White Anglo Saxon Protestants

I was once 16, as we all were.  (That sentences means this is going to be an autobiographical post.)  Though, unlike most 16 year old kids, I wasn't out with my friends at the movies or perhaps at the skating rink, for those of you who thought roller blades were a good investment.  Instead, I was usually preparing for Saturday.  Saturday meant there may be an opportunity to gather my equipment, hit the lake and catch all the bass I could tease into attacking whatever lure I picked for that day.  I was, in short, obsessed with the world of bass fishing.  I had been a part of that world since the very beginning of my life.  I was riding in a Bass Tracker and getting my first sunburn before I even had a chance to walk.  Very proud of that fact, actually.

Yes, all subsequent illustrations will be photos of crudely drawn stick figures on a legal pad.

But looking back on all the Saturdays I spent on the water, one in particular stands out in a very bad way.   One Saturday my dad and grandpa were taking me to the Lumber River.  I had been there plenty of times before, being a native of Lumberton, but this day was certainly one to be remembered.  I was quite excited when we arrived at the river and the day was beyond perfection.  It was late May, which to a fisherman in North Carolina means the bass will be super aggressive as they come off the spawn.  The air was about 82 degrees but a cool breeze floated through it.  The sky was overcast and any angler who purports to be an angler at all knows that gray skies bring bright days while fishing. The current in the river would have been invisible if it hadn't been for the cyprus moss that touched the water and caused it to part.  The river was colored a deep amber and the constant cry of Eastern Phoebes could be heard from the decade old cyprus trees that littered the swampy banks.

Upon taking all of this in, joy began to wash over me.  Every movement I took until we launched the boat turned into a skip somehow.  We didn't get this opportunity often.  Most potentially fun filled Saturdays were ended by some sort of rainstorm, hailstorm or, more commonly, yard work.  I remember daydreaming of catching the world record largemouth with my new spinnerbait.  A lot of world record talk was going around at that time since plenty of 22 pound bass were being caught in California.  George Perry, at the time, held the record for his 1932 catch of a 22 pound 4 ounce largemouth in Georgia.  Here is a picture of ole George (not holding the record bass):

As you can tell the odds were against him with that flimsy four foot rod and his terrible haircut, and I definitely knew that the odds were against me that day as I sat in the back of my 1984 Glass Stream dubbed the Whoa Hoa with two experienced fisherman ahead of me casting to every spot the looked like it could harbor a bass. 

By the time my lure touched the water it was just another cheap imitation to the wise old fish of the Lumber River. 

"Oh, no.  I ain't bitin' that.  That's nothin' but metal and rubber!"

I began to troll my new spinnerbait behind the boat in an effort to catch a wayward largemouth floating around in the middle of the river.  This option never works by the way, but to a naive 16 year old wearing a shirt that featured a spiderweb-laden skeleton sitting in a lawn chair while fishing in a mud puddle muttering: "Someday my fish will come. . .," it seemed to be a good idea.  "It wasn't," is exactly what I thought to myself when I heard that tell-tale "twwwink" of a log in the shadowy depths removing my $5.95 spinnerbait from the end of my line.  

In memory of my old spinnerbait, "The Midnight Special."

This didn't phase me.  Nothing could.  Not on this day.

As we floated downstream we noticed a few of the locals basking in the sun on the banks of the river.  They were about six feet in length with glassy, dark eyes.  Their teeth protruded from their mouths jaggedly and they moved with speed that didn't even hint at their full potential.  If you entertained that drawn out riddle and guessed alligators then bravo.  Other notable wildlife included cottonmouth snakes, huge spiders, and a tiny Carolina Chickadee talking its "chickadee-dee-dee" all through the forest.  But as we would soon learn the most interactive creatures lived up ahead.

As we approached the next turn we noticed something odd hanging off of a branch in the middle of the river.  It appeared to be a mound of dirt that had somehow removed itself from the earth's crust and floated through the air to find the branch of a nearby oak to call home.  But then just as ominously as when Obi-Wan Kenobi corrected Luke as they approached the Death Star in "A New Hope" my grandfather corrected me, "That's no dirt-mound.  It's a wasp nest!"  

No.  Couldn't be.  That has to be a dirt-mound.  NOTHING CAN RUIN THIS DAY!!  I was wrong.
   

As we got closer we noticed the wasp circling their nest with immense frustration. 

By the way it has occurred to me that regardless of how a wasp's day is going he will always appear to be frustrated.  For instance, say a typical wasp wakes up one morning to the smell of cinnamon rolls.  He wanders into his wasp kitchen to find his wasp wife baking delicious treats.  And all for him!  And there are 12!  This is done to prepare him for work, but then his phone rings and it is his wasp boss telling him that he had an extra sick day that he didn't use and forgot about and now the wasp doesn't have to go work.  Then on the radio the wasp hears his favorite band, "The Bee Gees" playing a new song of theirs, "The Birds and the Bee Gees."  He loves it instantly!  The wasp then opens the blinds of his wasp house to find a silent snowfall in July, with wasp children already flinging snowballs at one another and laughing!  That same wasp would then exit his house visibly frustrated ready to sting anything that came near him.

We were presented with two options as we drew still closer to the wasp nest: we could pack up, turn around and head home or we could slip past the nest undetected in the 8 foot wide strip of clearance we had to the left of the hive.  You could probably guess the option I chose.  I wasn't going to let a wasp nest keep me from the world record bass that lived in these waters!  After much debate, my dad and grandpa gave in all the while admiring my courage.  

We inched closer.  

Closer.  

The trolling motor whined noisily as it got us closer to the nest.  On our left was a grass patch that inevitably harbored a family of bright-eyed cotton mouths.  We couldn't get too close to that.  My grandpa was in control, inching the boat ever closer to the nest.  Eventually the front of the boat, as well as him, had made it past.  Then came the middle.  The wasp didn't seem to care.  They swarmed with unaltered persistence.  Finally the end of the boat, which held me, came nearer but something happened.  A current in the river began pushing the boat in the direction of the wasps.  I hadn't much time.  I sneaked past the nest, tip-toeing on the side of the boat, and dropped down into the middle with my dad.  But it was too late.

The end of the branch gently grazed the 25 horsepower Mercury that was mounted on the back of the boat.  It was at this moment that everyone released a collective gasp as the wasps, apparently taking this gesture by us as an assault on their very livelihood, fell into formation.  The aerial assault which followed was reminiscent of every WWII fighter sequence I had ever seen up to that point. 

 

There seemed to be at least 10,000 wasps darting through the air, evading my flailing appendages as though they had been training for this.  I had no choice but to cower in the bottom of the boat and scream as their tiny daggers pierced my back breaking through that old t-shirt brandishing the hopeful skeleton.  They seemed to target me alone, making no efforts towards the two hardened veterans of the U.S. Army that were also in the boat.  Clearly they saw me, with my freckled cheeks and sixteen year old half-mustache, as more of a threat.  And that is why they failed.

My dad grabbed his hat, the one true source of power against all bugs that fly.  He swatted at them, and though they still focused their dive-bombs onto me, he managed to fight them off one by one until there was but a single struggling wasp buzzing furiously on the carpet of the boat.  I stood up and looked down on that wasp.  Then, with a final, climactic motion, I brought my sneakers down onto his fitful body.  

And it was through.  

By this time, my grandfather had smartly steered the boat quite far away from the nest.  As we looked back the wasps were still circling their home furiously, most likely taking count of the fallen.  I like to think they had a memorial service the following morning for all of those that died that day.  I picked up the final wasp that lay lifelessly in the bottom of our boat and flicked it over the side and into the water.  "There," I said glaring at the nest, "one more for ya to remember. . ."

I put my hat back on and noticed my sunglasses were missing.  "It looks like they won after all," I thought to myself.  I then counted the swelling bumps that were scattered over me.  After I completed the tally I learned that 27 wasps had managed to fulfill their duties to the hive as my back looked like a new small pox strain had found me. We had to leave that day in order to take a trip to the emergency care center in Lumberton in case I had an wasp allergy.  Luckily, I didn't and all was well except for the ruined day at the river and another missed opportunity for that world record bass.