A Float With Jake

Jake lounged—his customary emplacement—on the pond bank, chewing sourweed and providing enlightenment concerning my schedule for the (hopefully) warm months ahead. It’s likely he was hoping the cork wouldn’t dip; too much outlay of his well-stocked and stored-up effort would be required reeling anything in….

“Us needs to take that thar float trip,” he philosophized. “Ye’ve been a-wantin’ to since you was a 3-foot-high brat, and look at ye now: twice that size and still standing on the bank!”

He struck a nerve there—not an uncommon occurrence with the old hermit, considering he knows me better than I know me.

Ahhh; the float trip.

“Us can put in jes’ like ye always says, at that thar Blackbeard Farry, cruise down the Oconee ‘til us hits that other big river yer always gabbin’ about, then wind up alongside where you said them Spanishers lit down. Nothing to it!”

Translation: Launch a boat at Blackshear’s Ferry landing in Dublin, float to the Altamaha, turn left and laze down with the flow to Darien.

Further translation: Spend days in a boat and nights on a river bank with a heathen who has the mind of a 10-year-old, the work ethic of a rotting log and the scruples of Attila the Hun.

On the other hand, the old rascal IS a hunter, fisherman and forager of the finest sort.

Legalities aside.

Might as well humor him; he ain’t gonna shut up nohow.

“Well, how much time off do I need to put in for?”

“I tolt ye thutty year ago not to never go into no job-like business,” he snorted. “If’n ye’d’a moved in with me like I said back then, we’d a made out fine. Plenty of room for the boffus in the shack.”

“Jake, there’s hardly enough room for the both of us in the COUNTY! Which, by the way, would have run out of chickens years ago if I had been forced to double up on your pilfering count. There IS such a thing as sustainable harvest.”

Which brought a predictable response.

“Yeah, plenty squirrels, too. It wouldn’t have been so bad if’n I could have got you young and learnt ye the real ways of the woods. Why, when a man’s got enough shells, what with all the coons, rabbits, deers and such like hoppin’ and skippin’ around, he can lay off chicken now and then.”

“Fine. You got a boat?”

What would I need a boat fer? You got a yard full.”

“What about supplies for a trip like this?”

“I allus got plenty: matches; a rod and reel, plus a cane pole; and two boxes of .22’s. What else could two old mountain men possible need?”

Ah, well, maybe a 1,000-count jar of the newest nerve pills on the market? A psychiatrist? How about new track shoes? (For running in the other direction; starting now.)

Shame he had to mention the Altamaha, though. Love that river almost as much as the big swamp at the bottom of the state. Darien, too. Man, that entire coastal area, right on down to Brunswick…

WAKE UP!!!

Too late; he’d already caught a glimmer of wanderlust in my eyes…

“Ketch us about one big cat a day, fry him up on the sand or under the hardwoods, foller that up with stick-roasted squirrel…”

“And what do we rinse it down with, river water?” I blurted out. Which may possibly have been the dumbest question ever asked.

“Them’s what been mentioned ain’t jes ALL the supplies I got fer the trip,” he leered. “It might be that we get sunburnt, scratch a arm or laig, headache, sore back, all sorts of calamities. I got a jug full of remedy for all of them!”

Which, in a way, just may be true, I guess. For what appears to be a hundred and fifty years, he’s fairly lived off his home brew and squeezin’s.

And Otha Sapp’s chickens.

Medicinal qualities aside, the stuff DOES make for a happy old coot.

“We’d have to have fuel for the outboard and a battery or two for the trolling motor…”

“FLOAT trip! FLOAT! Why we need motors? All they good fer is to speed things up and push us right by a hole where 400 pound of cats is probably laid up! An’ I tells you sumpin’ else: that big water is plumb full of them stripers you so crazy about. They’ll wear the hooks out on them big Rebels.”

OK; that’s downright unfair. Correct, but unfair. Reeling now, I can’t even come up with a fitting retort, despite picturing solo paddling for 150 miles. He knows he’s got me on the ropes.

“Member that time you tolt me about seeing that big shark in the river? We could catch cats, stripers, basses, brimp—even them good-eating sharks!”

I’m feeling faint, but there’s got to be a way out of this. If I could come up with any little…

EUREKA!

“Jake, you remember you were going to fix that big crack the Oconee rockpile put in the bottom of my river boat? Got that done, right?”

“Er, uh, well, you know how busy I been lately, but I figgers to get right on that.”

“No way we can float with the river pouring in. You got a TIG welder?”

“I been eyeballin’ one…”

“Only one I know of is in Old Man Otha’s shop, and if he caught you in there, he’d TIG you to a truss.”

“Mebbe, but I, uh, I mean YOU wants to take a float down to the saltwater, ain’t that right? Well then, all I knows is that Old Man Otha gotta sleep sometime…”