron.”

“You know me, I haven’t got there yet,” I said. “This ball could end up anywhere. But this is the most consistent club in my bag, and if I hit it well, you and Gil will be buying the beer.”

I positioned the clubhead behind and ball and gripped the club, first tight, and then I loosened my grip. I could feel the perspiration on my hands.

I stepped away and wiped my hands on the towel hanging from my bag.

“Are you sweating from the sun or from nerves? Mike asked.

“It has been a hot afternoon,” I said. “I was just thinking of sitting on the veranda with that beer you will buy.”

I addressed the ball again. I looked down at the alignment of my stance and my club. My hands and arms were tanned to a deep brown, attesting to the hot summer this year.

I swung hard, the ball bounced on the green, and it climbed up the hill behind the green. It came to rest for a brief moment. I held my breath. It would be a difficult chip from there. Then the ball rolled back down the hill onto the green.

“That happens to you enough that it can’t be all luck,” Mike said. “But you will still need to make the putt to get that beer.”

When we all got up to the green, the match was all but decided before any putts were made. Jim’s ball was close to the pin, almost close enough for him to be given the putt, and I was close also. Gil was off the green with a difficult chip, and Mike had a long putt.

Jim was given his putt, and the match was settled. Gil and Mike paid up as we walked to the cars to put up our clubs. The few dollars that changed hands were a token expense. And the protocol dictated that winners buy the beer. When it was all over, money-wise, you were better off being on the losing side.

We picked up our beer as we passed through the bar and took our seats around the open table on the veranda. I sat back and enjoyed the slight breeze.

“Did you guys read where a guy shot a couple of guys at the campground up by Mountain House?” Gil said.

“Apparently, he was a crazy guy,” I said. “I think had converted derelict camper van has been around town for several weeks.”

“That is getting a little scary,” Jim said. “When you can’t go to a campground and feel safe unless you carry a gun.”

“I don’t even own a handgun,” Gil said. “But I have been thinking that it would be a good investment.”

“Do you have a handgun, Dave?” Jim asked.

“Yes, I have one,” I said. “I bought it when I first came to town, just to have in case I needed it to shoot a horse or something. I don’t like the things. After graduating from high school, I bought a twenty-two Ruger automatic pistol. My dad said you will just shoot yourself in the foot with it. And I almost did, so I sold that thing.”

“I would guess that you would be hesitant to shoot somebody if you were in a situation,” Gil said.

“I crossed those bridges in my mind many years ago, Gil,” I said. “I wouldn’t hesitate to use it if I had to. And the guy wouldn’t be telling any stories afterward.”

“It would make me nervous about having one in the house,” Jim said.

“Well, I figure it’s better than being pinned down and throwing rocks at the guy with a gun,” I said. “Besides, I don’t throw any straighter than I hit the golf ball.”

“What about you, Mike? Do you have a handgun?” Jim asked.

“Yes, I have one,” Mike said. “We carry it when we travel, especially if we are going to Portland. My thinking goes right along with Dave’s. And I don’t throw rocks very well either.”

“Once, when the kids were little, we went on a backpacking trip into Donaca Lake,” I said. “We bumped into a kid who hiked with us a way. He was a good-looking kid, but I kept him in front of me, and I felt much better with the pistol on my hip. You just never know; Ted Bundy was a good-looking kid, too.”

“That makes a lot of sense to me,” Jim said. “I guess I agree with everything you say. Around here, you would be waiting a couple of hours for the cavalry to arrive if you called for help.”

“Well, I have to run,” I said. “Now that we have everybody armed, maybe we can solve the abortion issue next week.”

“Ha! That’s a good one,” Jim said. “How do you feel about that?”

“I would never have one myself,” I said. “But it is sort of a fact of life these days. And all hell would break loose if that was changed.”

“That’s a point never discussed much,” Mike said. “Just what kind of response would there be if the anti-abortion side ever won out?”

“Next week, guys, I have to run,” I said as I took the last swallow from my glass.

Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.

Hallowed Ground, Prefaced, From the Archives

Preface

  I have posted this story before on this blog, but it is the most fitting story I have for a Memorial Day post. It speaks to the tremendous sacrifice suffered from a small group of farm families living along the banks of Catching Creek, a small tributary to the Coquille River.

I grew up in Oregon’s Coquille River Valley in the 1940s and 1950s. After a stretch in the US Army from 1965 to 1969, I returned to school and graduated from Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine in 1975. I practiced in the foothills of the Oregon Cascade Mountains for 40 years.

The loss of my close childhood friend, Don Miller, was the driving force for my return to school following my tour in the US Army.

             Dave Larsen

Hallowed Ground

D. E. Larsen, DVM

  We hurried across the cow bridge at the upper end of Uncle Dutch’s farm. We were in a hurry because we planned to hunt up to the Bartlett farm this afternoon. This would require us to cross Catching Creek one more time, and that crossing would have no bridge. Don Miller and I were in the fall of our 8th-grade year. Living on neighboring farms out of Myrtle Point, we hunted ducks and anything else along the creek as often as we could.

  Don was a little smaller than I, but we were both stout young men and growing as we hurried along. I had on pair of hand-me-down hip boots. Don was in tennis shoes. That meant that I would have to carry Don across the creek piggyback. 

 As we rushed across the field toward Bartlett’s lower ground, a ruffed grouse sprang from the creek bank. We generally collected several wood ducks on these evening hunts. Occasionally, we would run into a flock of mallards. If we were lucky, a China rooster would cross our path. But this grouse was an unexpected surprise, and he was quickly dispatched.

  We had been hunting the creek for a couple of seasons now, and we were crack shots with our shotguns. We knew every riffle in the stream, and we knew where we could expect ducks. Most of the time, we didn’t have enough time to get this far up the creek. We would have to hurry to get back to our fields to shot ducks as they came back down the creek heading to roost in the swamp near town.

  When we came to the creek crossing, I pulled my boots up, and Don jumped on my back. With Don holding both shotguns, we crossed the creek with no problems. We had worried about this ford when we were planning to hunt higher in the creek. We hunted along the creek in Bartlett’s lower field, jumping a group of mallards. Don and I both added a large mallard drake to our bag. This was a great addition to our typical hunt.

  As we headed back down the creek, I stumbled while carrying Don across the ford. We came close to ending up in the water. I did recover my balance and ran the last few steps to the far bank. We sat and rested and laughed at the near disaster. We knew it would have made the trip down the creek a chilly walk.

  We had about a mile to go. We didn’t need to follow the creek going down. We had jumped all the ducks on the way up the creek. We just wanted to get to our field at the base of the Cowhorn (our field was named for its shape, the Cowhorn on our side of the creek, and Horseshoe Bend on Uncle Dutch’s side). The ducks flying down the creek in the evening would cross this field every evening. We seldom hit a duck here. They were high and flying fast, but it gave us a lot of fun shooting, and just maybe we would get one.

  As we reached the field, we had to follow the creek a short distance to reach our shooting area. We both stopped at the same time. There were riffles, many of them, in a quiet area of the creek. This had to mean a whole flock of ducks. We spread apart, crouched a little, and snuck along the creek bank. Expecting to see the sky fill with ducks, we burst into an open grassy area of the bank, guns at the ready.

  There were no ducks. A cow was floundering in the water. She seemed unable to recover her footing and was struggling to keep her head above water. I laid my shotgun and game bag down, pulled up my boots, and entered the creek to hold her head.

  “Don, run over to Lundy’s and call Dad,” I shouted to Don.

  He dropped his gear and took off like a shot. 

  The cow settled down a little with me holding her head. It was going to be 20 or maybe 30 minutes before anybody got here. I was glad I had my hip boots.

  The first to arrive was Vern Lundy and Don. They drove in Vern’s old pickup. Dad was on his way with the tractor, an old Ferguson, a small but function tractor. Next to arrive was Uncle Dutch and Grandpa. They stopped and tended the gate while Dad drove the tractor through the gate and up to the creek bank.

  Dad came into the water with me, standing on the other side of the cows head. He had a large cotton tow-rope.

  “We are going to tie this around her neck and pull her out with the tractor,” he said.

 “Won’t that break her neck?” I asked.

  “Not if we do it right, now you watch. We are going to tie a bowline with the knot placed under her chin. The rope will be tight against the back of her head,” he said as demonstrated the knot and the placement of the rope. 

  When he was done, he looked at me and said, “Savvy?”

  “Savvy!” I replied

  “Now you do it,” he said as he undid his knot and handed me the rope.

  With little problem, I wrapped the rope and around her neck, pulled it tight against the back of her head and ears, and tied a bowline that fit under her chin.

  “Good,” Dad said, “Now, hold her head until I start pulling her, then you move out of the way, so you are not in the bite of the rope in case it breaks or something.”

  With the rope secured to the tractor, Dad started pulling the cow, I moved away, and the tractor pulled the cow up the grassy bank and up to a level spot in the field. The men were quick to untie her and help position her half sitting up. I waded to shore, still thankful that I was dry. 

  “The vet is on his way, he should be here before too long,” Grandpa said.

  “I have to get heading for home, or it will be dark by the time I get there,” Don said as he picked up his shotgun and ducks.

  I watched as Don started across the Cowhorn, headed for Felcher Lane, that would lead him to his house. We both knew that we hunted and fished on hallowed ground. Less than 20 years before, this same ground was covered by Phil Bartlett, who was lost when he crashed his Navy fighter plane into a mountain on a night mission in the Pacific. Stan Felsher also covered this same ground, he died in the Batan Death March. Bayoneted by a Japanese soldier while on a detail to gather firewood. Bob Lundy was decorated for his service on a flight crew in the Pacific, and my Uncle Ernie was a bomber pilot. I had several cousins who fought in Korea, a couple of them in the thick of things. 

  What we did not know was that Don had but 7 years left to live. He would be killed by a 50 caliber round in a friendly fire misadventure in Vietnam. I received that news in a letter from Mom while I was stationed in Korea. This was, indeed, hallowed ground. A tremendous sacrifice of young men from such a small area of close-knit farm families.

  Dr. Haug, the veterinarian, arrived shortly. He hurried through a quick exam and started an IV, I guessed he probably had dinner waiting. When Dad asked him what he thought about the cow being in the creek, he was pretty brief. “The creek just got in her way as she was going down, this cow has milk fever,” he said.

  Dr. Haug finished the second bottle and put his stuff away. Slapping the cow on her back, she was quick to right herself and get to her feet. Everybody was relieved.

  “It probably would be a good idea to put her in the barn tonight, that will help her warm-up. It is unlikely that she will go down again, but if she does, there won’t be any duck hunters to find her tonight,” Dr. Haug said, glancing at me with a smile.

  Dad and Uncle Dutch started the cow toward the barn, I knew I would be expected to finish the job. I picked up my shotgun and game bag, and as I passed Dr. Haug, I asked, “Which do you want, the mallard drake or the ruffed grouse.”

  He was quick to take the grouse, smiled, and said, “Thanks,” as he got into his truck and headed to the gate. I hurried to catch up to the cow.

Epilogue:

Stan Felsher:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56788026/stanley-r_-felsher/photo

Phil Bartlett:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/115949598/phillip-f-bartlett

Don Miller:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/103386505/donald-gene-miller

http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=35282