Anyway, Charlie's family bought a rustic cabin on Lake Burton near Clayton, Georgia. It was a two bedroom, no bath number with a huge room that served as living room, dining room and kitchen. The living room was dominated by a massive stone fireplace made from local stone hand carried from nearby streams. Its mantel was a split log so big it was supported by what looked like the ends of two power poles. When we went there, which was almost every weekend, the family shared the bedrooms and I slept in a bunk built into the living room. It was all cozy, and I felt like a member of his family.
Outside a steep hill fell away from the house to the driveway and little goat path that ran around the lake. It was this hill in later years that we pushed, shoved and cajoled a cast iron bathtub up when it came time to add indoor plumbing to the house. I remember being on the downhill side of that tub praying to God that Charlie, his dad and two brothers wouldn't let go. It wouldn't have taken much for that tub to flatten me as it picked up gravitational aided speed! But they held, and we got it successfully into the cabin.
As nice as that cabin was, Charlie and I preferred to sleep in a tent alongside the river. Our spot of choice was the Tate Branch of the Tallulah River near the community of Persimmon. It was primitive camping, but we didn't care. We'd explore the river on foot, usually walking and jumping from rock to rock for hours each day. Our imaginations ran as wild as the river so we fought imaginary battles, rescued damsels and were generally heroes to and for each other. It was the perfect idyllic setting for two boys to play in. Of course, it was dangerous as hell, but we didn't give that any thought at all.
When it was eating time we'd do one of three things. Since it was such a truck into town, we'd go back to the cabin or 'drop in' on Ma Kilby at Wellborn's store or catch our meal and eat it there. If we went to the cabin Charlie's mother would load us down with some of the world's finest food (It was there I learned to eat onion rings, but that's another story), and in return we performed some chores around the house. If we went to Ma Kilby's she fed us 'till we couldn't move and would send some more off with us. She wouldn't take money or chores from us, so we really liked going to her place. If we stayed on the river, we ate trout and whatever we brought along.
Back then we called it catching instead of fishing. That's because the hatchery at Moccasin Creek would run a tanker truck along the river very slowly while a ranger stood atop it dipping trout out of the water inside and tossing them out by the netfulls into the river. CB radios would start hummin' as soon as the truck left the hatchery, letting everybody know the fish truck was on its way. It would have probably been more sporting had we tried to catch them in the air, because these fish were raised on pellet food. We fished with niblets corn that looked like the pellets (If you got hungry while you were fishing, just grab a handfull of bait!). It didn't take much for them to hit the bait and begin their journey to our frying pan. It's because of this I didn't catch my first wild trout until I went to Montana.
But that wasn't the coolest part. The coolest part was breakfast. Before the days of fancy mesh gear bags we'd bring our perishable foods to the river in an old orange sack or onion bag. These were flimsy mesh bags that we'd stuff with bacon, condiments, sandwich meats and above all eggs. Now the water was cold. I mean cold. It didn't take but a few minutes of wading in it for my feet to go numb -- and that was in July. So it was effective at keeping our food chilled.
But it had another, more interesting effect on eggs. It congealed them. That's right; the eggs in the morning were as solid as boiled eggs, but raw. So we started a new game: Which one of us could peel a raw egg before it began to run? Of course this was played out over the frying pan, but it was fun just the same. I don't think we ever made it all the way, as our body heat worked against us, but we had a blast doing it. Of course, none of our friends back home believed us, but we never brought them along to see. Something like that was saved for best friends to share.
