DATE: Side
A: November 2, 1996.
INTERVIEWER:
LOCATIONS: Edward Couvillier’s house, 148 Oxford
Loop, Oxford, St. Mary Parish,
COOPERATORS: Ida
Sauce Daigle; Roy (Bootsie) Millet; Gloria Ann Marcotte; Edward Couvillier;
Lena Mae Couvillier; Alvin Marcotte; David Daigle; Ophelia (Yank) Sauce Millet
JD: tell us your full name…your whole name…
Bootsie: Roy Charles Millet.
JD: I didn’t know about Charles. [laughs] I didn’t know about the Charles.
Bootsie: That’s my full name.
JD: So,
he’s talking about some things…about his family lived on Myette Pt. for a long
time in a house. Well, he says he lived
there all the time [his whole life]
Bootsie: Well, when I was just comin up they didn’t have nobody else around there. Just one family, that’s all. That’s…I think, about 1945, that’s when people start moving there [to Myette Pt.].
JD: How old were you then?
Bootsie: Uh, you can figure it up, I’m 71 now.
JD: OK, so about 1945, you’re 71 now. OK.
Bootsie:
We never did have no…no line fishermens over there. Nobody fished lines. But the reason why, the lake was so big
you couldn’t get out there. Just
like the bay, it get so rough you couldn’t fish…you couldn’t fish lines.
They had a few net fishermen, that’s about it.
And all they had was cotton nets out there. About every two weeks they had to pick
them things up, tar em. Then when they
really got some line fishin, that’s when Myon
JD: That’s when…now y’all: were livin there before they dug the…before they built te levees, or not?
Bootsie: Aw yeah, we was there long time before that.
JD: You remember when your family settled there?
Bootsie: 1927.
JD: 1927…now, that was the big flood!
Bootsie: Yeah.
JD: That was the year when all the big flood took place.
Bootsie: We
was, you know where the channel cuts through [between Goat Isl
JD: The San Diego Channel? The main channel?
Bootsie: The
main channel, cuts from
JD: In that lil cut right now, the cut?
Bootsie: We
were living on the other side [on what would now be
JD: You
mean at the end of
Bootsie: Umhm. Right there, we had a big house built there.
JD: Uh, I’m not sure I underst
Bootsie: Now, wait now, in 19…uh, ‘28 or ’29, we moved that house. And we moved it back…
JD: Moved it back?
Bootsie: On this side the channel [the Cut]. That channel wasn’t there at that time, no!
JD: Was there a Goat Isl
Bootsie: No. There was no Goat Isl
JD: Oh, you did?
Bootsie: Yeah,
that’s why they call it Goat Isl
JD: I’ll be damned. I didn’t know that. That’s how it got that name?
Bootsie: Yeah.
JD: Did it have a name before that? Do you remember?
Bootsie: Myette
Pt. That was Myette Pt. I, I guess, about 1940, that’s when
we began to have people, you know, seeing, come
JD: Came to live in a houseboat, or the bank?
Bootsie: Houseboat. Houseboat. And, I think in 1929, they had old Pete Johnson, that was Charles Johnson’s daddy, he built a house out there. He never stayed there too long.
JD: How could y’all:…how could y’all: be there in a house on the bank in all that high water in ’27? What happened in ’27?
Bootsie: Well, I was too small to know, but, it never did take the house on Myette Pt. No, that’s a high hill out there!
JD: No kidding, huh? Even in ’27 with all that…?
Bootsie: 1945 was just as high as ’27 yeah!
JD: Well,
the thing about it is, by ’45 you had levees…no you didn’t…yeah, you did, you
had levees out there so you kept the water between the levees
Bootsie: Umhm. Yeah, that’s right. I can go show you some trees back there, in ’27 where the high water was. And, right now, I guess you must just have about three foot of that tree stickin out.
JD: Is
that right!? From the mud, from the s
Bootsie: From the mud done built up. From ’27, [all that’s left is] about three foot, now.
JD: No kidding?! Why did your family move there? Why did your family settle there? Do you…?
Bootsie: Well, my great, great gr
JD: What was his name, do you remember?
Bootsie: Ahhh, I think Joseph. I think, I ain’t sure, no.
JD: And that’s still [last name] Millet?
Bootsie: They still call it Myette Pt.
JD: I mean, he was a Millet?
Bootsie: Yeah. The only thing I regret, they…they changed spelling of the name of it now.
JD: How was it spelled?
Bootsie: M i l l e t. And the Corps of Engineers, they changed it to M y e t t e.
JD: The Corps of Engineers changed it? That’s when…that’s when it got changed?
Bootsie: Well, they just changed it a few years ago, eh Ed?
Edward: Umhm. Yeah.
JD: Hey David! David Daigle just showed up
JD: Well, I had no idea. So, when you were growing up, your family name was…was Millet, M i l l e t? But y’all: always pronounced it “me yet”?
Bootsie: “Me Yet”.
JD: Y’all: always did?
Bootsie: Yeah, always pronounced it “me yet”.
JD: And was your…was your family French speaking?
Bootsie: Uh, no, the Millets, they wasn’t French. My mother, she was French. She was an [pronounced “ahyo”]. And they was raised right, right on this… [nearby].
JD: You
started to say your great gr
Bootsie: Well, they was out here in 1912, they had a house built, right where we had the big house. And uh, that was the biggest high water they had at that time, 1912. They had made a levee, with shovels…see, that used to be all sugarcane out there. They had three sugar mills out there in that lake.
JD: In the lake?
Bootsie: Yeah, it’s lake now, but it was bank at that time. Three sugar mills there.
JD: No kidding!? Sugar mills! So, they lived there, and, they built a house…was the house on…on, on pilings or anything? Or was it…
Bootsie: No, just like these houses here, low…we didn’t have no water or nothin!
JD: I guess so, huh?
Bootsie: No
high water. Well, when we was
staying in that house back there, we used to
raise gardens
JD: What’d your family do for a living back there?
Bootsie: Well,
what I can remember…we…my daddy…I don’t know. He was a butcher at one time. We raised a bunch of cattle,
JD: Well,
now, the story that I have from…from these folks right here [Myette Pt. boat
people] is…I was real interested to see when they came in there with
houseboats,
Bootsie: Yeah, the year…I think 1945 or 1946 [when] they pulled them camps over.
JD: You helped pull the camps over, did you?
Bootsie: Umhm. I pulled…my camp…I pulled it across there with a 1935 Plymouth.
JD: You pulled it across with that?
Bootsie: Yeah. I made what they call a “vees pa y’all:”.
JD: What’s that?
Bootsie: That was a pole in the ground… a post, like that,…and they tied off on another tree, and they go round and round with that thing…
Edward: It’s just like a winch.
Bootsie: Just like a winch.
JD: You put a pole in the ground and wrap a rope around it, and then tie the rope to the car, or something?
Bootsie: You know how them cane derricks…them old cane derricks used to be? Them old mules [would] get on there and turn round and round.
Edward: You had bunch of spokes on it, you know, to go around?
Bootsie: And put you a tongue…
JD: And you drove that car round and round, or something like that?
Bootsie: At times, I did. And when we couldn’t…I mean, we pulled it up as far as we could by hand, and then I got in that old car and I pulled [it up like a winch].
JD: Right there and the end of what I call…right there at the end of the canal?
Bootsie: That old Lily Bayou.
JD: Lily Bayou?
Bootsie: That’s what was the name of it, Lily Bayou. [the original name for Myon’s Canal]
JD: And that was a…that was a…a cane field canal? Wasn’t it? A drainage canal for the cane fields?
Bootsie: Yeah.
JD: You say your camp…you had a campboat out there too?
Bootsie: Umhm. I bought a lil campboat, I was livin on the levee.
JD: So, you pulled yours over and y’all: all lived…you lived, where they were livin for a while?
Bootsie: Yeah. Umhm. All livin together on the levee, there.
JD: [to Edward] I didn’t know he was one of the ones who had a campboat in there?
Edward: We lived right in the bend there, he lived a lil bit further…
Bootsie: We was a lil bit further this way [toward the landing]
Edward: Not far, but a lil bit further.
JD: Well, if you grew up with a father who wasn’t a fisherman and y’all: were back there [on Myette Pt.], what did you grow up doing for a living, yourself?
Bootsie: Well, I fished a lil bit. At that time we…we didn’t have much to make a livin on, then, you know? And to live with. Sheee.
Edward: Didn’t need much.
Bootsie: Didn’t need much. No. Buy a sack of flour for nothin, and…
Edward: Jim, if you made six or seven dollars a week, you could live good.
Bootsie: We didn’t…we didn’t know what insurance was. We didn’t know what electricity was…
JD: Or expensive equipment either I imagine, huh?
Bootsie: No. Had them old gas boats. Them old potpots,
Edward: Lot of people had push…push oars too.
Bootsie: Yeah.
Uh, I think it was…um, I don’t remember when, I think it was in the
‘30s, I bought that…that bunch of hoop nets,
JD: You started fishin nets?
Bootsie: Umhm. I never was much of a line fisherman.
Edward: I remember…I remember when we used to catch a gar, a choupique or somethin me and Bootsie took [off] and head to the front with that sucker to sell it.
Bootsie: Aw yeah. [laughs]
Edward: Yeah
lord! They had a oak tree about…almost
middle ways along the trail [in the fields] goin to the lake,
Bootsie: Umhm.
Edward: Big old tree, man!
Bootsie: But he [Jim D] ought to remember that, if he come out here with his daddy.
JD: Yeah, but I don’t remember enough about it to say.
Edward: There wasn’t no such thing as ridin…walk to the front, over here. And they had them tokens out here, that’s what they’d pay us for the fish with, tokens.
JD: Tokens? What you mean?!
Edward: That’s what they had at Oaklawn.
Bootsie: Oaklawn Store, that’s all they would handle…them, uh…
Edward: Tokens.
Bootsie: Ah, what we used to call em, instead of tokens? Those old aluminum piece of…
Edward: They had a triangle hole in the middle of em.
JD: Yeah, I remember those tokens. That’s the kind of stuff they used to use during the war when you’d have rationing…is that what it was?
Bootsie: Umhm. Ole Sam Jones…
Edward: Yeah. You had to buy from Oaklawn Store with that.
JD: Wait. I want to get back to the start of that. You say…why were y’all: dealing with the Oaklawn Store? What was that?
Bootsie: That was the plantation store.
JD: Where
was it located?
Edward: Across the bayou, right after you get off the bridge…on the right hand side.
JD: Toward Medric’s?
Edward: When you get off the bridge and make a left goin to Medric’s, right on the right hand side.
JD: Yeah, so it was another store like Medric’s?
Bootsie: Well, it didn’t have no wine and nothin… just a grocery store.
JD: But I mean, it was like…it was a grocery store?
Edward: Bigger than Medric’s though.
JD: Umhm? It was bigger than Medric’s?
Edward: Yeah, it was a big store.
Bootsie: Now…
JD: So now, y’all: would deal with it…I gotta keep straight so I can get this typed out…y’all: dealt with that store to sell your fish? Or to buy your stuff?
Bootsie: Buy our stuff.
Edward: Them tokens. You sell your fish, get them tokens. You had to…
JD: So, wait, so who you sold your fish to… gave you tokens for your fish?
Bootsie: Yeah.
Lena Mae: Not many.
JD: Not many? Well, I mean, not…not…
Bootsie: That’s the only place you could spend that…that’s the only store.
David: They were getting paid with tokens too.
JD: Oh, come on now, wait a minute! So, you’d sell your…who’d you sell your fish too?
Bootsie: The colored people.
Edward: The colored folks around there.
JD: Oh, oh, so you talkin about…not a dealer, not a fish buyer or anything. You talking about pedaling your fish…they would give you tokens, to sell [buy] your fish. And you could…and then you could…and then the only thing you could spend in that store was tokens?
Bootsie: No, you could spend cash too, if you had it.
JD: But you could spend the tokens there, but you couldn’t spend the tokens anywhere else?
Edward: No.
Bootsie: That’s why they would pay these plantation people [with tokens] …they call that a “order day”. They go get…if they need some money…they give em that. Now, for payday, they give em cash money.
JD: Now wait, so…so there was as order day? And a payday?
Bootsie: Umhm.
JD: And [on] the order day, they gave the
people who worked on plantations tokens, [
Bootsie: Cash, umhm.
JD: Now, where did these tokens come from?
Bootsie: That was just there…there…
JD: So, it was right there for use right there on the plantation? Had they made em? Or something? Bought em someplace?
Bootsie: Well they got em…I guess they did. Somewhere, they get em.
Lena Mae: I don’t know where they get em, but they sure got em, eh? [laughs]
JD: So, it was the way you, the way you handled money right there on the plantation. It was good only on the plantation?
Bootsie: That’s right. That’s all, just right there on the plantation.
JD: So Oaklawn Plantation.
Bootsie: You could go to Medric’s…Medric wouldn’t take em.
JD: Medric wouldn’t take em?
Bootsie: Uhuh.
JD: Boy, you talk about keeping people one…in one place!
David: That’s the thing. If I pay you with [tokens]…how much money I pay, you got to come back to me [to spend it]. Whatever I pay, you gone give it back to me.
Bootsie: You know where that Oaklawn Store was at first? Right in the back of, uh, Myon’s house, there, a lil further back. You know where Liza used to stay? Under that oak tree, that’s where Oaklawn store was, at one time.
JD: At one time? It was on this side the bayou, eh?
Ida: You know, I used to love to go there…because everything was in the same store!
JD: It was a supermarket?! [laughs]
Bootsie: Ay, boy!
Ida: You had everything! And another one was right there, that was that other big store…uh…I don’t remember the name…
Lena Mae: Caffery (store)?
Ida: It burned, I think.
Bootsie: Oh, that’s Viguerie’s store, then, the one burned in Charenton?
Ida: No, no, this way [closer to Myette Pt.].
Bootsie: Well, that’s that way, that’s Charenton.
Ida: I don’t care…this way… [perturbed, confused] [laughter]
Bootsie: Awww, Paul Comeaux.
Ida: Comeaux!
Lena Mae: They called it the Caffery Store…?
Bootsie: No, no, the Belleview Store. [all agree to this]
Ida: I couldn’t think of the name, but I used to love to go there too, yeah! Man, all that things in there! We didn’t have no money to buy nothin, but we’d see…[laughs] we’d go look!
JD: Would you mind givin me your birthday?
Bootsie: My birthday? June 23, 1925.
JD: Now you don’t go…you go by “Yank”, not Ophelia, huh?
Yank: Ophelia.
JD: You go by Ophelia? Would you mind telling me your birthday? [laughs]
Yank: Yeh, you don’t want to know how old I am.
JD: Well, I DON’T want to know how old you are. I want to know your birthday. [laughs]
YM: 1927, March the 16th. I’m not ashamed of it, I can tell you.
Lena Mae: If she don’t’ want to tell you, I’ll tell you Jim!
Bootsie: I’m tired of her, me.
David: Where y’all: originated from?
Bootsie: Huh? Right here at Myette Pt.
David: I mean your daddy
Bootsie: Ah, right there on Myette Pt.
David: Everybody from right there?
Bootsie: Yeah. My great, great gr
David: Like, all my people came from Bayou Chene. None of y’all: came from Bayou Chene?
JD: Well, you see, it’s interesting, he’s talking about his…his people didn’t speak French, which would lead you to believe that they might a come from up around Bayou Chene, cause that’s where the people who spoke English came from.
Bootsie: Ummm, Millet, that’s a German name. I looked it up, that’s what they say. I dunno.
JD: See
what I did here? Uh, I’m showing Bootsie
the, uh, the family history here.
[chart]. Because I’m writing
about the Myette Pt. community, it’s…I’ve got, basically Myon
Yank:: Yeah…not my great gr
JD: Your
gr
Bootsie: Yeah. Plenty people don’t believe they had three sugarmills out there.
Lena Mae: Jim, you ever got them pictures developed we got at the graveyard?
JD: We have the pictures. We didn’t bring em to show em to y’all:?
Lena Mae: No.
JD: I got em. I’ll bring em. We’ll get you some copies.
TAPING SESSION STOPS HERE. THEN START RECORDING AGAIN AT EDWARD COUVILLIER’S HOUSE.
JD: This is Edward talking at Edward’s house about stories, and I don’t know whether to believe him or not [laughs].
Edward: We
had two boats tied together,
Gloria: Well, it’s a wonder he stayed afloat with the five-gallon bucket tied to his wrist!
Edward: Naw, he turned it loose.
Lena Mae: But Carlin [another overboard story], he was worried about Carlin, man. He had went a long ways…
Edward: Yeah,
hour, hour
Gloria: It’s a good thing you wasn’t in real, real deep water, too.
Edward: Lucky, he didn’t get stuck underneath that boat. That was the lucky part.
Lena Mae: Lucky, he didn’t get hit by that wheel [propeller].
JD: It was a tugboat, or a crewboat?
Edward: It was a tugboat.
JD: Man, I thought everybody knew that story.
Lena Mae: That wasn’t no story, that was the fact. [laughs]
JD: You
see, that’s why I don’t have a lot of stuff on this…on this outline, cause
every time we get started talkin, you start talking about stories…
Gloria: What is that?
JD: Well,
this is a…this is the outline of what I’m writing. [it is the interview matrix]
The part about the line fishing only.
About what I’m writing. And these are a list of tools, carried on into
the next page,
Edward: We talked about a lot of stuff…
JD: Yeah, but not on tape. That’s it. It’s not on tape.
Gloria: Well, you missed just now, they was talking about the shrimp bushes.
JD: Yeah, yeah. It’s hard to know when to turn this thing on
because, a lot of what we talk about doesn’t apply to it. To this.
But there’s all this stuff, you see,
Lena Mae: No, the kids didn’t fish.
Gloria: Harry [Lange] fished.
Lena Mae: Harry fished.
Gloria: Yeah,
Harry
Edward: Lee [Lange] didn’t fish. Lee was the lawyer; he didn’t have to fish. [not really]
Gloria: We
had some lines across the levee. And
we’d get up, I mean there’d be ice in the morning. Me
JD: Who was that?
Gloria: That’s
Aunt Vina…Edward
Lena Mae: Jack’s [Sauce] momma.
JD: Jack Sauce’s mother?
Gloria: His sister, Leona [Alvina?], we
always called her Poona. She was my
fishing partner,
Edward: Old boy was telling me the other day, Jim Back there when y’all: was in the back, I didn’t want to go down that hill? Old boy was telling me he put him a line out in that canal back there, about 40 hooks, he say he caught 10 head of blue cats.
JD: Gaww. In the canal?
Edward: Right there by that tank battery deal, there.
JD: Local fish probly, though.
Edward: Local…next run he say he caught two.
JD: Yeah.
Edward: Sayin they was local. I didn’t think there’d be any fish in there, you know. Apparently, they is.
Gloria: Uncle
Edward, you remember those records you had given me, I had copied, those
deaths,
Edward: Yeah.
Gloria: Jim might want to see that.
JD: Yeah,
I would like to see it, because what I have for Edward so far is, uh, I have…I
have his mother
Gloria: He has it. I wrote it down for him.
JD: Edward
sure had a pack of brothers
Edward: This is all the [?] right here. [looking at his record book]
Gloria: I wrote it in the back…remember I told you, when I brought it back, I said I put this back here for you?
Edward: Right here, eh? Yeah.
JD: I’d like to get a photocopy of that page, if I could.
Gloria: Yeah,
start right here with Uncle Edward,
JD: 1836…1800…1752? Good Gosh!
Gloria: Well, uh, Uncle Edward has a cousin
in Morgan City that does that. And she
gave me some,
JD: 1694, you have somebody in here?!
Edward: Way back, eh? But none of em rich, Jim!! [laughs]
Gloria: You
don’t know, there might be some in
JD: Sonnier
[looking at the records she has given Edward]? Marie Sonnier? I have friend in Baton Rouge who’s doing a
lot of stuff,
Gloria: I
have a friend that’s a Sonnier. And you
see, right here? Gaston Couvillier,
that’s married to Celanie [sp?] Robichaux?
You know in Charenton, the Robichaux property? Okay, highway 87, you keep on,
JD: Were any of these people, back in here [referring to the older dates in her chart of information] …the time they came into the United States, do you know if any of them were fishermen?
Gloria: I don’t really know.
JD: ‘Cause
one ot the things I’m tryin to trace is…is taking the people and trying to
trace how they made their living. And
one of the things I’m really interested in is how did the people get from
living on l
Gloria: Well, the way…in the Atchafalaya
Basin, the way they got to livin on houseboats…they all used to have…Daddy
Edward:
JD: Well,
that would have been up around Bayou Chene
Gloria: Yeah.
Edward: Well, Bayou Chene…most of Bayou Chene is people lived in houses, up there.
JD: On
dry l
Edward: Yeah.
Gloria: But then, when it started floodin…you never did read the book by Gladys Calhoun Case?
JD: I don’t believe.
Gloria: OK,
she’s got two books now. I have one at
home. I don’t have the other one. From
Edward: I got one…I got a book here somewhere. [one of her’s?]
JD: But you see.
Gloria: They’re
in the libraries, probly. But she’s
from…she wrote em…she’s a schoolteacher.
Gladys Calhoun? And she
went out there
JD: I
need to pick that up, because, you see, Lena Mae’s…Lena Mae’s background
is from the other end. It’s from the
south end of the Basin. Because her
momma was raised around Stephensville,
Lena Mae: When
I was, oh, I just barely remember this…because Daddy’s momma was still livin
then. She was living with gr
Gloria: Where’s
Lil
Lena Mae: Somewhere
around Fourmile Bayou,
Gloria: Never heard of that before. You ever heard of of that?
Lena Mae: That’s
somewhere around
JD: That’s…that’s Myon’s…
Lena Mae: That’s
Momma’s…Daddy’s [Myon’s] momma
JD: Your
daddy’s momma
Lena Mae: Yeah.
JD: That
would be Victor
Gloria: No. No, uhuh.
JD: That
would be Albert [no, Wilson Jean] Bailey,
Gloria: Right.
Lena Mae: Yeah.
JD: Ok. They lived on the l
Lena Mae: Yeah,
they were living on the l
JD: Well,
Myon himself, I believe, was raised on the l
Lena Mae: Yeah, they was all raised on l
Gloria: All them people from up north, the men would come down here to cut timber.
Lena Mae: That’s when Daddy started, from Lil Texas, comin there, livin on camps.
JD: Is that right? See, I don’t have that on tape. That’s what started him livin…
Lena Mae: That’s
what started him livin on campboats,
Gloria: Now, I have…I have all the genealogy on…on her, Rosalie Sauce?
Lena Mae: Yeah.
Gloria: I have all her family.
JD: I think I’ve got most of that, but I’d like to compare with yours.
Gloria: But, I mean, it goes way, way back.
JD: You
got Claiborne
Gloria: Yeah.
JD: We found their graves; did you know
that? We took a ride last Christmas,
about seven of us. I wanted to go
Lena Mae: We passed there a while back.
JD: But we went to the, uh, we went to the two cemeteries where they thought that the people might be buried, one of em was on the Lake Verret road, that road they call “The Canal”. Attakapas Canal.
Lena Mae: And
in
JD: And
in
Lena Mae: Uncle
Bill,
JD: We
found the other two, it was…Bill,
Lena Mae: But they always called him Laurent.
Gloria: Who is that?
Lena Mae: My
gr
Edward: He was a Frenchman, that’s why, Laurent is French.
JD: Yeah, well, I guess so. And, uh, his wife’s name was Ophelia.
Gloria: Well,
the reason I have all that is, uh, Clarence Domingue?, does genealogy,
JD: Once
I get an underst
Gloria: I can give you a copy, I have it all on the chart.
Lena Mae: You
can get that
[conflicting conversations in the background, more about Gloria's family background]
The
previous material was done at Edward Couvillier
Edward: You can use anything Jim. You can used coke bottles, or Styrofoam buoys…
Lena Mae: We used to use…uh, cypress knees…dried up cypress knee.
Edward: Years ago they didn’t have Styrofoam, stuff like that. They used to make buoys out of cypress knees. Cut a cypress knee, peel it, let it dry… floats. Just tie a line on there with a hook, about three foot long, four foot, whatever. Bait, we used shrimp, or, cut bait.
JD: And what did you catch with that?
Edward: Catfish.
JD: Catfish? All kinds?
Edward: All kinds, big ones, lil ones…
JD: But,
uh, blue cats
Edward: Didn’t catch too many goujons. Goujon mostly a bottom fish, they stay on the bottom. Blue cats come up, you know? You don’t fish them on the bottom.
JD: You fish the juglines…you fish the juglines about three or four feet deep, you say?
Edward: Yeah,
they float. You might put one out
here, go tomorrow morning it might be down there close to
JD: Well, how many of those did y’all: fish at one time?
Edward: Fished a hundred.
JD: Really? That many??
Lena Mae: Umhm. When we was living across the lake, we didn’t fish that many.
Edward: Some people don’t fish many, some people fish more than that.
Lena Mae: The only thing we fished the juglines for was to catch garfish, to smoke.
JD: Umhm. For yourself.
Lena Mae: For our use. That smoked meat would last a long time, you know?
Edward: Gar fish would take a…
Lena Mae: We
used to take that
JD: Your daddy always had a smoke thing set up wherever he was?
Lena Mae: Oh
yeah, always had a…Gr
JD: So,
it was your gr
Lena Mae: Right.
Edward: You see, to catch a gar fish, you wouldn’t use a hook.
Lena Mae: You’d make a loop.
Edward: You’d make a loop with a piece of wire…
JD: OK, what kind of wire? Any kind of wire?
Lena Mae: Like, what you make schwivels out of?
Edward: Any kind of wire that stay open, you
know, it would stay open. And he come
up, catch the bait, he’d catch it
Lena Mae: Caught a many of em like that.
Edward: I seen em catch 100…80, 90, 100-pound gar fish like that.
JD: Boy, they must carry that…that float a long a long way…
Lena Mae: No, what we used to do…
Edward: Some
of em would just tie it to something, you know,
Lena Mae: What
we used to do, we used to make our juglines
JD: How did y’all:, uh, how did y’all: season the meat?
Edward: We didn’t season it…really, didn’t season it.
Lena Mae: Really, you don’t season it when you smoke it.
Edward: Tastes good like that.
Lena Mae: Because,
uh, I don’t think momma
JD: You
would…you would smoke the gar meat
Edward: It would hold like that.
Lena Mae: It would hold like that, after it’s smoked, I mean we didn’t…put it, keep it too far ahead of time because uh, you couldn’t, you know? Once or twice a week we’d catch a gar fish.
STOPPED THE RECORDER, AND RESTARTED, STILL SAME DATE, SAME PLACE
JD: Y’all:
were talking about floats,
Edward: Yeah, well, you didn’t have all that stuff…plastic…in them days.
JD: Let’s talk for a minute, if I can start from the top of the list, just for the heck of it. Let me start with uh, what I’m callin anchors. It’s not for boats, I’m talking about, it’s for things to anchor something like a crossing in the channel. The big anchor you put in the middle?
Edward: You used big rocks.
JD: That’s what y’all: used in the old days? A big rock?
Edward: Well, yeah, whenever you could get one.
JD: If you couldn’t get one, what did you use for an anchor?
Edward: Um, mostly it was iron. Scrap iron, whatever you could find. But as far as jiggerpoles, back in them days, you didn’t hardly see…like a jiggerpole now?
JD: Well, but you couldn’t, uh, what I’m talking about is crossings in the main channel like that, where a jiggerpole wouldn’t do you any good.
Edward: No, uhuh. No, it would have to be a rock, or driveshaft off a old car, or whatever.
JD: A driveshaft off an old car?
Edward: Yeah.
JD: Or an axle, or something like that?
Edward: You drop that sucker there, it ain’t goin nowhere.
JD: Uh,
how about bridle lines? Talk
about…if you can remember what y’all: used to use for bridle lines way back
then,
Edward: The same line you use for your uh, line, that’s the line you use.
JD: So y’all: used the main line.
Edward: Main line. You didn’t have all this nylon stuff like you got now…all this rope. Most of your line…most of your bridle line was raw.
JD: Raw?
Edward: Yeah. You put it out there. It wouldn’t last.
JD: You didn’t dip it or anything, you didn’t treat it or anything?
Edward: It
didn’t last anyhow. It wouldn’t make
any [difference]. You could tar it
JD: Cause it was cotton?
Edward: Cotton. And uh, you put a line out there
JD: What was it like when nylon first came out? What…do you remember when that happened? How did that happen? I mean, when y’all: went from line made out of cotton, which didn’t last atoll, to nylon which lasts almost forever, that must have made a big difference in…
Lena Mae: That really happened after we moved on this side the lake.
Edward: Well, I guess so. That happened, uh, in fact I think the nylon must of come out in the late ‘40s.
Continued on
Chapter 47
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