Benny's Hole

What a disaster. I started my journey home for the holiday weekend this morning at 6:00 a.m. I should have known better. Memorial Day weekend is one of the worst times of the year to travel, and trying to get a flight out of LaGuardia on this particular Friday was, let’s say, horrendous.

My flight was delayed…..delayed…..overbooked…..and yes, I hit the lottery. Late this afternoon I found out that I would not be leaving today, but rather on the 6:00 a.m. flight TOMORROW (that’s Saturday for all my retired friends who don’t keep up with the days anymore).

Soooo….I decided to do some more work on my book. Yes, I am writing a book. An adventure you might say, that began about 13 months ago. I’m getting close to the end, with about 300 pages written. I’ll bet you didn’t know I could put together that many words. But….I decided to let the cat out of the bag today, and let you know about it. So today, instead of writing about Auburn football mingled with a little southern humor/wisdom, I’m going to give you a tease. Hey, I’m tooting my own horn, o.k.??!! It’s been a long day, and besides…it’s my blog.

So here it is….a bit from my first novel, a work in process, tentatively entitled “Benny’s Hole”.

“Why do they have to wiggle so much?” Ellis asked.

Of course, this was wasn’t the first question he had asked since they kicked off their shoes, rolled up their blue jeans and headed for the creek bank. Ellis was always asking questions. “Why do clouds look like rabbits? Do you think we’ll see a snake? Can I catch a mud puppy? How many worms do we have?”

Ellis was struggling with a night crawler that just didn’t want to cooperate. Every time he attempted to stick the golden barbed hook into the worm, he seemed to wiggle out of the way. “Hold still!” he screamed at the grayish brown crawler, as if the worm had ears and could understand a shrieking Alabama drawl.

Frankie laughed to himself. Watching the determination on Ellis’s face, which was contorted with his short pink tongue rigidly sticking through the gap where his front teeth were supposed to be, made Frankie think of his mother. Not that his mother didn’t have her front teeth. It was just reminiscent of the way she slid her wire framed glasses down her long straight nose, got really close to her sewing needle, and with determination pushed a thread through the eyelet. She always seemed to stick her tongue out in the process.

“Got him!” Ellis screamed. And indeed he had. The night crawler seemed to flip back and forth, dangling from the hook that now pierced its midsection. Ellis finally slew the dragon…..or at least hooked the worm.

It was a “rite of passage”. No longer will the other boys call him a baby. He conquered his fear of the sharp barbed metal and the worm it skewered. He had overcome the fright of the wiggly unknown. He had experienced that dramatic moment when a boy finally and successfully baits his own hook.

“Will it bite?” “Will it bleed?” “Will worm guts come flowing out like boiled okra?”

Ellis had passed the hurdle. “He’s growing up,” Frankie though to himself.

Being the ten year old big brother of little Ellis, Frankie believed it was his job to show Little Brother the ropes. That included fishing for bream in Benny’s Hole.

On lazy spring days; it was the place Frankie migrated to. Not just for the fishing, although on a good day it would offer up enough blue gills for a small fish fry, but also because of the big hickory tree that had grown close to the creek bank.

Blue Jays and Starlings and Woodpeckers alike enjoyed the tree. Not only for the nuts it bore, or the nests it held, but also for the insects that seemed to inhabit it. The shade provided an ideal spot for a young boy to daydream about life and fishing while listening to the repetitious sound of a red-headed woodpecker tapping a hole just above him.

A dream of how one day he was going to get out of here, and leave all this behind.

So, if you want to know more about Ellis and Frankie….well…..one day in the not to distant future, you’ll have to read the book.

Take care.

WJLaneSR