Sunday, July 6, 2014

Greenwood

Greenwood, MS : Old Billboard proclaiming Greenwood's claim to fame
FROSTOP




YAZOO RIVER BRIDGE




























Evelyn's Dress Shop
Naaman & Ola's
Goldberg's
Stein's Jewelry
Madole's Bakery
Steele Furniture Company
Midwest Farms Dairy
Abide's
Chaney's

Fishing

Summertime and Fishing! Oh what wonderful, stinky memories. Not only did we have trot-lines, we had boxes!

Since my daddy had no sons, we 2 daughters had to step up and get down and dirty. And we loved it. Never was there so sweet a time as being "one of the boys" on the river with daddy.
Now trot-lines are fairly common fishing tools, but we also has a secret weapon, which I have since come to learn was not exactly legal.
A baited box. In this you would place "stinky cheese". AND I DO MEAN STINKY. 
Since catfish are bottom feeders, the grosser the bait the better. Load this baby up, drop her in the water, anchor her down and come back in a day or two. 

There would be so many fish jammed in that box, my daddy would clean fish for hours. But all that cleaning lead to catfish in the freezer and fish frys!!
There is nothing better in the summer than a fresh fish fry with hushpuppies, french fries, coleslaw, fresh corn on the cobb and homeade ice cream!

That right there is a precious "Mississippi Sweet Tea Memory!"

Summer

Sparklers, bottle rockets, firecrakers, cherry bombs...... oh the sound of summer fun! This being the 4th of July weekend brought memories.

Fireworks still make me feel like a child. I can remember the Greenwood Christmas parade ending with fireworks on the river. I remember by daddy shooting bottle rockets from coke bottles in the driveway. How much fun we had with our Roman Candles and sparklers. We were such a big deal! Ha!

Another summer memory was after the flood of 1972. Crawfish were everywhere. The roads would look alive when they came out at night. At one point we strapped a 2x4 to a hoe and used it as a crawfish rake.

My daddy would just stick his and into the holes and drag them out. My sister and I felt to brave when faced with these irate critters! We would pluck them right up and drop them in the bucket.  
There was one weekend that included a slight mishap which would lead to CPS being called today.  My daddy took my friend and I out to an old gravel farm road. There we could scoop all the crayfish we wanted. While standing on the back truck bumper and holding on the tailgate we could see into the ditches and yell for daddy to stop.

After one such stop, we remounted and started off down the road. The truck couldn't have been going over 5 miles and hour, but the tailgate hadn't shut properly and soon she and I were on the ground being drug behind the truck. Screaming at the top of our lungs, but NOT letting go! My poor daddy. We let go, he stopped, we're all crying, she and I bleeding, the crayfish are snapping - It was a CIRCUS! 

Daddy checked our injuries, loaded us in the front of the truck and off we went home. I had scratched up knees. My friend had somehow flipped over and had scratched on her back! We never did figure out how she did that. We have more dirt and rocks than injuries. A little soap & water, peroxide and iodine and we were ready to go again!

I will say those were probably the best tasting crawfish ever eaten.