A Dip in the Lake

I was only four when I took my first dip in Caddo Lake. Both of my parents loved to fish and they did most of their fishing with worms on a hook dangling from cane poles. This they did while sitting on a boat dock jutting out into the lake.

The sport was far too passive for Brother Jack and me, and we often wound up playing cowboys and Indians instead. Jack and I were usually cowboys, as movies in the fifties most often portrayed Indians as villains - Tonto and Little Beaver noted exceptions. We both had felt cowboy hats, boots, and holsters complete with cap pistols. Because of our noisiness, the parents were happy to have us wander off to some other place and play.

It was one those hot Louisiana summer days, with not enough wind blowing to ripple the Spanish moss draping from the bloated cypress trees that grew in the shallow water near the bank. Mom and Dad were concentrating on their red bobbers floating in the coffee-colored water, at the ends of their lines. Realizing that no one was paying any attention to us, Jack and I went looking for a little shade, and a little fun.

There were boat docks every hundred feet or so, all extending well out into the shallow water. No one minded much if someone fished, or used them to play cowboys and Indians. Jack is two years older than I am and we were very close while growing up. That did not mean that we never had any disagreements.

Jack was always bigger and constantly used his strength to bully or taunt me, whenever he could get away with it. He was having a grand time snatching my cowboy hat and sailing it into the air. Jack loved to see my face turn red. The madder I became, the more he would torment me. My felt cowboy hat was my prized possession, and I was less than happy seeing it landing in the dirt.

When I finally retrieved my hat, I ran away from Jack, my hands clamped on the brim to keep him from yanking it off again. I made a strategic error by running onto a ramp extending into the lake; I quickly realized big brother would have me cornered once I reached the end of the dock.

He was almost on me when I spotted an old paddle propped up against the railing. Grabbing it as I reached the end of the dock, I twirled around to face my brother. When I took a swing at him with the paddle, he grabbed the other end. When I yanked, he pushed.

I was at the end of the dock. Losing my footing, I sailed backwards into the tepid water. I could not yet swim but it didn’t matter. Water barely came up to my chest, but I was frightened because Jack started yelling, “Look out, there’s an alligator behind you.”

Jack stopped laughing when I started screaming bloody murder as I attempted in vain to crawl up the algae-slick posts that supported the dock. My desperate wailing soon got the attention of my Mom and Dad who dropped their poles and came running.

“What in cornbread hell are you two into now?” my Dad yelled as he rushed toward me, just ahead of my Mother. He quickly reached down and pulled me out of the water.

Jack did not stick around to see the action. Expecting a whipping, he ran toward the car and hid. Dad did not bother. He had a fish on the line, handing me, wet and flopping, to my Mother and then hurrying back to his fishing pole.

Mom fished my hat out of the lake and then took me to the car, stripped off my wet clothes and draped them on the hood of the car to dry. With only a frown and shake of her head, and not a single word of reprimand, she hurried back to the fishing dock to see what my Dad had caught.

Brother Jack finally came out of the bushes, still laughing but more subdued because of his fear of a whipping. He also had the good sense to realize how upset that I was, my favorite cowboy hat lying in a misshapen lump on the hood of the brown and white Ford sedan.

My parents never punished Jack for pushing me into the lake and I was not too upset because my Mom somehow managed to reshape my cowboy hat and dry out my boots. That hot summer day, long ago, was not my first fight with Brother Jack, but it was my first dip in Caddo Lake.

Fiction South