13 September 2020
With the pandemic and no place to go, I’ve been dragging out photo albums and spending some time scanning in images. Not sure a trip down memory lane is good for the soul in this time but there’s really not much else to do.
I didn’t do my morning walk because Dark Skys said it was about to rain. Of course, it never did but that also gave me more time to work the Sunday crossword puzzle – a habit I picked up from my Dad. Later I did manage to get in my yoga stretches but its really been just a kick back Sunday.
Anyway, back to memory lane. One of my more treasured memories was Dr. Burnam’s pond south of Tank Hill. In previous posts, I’ve mentioned all the kids fear of Mrs. McCoy’s pasture – both for her bull and her supposed shotgun. The way to Dr. Burnam’s pond was through the pasture.
In reality, you could get there by simply continuing south on the road past Tank Hill and cut across to the west. It was more fun chancing the non-existent shotgun.
My earliest recollection of Burnam’s pond was with my grandfather Holley – who everyone in the family called Datee – no, I don’t know why. I have a photo of him and Dr. Burnam. Datee is the one in the lighter colored pants. I started to say the one in the white hat and then realized Dr. Burnam had a white hat on. Then I shifted to suspenders but everyone wore those back in the day.
Much later in life, I was to rediscover Burnam’s pond as a Boy Scout. I was a patrol leader in Troop 28 in Morton and we were always looking for places to go on hikes. It wasn’t uncommon for me to go to the pond and skinny dip. One day our patrol decided to go there and have a picnic and swim. The only other person I can remember who was there was Buzz Shoemaker but there were about four of us. One thing about Buzz, he was really, really well endowed. I’m pretty much average in that category – not ashamed but also not too proud. No matter if they deny it, every boy or man always makes a comparison when standing next to someone in the all together. In my 71 years, Buzz takes the prize. Buzz was a goof ball and always had a joke he wanted to tell. I suspect as he reached his teen years he impressed a lot of women.
There was a pavillion on one side of the lake and we stashed our picnic supplies there. The one problem was to not eat before we went swimming. It had been hammered into our brain to wait one hour after a meal before entering the water. The real problem was none of us remembered to bring swim suits but we all agreed skinny dippin’ was the order of the day.
To this day I don’t know who owned the land there. No one ever said anything about being on the property, no one ever chased me away. I don’t remember ever seeing another human there on any of my visits. It was a little slice of paradise away from the eyes of a small town.
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Once I searched for it on Google Earth but didn’t find it. I did today. It looks as though algae have taken over the pond. Tank Hill is still there but the water tank has been dismantled.
Holley was a force to be reckoned with. I’ve previously related how he scared me as a little kid but gave me silver dollars with my mom’s birth year. He had a temper but in reality, he could be a gentle soul.
I’ve also posted he raised and fought chickens. Like most things in Mississippi, illegal (since the 1880’s) but still done. He loved his game chickens. There was even a national magazine for those who raised game chickens and he was even featured on the cover one year.
Not too long before he died, he obtained a chihuahua named Bitsy. That dog doted on him. I’ve heard that chihuahuas imprint on one human and that’s it. This one certainly did. It was his pride and joy. The dog had a box he lived in that was an old 22 caliber ammunition crate from the hardware.
After he died, Bitsy lived with my grandmother Ruby for a while but eventually the dog transferred her allegiance to my Dad. No one could approach Holley when he was alive – the dog would eat you alive. The same when my Dad took the dog.
I’ve never liked funerals after his death.
