Let's Go Fishing
By Jimmy Goble

In the spring of 1946, many service men were returning home with a discharge in their pocket and a ruptured duck sewn on their uniform. They now had a new name----veterans. This was the case with my friends and relatives and myself.

We had grown up in this little mining town and were mostly ignorant of the world outside. The war brought a great change in our lives. We were grabbed up, separated, and shipped all over the world to some very dangerous places. We were in strange lands with different people, different cultures, and foreign languages. In a hidden place in the back of our minds were thoughts that we might never see home again. Just to be a boy in Auxier, Kentucky, among friends you grew up with would be just fine.

We had left our little town as very young, very green boys. Now I find it very hard to believe how green I really was. I was almost completely ignorant of the world outside of Auxier. I was a high school graduate and one month into my eighteenth year when I was called to active duty in the Navy. I was placed on a train destined for the Naval Training Station in Chicago, Illinois. I was part of a large group of young boys who arrived at the receiving station after dark. From this group, I was selected for special duty.

This Petty Officer took me into an office, sat me down in a chair, and said, Aanswer that phone if it rings.@ He then left me. There I sat in the only decent clothes I owned. I suddenly realized that I was not told what to do should someone call. I had only talked on a telephone one time in my life. I sat there petrified for four hours, afraid to move, and praying that the phone would not ring.

We were now returning, as some said, men. I did not place myself on par with real men that I had known all my life. These men, who worked every day under the mountains of rock, in mud and water, loading coal in cars to barely support their families were the real men in my eyes. Before we left, these men tended to talk around and over us as boys, but when we returned home things changed. These men wanted to talk to us. They were interested in what we had to say. They let us know that we were no longer boys. They accepted us, not so much with words, but their actions spoke volumes. I admit it felt good (in my heart I still felt like a boy).

It was a great feeling to be home again, and to be alive. We came home with some baggage. We were described as wild, crazy, mixed up, restless, and many other descriptive words. Most of it was true, but the thrill of being home again was beyond description. I do not have the words to explain the feeling. This feeling may have been similar to how a mule might feel after being kept in a barn all winter long. As the days began to get warm, the mule wanted out. He would try and kick the boards off the stall walls, and he would pace all day, wanting out. When the mule was finally released, he would run as hard as he could, kicking up his heels and heehawing all at the same time. The mule would calm down after he got so tired that he could barely walk. Free at last, you could see and sense his joy. We had a feeling similar to that, and did not know how to handle it.

It was at this time that Carl Caudill, Glenn APood@ Hopson, Walter ASkeeter@ Evans, Arthur Tibbs and I decided to go on a fishing trip. The place we picked to fish was about four miles from Louisa, a distance of about 45 miles one way.

Carl had bought a 1934 two door Chevrolet (one door if you considered that the passenger side door was missing). His driving experience was mostly flying up and down the streets of Auxier. He had no drivers license, but to us this was of no concern. The tires on his car were bald, not a trace of tread. This was a minor thing, and we never gave it a thought.

We pooled our money, and it didn=t make a very big pool. We all belonged to the 52-20 club, meaning that we were all discharged veterans, and could draw twenty dollars a week for fifty-two weeks if we needed it. All of us needed this twenty dollars a week.

Floyd County was wet in 1946. Tom Moran and AYankee@ Wells sold beer in our town. We bought two cases of beer, and placed one case in a number 3 wash tub and covered it with ice. We were now on our way by 9:00 A.M. We had fishing supplies, but we had no boat. I don=t know if we gave that fact a thought.

Our trip went fine until we got to Paintsville. At Paintsville we had to take a detour that ran through Red Bush and Martha to Louisa. This detour was necessary because they were rebuilding U.S. 23 at the time. This detour was on a gravel road and we had only traveled about 100 yards before we had our first flat tire. Fixing a flat tire was a big job in those days. You had to get out your jack, jack up the car, remove the wheel, take the inner tube out of the tire. Then you took the tube and scraped, sanded, and cleaned over the puncture hole. Then the tube had to be patched (patching materials came in a little round tube about 2" in diameter and 6" long. The tube contained pieces of patching material, which was about 4" wide and 10" long, and a small tube of glue. The cap had a rough surface to be used to sand the inner tube.

We soon learned, after many flats and blow outs, that thin tires and gravel roads are not a very good match. Arthur and I agreed to jack up the car, take off the wheel, patch the tube, and then mount the wheel back on the car. Pood and Skeeter took the job of pumping air into the tires with a hand pump. Carl was the driver and owner of the car so he had no repair duties. We all got more than we bargained for.

The trip had begun at Auxier at 9:00 A.M. and at 7:00 P.M. we were parked on a hill, beside the road, near Red Bush, with another flat. I do not know how many flats and blow outs we had experienced at this point. I do know that we had a very limited amount of money. We were buying every tube of patching we could find at those little country stores. Arthur and I started fixing another flat. Skeeter and Pood walked down the hill to a little store to buy our supper, and patching, if they could. They returned with a big hunk of baloney, a big onion or two and some crackers. We had the flat fixed and sat down on the side of the bank and enjoyed a great meal of baloney, onions and crackers and we each drank a couple cans of beer.

Now refreshed we were ready to continue our trip. All of us loaded into the car, and before Carl could start the motor, we had another blow out. Back to work again.

We eventually reached the town of Louisa about 4:00a.m. The courthouse was the only place open at this hour. We went to the restroom to freshen up. Not one person was seen in the whole town. At that point we decided not to go fishing after all. Why the decision was made at that time, I don=t know. Maybe one of us came to the realization that we did not have a boat.

On our return trip home we chose to go back on new U.S. 23, hoping we would not have so many flats and blow outs. It didn=t seem to help that much. We were going around a stiff curve at George=s Creek at maybe 35 miles per hour, when we had a blow out. We left pieces of tire and tube all around the curve. We had picked up every old tire we could find along the road, in the creeks, and any other place we could find them. We cut the rims out of these old tires and used the tires for boots (boots were place inside the tires to reinforce them). Nothing we did seem to help us much. At times we would be running on parts of six or seven tires.

At George=s Creek, Arthur and I finally got a tire patched and back on the car. It was now ready for Skeeter and Pood to go to work. Skeeter was pumping hard with that old hand pump, and I was sitting on my butt watching. Suddenly I noticed some big drops of water hitting the ground. I knew it was hot, but not that hot. I looked up at my friend, and big tears were rolling down his cheeks. My first thought was he must be drunk. In fact, none of us had found enough time to get drunk. We were too busy working. I asked, Awhat=s wrong with you Skeeter?@ He said, Alook here buddy,@ He turned his palms up and showed me. He had blisters on his hands and now they had burst and were bleeding. His hands were covered with blood, but he had not complained. He was in misery, but he tried to hold up his end of the bargain. Needless to say Skeeter was released from that job.

Sometime after 2:00 p.m. we had reached the Johnson County line. Another blow out, and we spent the last little bit of money we had to buy some cheese and crackers. That was the first thing we had eaten since the night before at Red Bush. We left that place on three tires and a rim.

We did not know that a lady who lived near the last stop had called the highway patrol about us. She told them that we looked like a bunch of drunken criminals. None of us were drunk, but we probably looked the part. We had worked hard for two days and all night without any sleep. We still had a case of beer left. I could understand her concern. She also told the highway patrol that we were running on a rim. We were breaking the law doing this. We knew we were, but we had no choice. We were out of money and a long way from home.

After many more trials and tribulations, we reached the North end of Paintsville. It was about 6:30 p.m. and this highway patrolman was waiting for us. He pulled us of the road. We were running on a rim just as the lady had reported. This patrolman told us he should throw everyone of us in the Johnson County jail. He asked if all of us were veterans, and we answered yes. He stated that none of us were drunk or had any weapons, and the only thing that we were guilty of was running on a rim. He said he would give us a break, but we were not to get back on the road without another tire.

All of us were completely broke. All we had left was a case of beer. We walked to a nearby filling station, in hopes of trading some beer for another old tire and tube. They didn=t want our beer, but the man at the station was kind enough let us have an old tire and tube. We were to pay him $3.00 as soon as possible. This debt was paid the following week.We made it to Hager Hill before we had another blow out. We were very tired, worn completely down, broke, and still a long way from home. We did however, still have a case of beer. We had worked to hard to enjoy a beer.

Chester Music, a friend of ours from Auxier, came by and gave us a ride home. It was 9:30 P.M. when Chester picked us up. We had been on the road 362 hours, traveled about 90 miles with a total of 15 flats and 11 blowouts on a fishing trip in which we never saw the river. Published March 1999, The Trestle, Auxier Historical Society