Beardslee Lake and Memories

The weeds along the dirt path led from our house North through the field that was later to become the high school football stadium. It skirted a line of pine and live oak trees and fell slightly downhill to the landing where my father always kept a fishing skiff. I always looked with a bit of fear and apprehension each time I placed my foot along the path with the expectation of seeing a water moccasin lying in wait. I knew it had happened before. I'd heard many times the story of Peg Leg Joe, an old black man who lived behind the house of Mr. Walter Barber in a small building along the lane. Joe had once killed a moccasin as big thick as a large man's arm and I was certain it could happen again.

The giant live oaks were also our place to set homemade traps for flying squirrels. The next morning would always start early with a mad dash to inspect the traps before going to school. The traps were usually tripped by some of the more numerous gray squirrels which, because of their larger size, often knocked the traps from the trees or chewed their way out of them before I could get there. Either way; empty traps...no squirrels.

My most vivid, and often told memory of the Lake was going with the boy from the house behind mine to find an alligator alleged to have been shot and sunk in a place known precisely by my neighbor. This knowledge was attributed to the fact that the shooter was his uncle with a reputation for defending himself from alligators in the event they even looked like they were even interested in him. I suspect he judged them all to be interested.

At any rate, the boy had come to my house late in the afternoon and had to successfully convince my father that we two boys would be perfectly safe in retreiving this completely docile (most dead alligators are) creature who would be returned to his uncle who would skin and sell the hide. The money, though some would have thought it to be ill-gotten since killing alligators was illegal, would be divided three ways with the two of us boys each getting some fantastic sum. Possibly as much as $7 to $15 dollars each.

My father was a conservative, careful, and thoughtful man and, likely, the most honest man that ever lived. He was certainly the most honest that I ever knew. The idea of taking foolish chances on the water combined with the upfront admission that this adventure would involve the illegal act of selling an alligator would never pass muster with him! My friend had no chance. So, of course, my Dad let us go! I never figured out what happened.

We boys, actually small children with a combined body weight that scarcely exceeded 100 pounds, paddled North across Beardslee Lake in boat we referred to as a 'double ender'. More people today familiar with the boats made famous in South Louisiana would call it a pirogue. It was no more than 10 long and had less than six inches of free board (the distance from the water to the top of the boat's sides). We paddled around the point on which the Cunningham house stood and entered the smaller part of the lake with the sun setting at our backs. As our course changed from North to East, we noticed the lights of parked cars along the causeway from Moss Point to Escatawpa that gave evidence of some major event. And since the alligator was not far away from the cars and very little out of our way, we decided to investigate the lights before claiming our prize. Dead alligators would wait.

We will always owe a debt to Harold Rabby. It seems that Harold, a full-fledged adult with a son almost my age, had heard of the alligator's untimely demise and its location. and recognizing the value of the hide, had decided to raise it from its watery grave, skin it, sell the pelt, and share the money with no one. Except after gaffing and securing the gator to his boat that was infinitely more substantial than ours, it seems that a miracle occurred! The alligator was not dead. In fact , it remained lively enough to tow Harold more than two miles before tiring enough to be subdued, brought to land at the causeway, and inspected by the occupants of at least twelve or fifteen cars. At this time in Moss Point, Mississippi, this would classify as a world class traffic jam. In spite of our ages, it didn't take either of us boys too long to imagine our fate had the alligator (that was a full ten...or twelve...or twenty feet long) come back to life with us rather than Harold on the other end of the rope.

I remember the small islands that separated the lake from the river and spending nights camping out with friends. Our only worry was whether or not the fishing boats returning from the Gulf of Mexico to the menhaden plants would cause such a wake that the water would roll over our camp. It never did, of course, but since the highest part of the island was probably no more than four feet higher than the river's high tide mark, we probably had some right to be concerned.

I remember fishing the lake with my father and catching my first fish on a fly rod. And on another day, I remember my Dad catching a large bass on the South end of the lake by casting over a log, hooking the fish and having to work the fish over the log without losing him. And for some reason that I don't understand, I remember going with him on a bright Saturday morning in the Spring and catching a fine number of bream beside a uniquely shaped cypress tree. For years, I have often drifted past that same spot and have never seen the water more than a foot deep. While I don't believe that we possibly could have caught our fish in such shallow water, neither do I believe for a second that I remember the wrong tree.

Because that's definitely the way I remember it.