LITTLE ROCK — I was born and raised in Arkansas, but I don't eat catfish.
I love to catch them. One of my favorite fishing trips was a catfish outing at Tichnor a couple of years ago with Tim Griffis of Lonoke. We caught the fire out of them, and come to think of it, that was the only time I remember eating catfish willingly. I only joined in that feast because I didn't want to be rude, and they were delicious, but that was a rare exception.
There have been other times when my wife has served catfish to me incognito. I remember one instance when she and her sister stood in the kitchen doorway snickering as I wolfed down a few filets.
"How'd you like that bass ?"asked my bride in her sweet, magnolia-tinged voice, innocently batting her liquid blue eyes.
"Deee-licious!" I replied, wiping the tartar sauce from my chin.
"Well, it's not bass," she said. "It's catfish."
"It's still delicious, but I'm not eating any more of it."
She then scolded me for being silly and unreasonable, but I meant it. I was done.
What's my problem with catfish? It's a long story ...
In the summer of 1970, my brother Frank caught a big catfish from the big pond on the south side of Pleasant Valley Country Club. It weighed about 5-6 pounds, and he brought it home to 79 Valley Club Circle. Not knowing what else to do with it, he released it into a bathtub and promptly forgot about it. Confined in the darkness, in clear, chlorinated water, it spawned and purged its digestive system.
Hours later, our mother came home after a hard day and entered the bathroom anticipating a refreshing hot bath. She flipped on the light, pulled back the shower curtain and saw this leviathan swimming laps in the tub. Mom was a high-strung lady anyway, but this indignity short-circuited her hair-trigger temper.
"Get this awful thing out of here right now!" she screamed. "Kill it! Kill it!"
Well, Frank knew nothing about skinning and cleaning catfish. Our dad wasn't home yet, and though he was an avid duck hunter, he wasn't a fisherman, so we didn't have a suitable knife for the task. Frank recalled seeing our uncle Earl Dukes nail a big catfish to a tree one time, but what Earl did after that wasn't clear.
So, Frank put the catfish on the concrete floor of the garageand started flailing away at it with the blunt end of a claw hammer.
"Shing! Shing! Shing!" The sound of metal against concrete reverberated through the excellent acoustics of the garage as hammer blows rained down upon the hapless catfish. The catfish writhed and chattered as catfish do, and with each blow, tears streamed down my brother's face. He ordered me to complete the task, but I fled to the safety of my room.
My mother was raised in Berlin. Her culinary skills were limited to frying chicken and pork chops, and boiling stuff like cabbage, turnips and Brussels sprouts. Fresh fish was beyond her imagination. I should add that she did not know how to skin orclean a catfish either. She threw the thing in the oven and baked it whole.
Now, imagine the imperious, immaculately attired Judge Lowber Hendricks (actually, he became a judge in 1977) sitting down to the dinner table after a long day at work and having this entire fish set before him, uncleaned and unskinned, on a plate. It was so big the head and tail touched the table. My mother's mood was icy, as if it were his fault.
It was a tense evening, and we were forbidden to bring home fish from then on. It kind of spoiled my appetite for catfish, but I can laugh about it now. Not Frank. He's 52 years old, and he hasn't gotten over it yet.
Sports, Pages 44 on 10/12/2008