Beer a Snake and Me

PBR Beer, a Snake and Me

by: RV Daniels



True stories , over time, have the ability to enlarge themselves. Many would consider this to
be embellishment or as Mama called it " a pocket full of lies". Mama knew grandpa's memory also had an expansive quality depending upon the audience at hand.

Grandpa liked to tell fishing stories.

This may have been due to the fact that south Georgia in the mid sixties offered very little else to do other than farming and that's just work. This is one of grandpa's fishing tales but I will swear it's true because I was there when it happened.

It all started real early one summer day in 1968. Daddy woke me up and we followed the smell of coffee and ham frying down to the kitchen.

Granny was the most wonderful lady in the world for no matter what time you got to her kitchen she had something good to eat ready and usually in amounts sufficient to feed a small army.

My Daddy, Papa and me ate our biscuits with ham , sausage , fried potatoes and eggs, packed up some more for lunch in the boat and off we went to the swamp. Uncle L.D. met us with his boat and a case of PBR.

A South Ga. Tradition

To fish in the deep south one must first lubricate the body thoroughly with alcohol. At the time my small boys small brain concluded that this must hide you from the fish. What fish would take a drunk farmer as a serious threat?

Papa, Daddy and L.D. were getting pretty well-oiled by the time we got to Poor Robins Springs. I can only think that their oiling up was adequate cause we right away started catching catfish and bream.

My Daddy seemed so tall standing in the middle of the boat casting his hook out in the swamp. I wanted to be just like him back then and catch lots of big catfish, too.

The cypress knees were all around us in the shallow swamp water and I even saw a big old gator swimming in the black water.

Papa veered the boat away from old toothy but then something really scary happened. The boat bumped into a cypress root and something really bad happened then.

oops!

A big old water moccasin had been sunning himself on that tree root and our john boat bumping into the tree knocked him off and into the front of the boat. Well you can imagine that 3 drunks, one small boy and one pissed off snake was too much for one boat.

My Daddy tried to fix this problem with a 32 caliber pistol. With a lot of loud yelling and a bang my pop blew something all the way to hell. It was the front of the boat.

The snake decided he'd had enough boat ride and swam out through the hole while Uncle LD got hold of Daddy and yelled " bail damn you!".

Using hats and a skillet brought to cook fish with they bailed for dear life as Papa headed the boat for shore as fast as that 25 horse motor could go. Every time the front of the boat hit the water it flooded more.
We made it to the swamps edge just as the boat went under and climbed out all wet and sorry looking. They got the boat out and on the truck and made me swear on Jesus not to tell a soul.

So there it is. The true story of PBR, a water snake and me.

Ó07/12/09